The three include Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, both of them commercial apps that you'll have to pay for, and the free, open-source Oracle VM VirtualBox. This survey covers the three full-scale virtualization apps for the Mac, because the Mac is the environment where these apps are likely to get the widest use. Almost all serious developers use virtualization software to test their work under multiple OSes, but today's virtualization apps are easy enough for nontechnical users to master.

Or you can run Linux and other open-source operating systems, or ancient systems like MS-DOS, OS/2, or NeXTSTEP in a window on your modern Mac or Windows system. If you need to use Windows apps that don't work under modern Windows version, virtualization apps let you run older Windows versions inside Windows 10. Of course virtualization isn't only for the Mac. Virtualization apps let you keep your Windows apps while enjoying the elegance and convenience of a Mac. Or maybe the Mac version is simply a few update cycles behind.

Or they discover that the Mac version of their favorite software-like Microsoft Excel or ABBYY FineReader-has fewer features than the Windows version. Each OS has its strengths, but many users who make the big switch from Windows to the macOS discover Windows apps that they've used for years (such as Microsoft's Project and Visio, Corel's WordPerfect and CorelDraw) don't have matching Mac versions. You might, for example, want to run a Windows application on your shiny new Mac.

Virtualization software lets you run apps written for a different operating system than the OS that runs your computer. How to Choose the Right System Utility What Is Virtualization?

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