Top Alternatives to Parallels Desktop

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. As an open-source, freely available software, it allows users to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single physical machine. This enables diverse use cases, from software development and testing to creating isolated environments for everyday tasks.

VMware Workstation Player is a leading virtualization software for Windows and Linux, enabling users to run multiple operating systems as virtual machines on a single physical machine.

QEMU (Quick Emulator) is a versatile and powerful open-source hardware virtualizer and emulator. It allows you to run operating systems and programs designed for different architectures on your existing hardware. Acting as a hosted hypervisor, QEMU provides a virtual machine monitor for executing guest systems.

VMware Fusion is a powerful virtualization solution for macOS, enabling users to run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems side-by-side with macOS without rebooting. It's ideal for developers, IT professionals, and users needing broad OS compatibility.

CrossOver is a compatibility layer allowing you to run thousands of Windows applications directly on your macOS or Linux operating system without the need for a Windows license or virtual machine. It provides a seamless experience for accessing your favorite Windows programs.

virt-manager is a lightweight desktop user interface for managing virtual machines through libvirt, supporting various hypervisors including KVM, Xen, and LXC. It offers essential features for guest installation, control, and monitoring.

Portable-VirtualBox allows you to run virtual machines directly from a USB drive without requiring an installation on the host computer. It provides a convenient and portable way to access different operating systems and applications.

MobaLiveCD is a portable utility for Windows that allows users to run Linux LiveCDs and ISO images directly within the Windows environment without needing to reboot or partitions. It leverages the Qemu emulator to provide a virtualized testing ground for various Linux distributions.

Wineskin Winery is a macOS utility that leverages Wine to create 'wrappers' for running Windows applications and games. It simplifies the process of packaging Windows software into self-contained macOS bundles, allowing users to execute them directly on their Mac without needing a full Windows installation or virtual machine.

Bochs is a highly portable, open-source IA-32 and x86-64 IBM PC emulator and debugger. Primarily written in C++, it allows users to run various operating systems and software designed for x86 architectures on different platforms, offering a low-level emulation of hardware components.