I've used both VirtualBox and VMware. I preferred Parallels since the experience seems allot better and for their support when I need to reinstalling if I forgot my purchase key (thank God for Time Machine Backups). Logging into my Parallels' account to obtain my activation key is a blessing when I'm away from my external Time Machine drive. Last night was the first time I ran into a problems with Parallels activation. I purchased a Macbook Air for portability for my educational and travel needs. My previous Mac Pro died several months ago due to its logic board. So I finally bit the bullet and bought another Mac. So when I activated Parallels on the MacBook Air I ran it problems. Windows 10 would crash repeatedly while loading. To me, Parallels 11 seemed very unstable on the Macbook Air do to start up crashes, freezing while trying to log in and a failure to exit full screen mode. Each issue caused me to force restart my MacBook Air. I have only one Mac computer, each Mac I've had it was used for years and when it came time to trade up, the computer was wiped. But I've kept the Parallels backup on Time Machine. This is the first time I've installed on one Mac and had to reinstalled on different Mac in a week. I had no choice since I returned the MacBook Air to get this iMac, scraping the portability for affordability. After talking to an Apple Genius I didn't want to spend thousands for Macbook Pro so I got the iMac. When I tried activating my iMac I got this message: "You have reached the maximum number of activations available for your activation key (http://www.parallels.com/eula). Please purchase a new product license." I contacted the place I brought Parallels, Cleverbridge Customer Support since I didn't see any FREE option to get assistance from Parallels. Cleverbridge was so helpful, they told me I needed to contact Parallels. I'm so distrot right now, I plan to purchase VMware since they contacted me recently asking about my experiences with their software hoping I would upgrade. It's been years since I last used VMware. The last time I responded to VMware I told them I was using Parallels and was very happy with it. Since I will need to pay for help from a Parallels Rep and I may need to purchase the license once again. Jumping over to VMware maybe my best option for cost. To be honest complications like this my forced me to get a PC instead since I don't want to have this same problem with VMware as I had with Parallels.
Last edited: Mar 20, 2016