Top 9 Best Free Virtual Machine For Windows & Mac

Do you know that you can use a PC inside your existing PC? You can control the screen of a computer whose server is far away from yours. It is impressive to see how the tech industry has grown in the past decade. We can do crazy stuff with our computers. There are virtual data rooms that hold millions of terabytes. Overall, you can use virtual machine software for particular purposes like hiding confidential files and sometimes gaming. In this article, we have gathered the best free virtual machine softwares for you to choose from.

Contents

1 List of 9 Best Free Virtual Machine for 2023
2 FAQs
3 Conclusion

List of 9 Best Free Virtual Machine for 2023

Following is the list of best Virtual machines that are available for free:

VM Monitor

VM Monitor is a real-time free VM tool for your Microsoft Hyper-V host and VMware vSphere. It displays CPU, RAM, and the count of configured Virtual Machines.

Features:

Provides virtualization server monitoring.
It assists you in preventing performance degradation by displaying threshold-specific indicators.
It enables you to terminate powered-off VMs and snapshots, allowing you to over-extend your resources.
Details like the VM name, VM condition, and guest OS are displayed.

Supported platforms: Windows

Pros:

You may monitor your VMware ESXi hosts using up to 50 monitors.
Checks the essential metrics of your VM hosts, including CPU, memory, and disk usage.
The server can be restarted automatically.
It rapidly monitors the issues.

Cons:

It is only a Windows-based solution.

Free trial: 30- Day fully-functional trial.

VMware Fusion (Mac)

VMware Fusion for Mac is the best free virtual machine application. This program is well-known for cloud computing and virtualization. It enables you to run numerous applications on various operating systems simultaneously. Fusion also allows for integration with a variety of development tools.

Features:

It provides the greatest Mac Desktop Hypervisor, Run Virtual Machines, and Kubernetes clusters.
Allows you to change the virtual networking architecture and simulate packet loss.
With 8GB vGPU support and DirectX 11, the Guest tool provides better 3D graphics.
You can use VMware vSphere to connect. vSphere is a cloud-based virtualization platform.
The Unity View Mode functionality allows you to run various operating systems in your Virtual Machines, such as Windows and Mac, side by side.
Allows for file sharing via drag and drop.

Pros:

The trial does not require registration.
Allows you to run Windows alongside Mac.
It can support a high-resolution display, such as 4K/5K.

Cons:

It is a complicated piece of software that demands further understanding to operate.

Free trial: 30-Day free trial.

Parallels

Parallels are the best virtual desktop solution for operating Windows or Mac devices without rebooting. This tool enables you to deploy hundreds of installations quickly. You can run multiple Windows products, such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Access, Quicken, QuickBooks, and even CAD packages, using Parallels. Click here to learn how to create Azure VM.

Features:

Obtains data such as user statistics and real-time licensing actions.
It enables you to enroll new users with a few mouse clicks using automatically created emails.
This virtual machine runs Windows side by side on the Mac and allows you to switch between the two with a single click.
On a Mac, you can run over 200,000 Windows applications.
Allows you to move and share files between Windows and Mac smoothly.
It includes a Coherence Mode feature, which will enable you to hide the Windows desktop and utilize it like a Mac app.

Pros:

It is simple to set up.
Parallen moves at breakneck speed.
You can free up disk space.
It enables you to launch and access Windows applications directly from the Mac Dock.

Cons:

Parallels cause the Mac to heat up.

Free trial: A 14-Day fully functional free trial.

VMware Workstation Player

The VMware workstation player is a solution designed for IT professionals and developers. By using VMware Workstation players as your virtual machines, you will be able to communicate files and data between guests and hosts in real-time. It also allows connecting to vSphere, which serves as your hypervisor’s remote data center. VMware is the most effective method for learning about Virtualization, Operating Systems, Containers, Kubernetes, and the VMware system. It is one of the best free virtual machine tool.

Features:

Firstly, it enables you to preserve separate privacy settings and network configurations for each virtual PC software.
It supports more than 200 Windows instances.
You can use the Snapshot functionality to generate numerous virtual machine instances. You can also set many rollback points during the testing process.
Supports operation alongside Windows 10’s Hyper-V, WSL2, Device Guard, and Credential Guard capabilities.
Allows you to use contemporary technology to run Windows XP or Windows 7 in a virtual environment.
You can select from hundreds of support guests and host operating systems.
It assists you in transferring data from the virtual machine to your PC.
You can buy a license to use it in a commercial setting.

Pros:

Switching from SSH to Linux is simple.
It supports DirectX11 3D graphics and has 8GB of vGPU memory.
With the latest vctl CLI, you can push, pull, run, and construct OCI container images.
Simple to use interface
Personal use is free.

Cons:

Some features are accessible only in the premium edition.
The free application becomes slower with each host added to the virtual machine.

Free trial: Yes, it does provide a free trial.

Hyper-V

Windows Server Virtualization, formerly known as Hyper-V. It is an x86-64 hypervisor designed to construct virtual computers. A Hyper-V server computer can be configured to expose individual virtual machines to one or more networks. It was compatible with various OS, i.e., Windows, Linux, and BSD.

Features:

Firstly, It supports hardware virtualization.
Hyper-V supports a cloud-based platform.
It supports wide range of Linux versions.
It allows you to operate many virtual machines at the same time.
Provides a snapshot functionality that allows you to clone several versions of a VM in a secure environment for future usage.
It includes a Virtual Switch tool that enables resource tracking and viewing statistics of the visualization process between machines and displaying an overview image for managers.

Pros:

You can lively migrate from one host to another.
Provides simple backs.
It is built into Windows.
Its simple interface and implementation are ideal for beginning developers because of their simple interface and performance.

Cons:

It lacks advanced features such as GPU acceleration.

Free trial: It is free software.

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a free, open-source x86 hypervisor. It’s one of the top VM software programs for creating and managing virtual machines. Compatibility with Windows, Linux, BSD, and other operating systems. One of the most remarkable features of VirtualBox is moving the virtual machine from one host to another.

Features:

Firstly, You can resize the window.
Secondly, It has the drag-and-drop capability.
This program allows you to run any application on your PC.
You can run many guest windows on the same machine simultaneously.

Pros:

Resolutions for several screens.
This hypervisor is compatible with 3D virtualization, USB devices, and video.
The Oracle website also has an excellent information section with tutorials.

Cons:

You cannot run macOS Mojave in a virtual machine using VirtualBox unless you own a Mac.

Free trial: It is free software.

QEMU

QEMU is an abbreviation for Quick Emulator. It is a famous emulator and virtualization machine. Additionally, This system is developed in C, provides full system emulation on compatible systems, and can execute software for Linux, BSD, Windows, and other supported architectures.

Features:

Firstly, It is one of the best free virtual machine software that allows various operating systems to operate on any system.
Secondly, Hardware virtualization is available.
Thirdly, It is compatible with all operating systems. There are no restrictions on the host operating system.
By running the guest code directly on the host CPU, QEMU achieves near-native performance.

Pros:

It is a free and open-source virtualizer.
It employs mode emulation.
KVM and Xen are also supported at native performance.
It is compatible with all operating systems.

Cons:

The learning curve is steep.

Free trial: It is free software.

Gnome Boxes

Gnome Boxes is a virtualization management tool. It is one of the top VM software for Linux. It can assist you in customizing all types of virtualization solutions.

Features:

Firstly, It assists you in locating your local and remote virtual systems.
Secondly, it Sets your machine’s preferences and tracks its performance.
Thirdly, It provides a safe and explicit approach to experimenting with new operating systems.
Fourthly, You can use this tool to connect to a remote machine.
Boxes and the virtual-manager project share a lot of code, primarily in libvirt, libosinfo, and qemu.
Allows you to take photographs, which are saved in the list automatically.

Pros:

Set your machine’s preferences intuitively and monitor its performance.
Allows USB device access to your boxes.
It has keystrokes, a clipboard, keyboard shortcuts, and other features.
You can use it to access, view, and manage remote and virtual systems.

Cons:

There aren’t many advanced features.

Free trial: Basic free version.

Red Hat Virtualization

Red Hat Virtualization is a software-defined platform that is open source. It provides virtualization for both Linux and Microsoft Windows. It is one of the best free virtual machine softwares that allow you to create new VMs, and clone old ones.

Features:

Firstly, Red Hat Virtualization is simple to use, configure, and manage.
Because it is an open-source system, you can integrate it with other systems.
Thirdly, It provides a high level of performance to Kubernetes, Linux, and Cloud settings as a community-powered open-source.
Red Hat virtualization is simple to use, configure, and manage.

Pros:

Simple to set up and utilize.
Virtualization in the Cloud
Containerized setting

Cons:

Its customer service takes a long time to respond.

Free trial: It offers 60—days of Free Trial

FAQs

Are there any free virtual machines?

It is free, open-source, and available on various operating systems. VirtualBox is one of the widely used virtual machine applications.

Is VMware virtualization free?

'vSphere Hypervisor' by VMware is a free tool that makes it simple to get started with virtualization.

Is Windows 11 virtual machine free?

Microsoft has made a free Windows 11 Enterprise virtual machine accessible for download. Right now, you can find a VM machine that runs Windows 11.

Conclusion

In conclusion, even though this list consists of the best free virtual machine softwares, you are the one who gets to choose. Analyze the pros and cons, then select the best VM based on your requirements. So, I hope you don’t have trouble choosing. Overall, Thank you for reading this article, hope it was worthwhile.

Carly Earl

Carly Earl is Guardian Australia picture editor. She has worked as a photographer and picture editor in Sydney for 8 years, previously for The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph.