The days of Boot Camp natively bringing Windows 10 to Mac users will soon be over, since there is no support for the tool on Macs with Apple silicon. For now, that means users of the best Macs will need to turn to virtualization to run the latest versions of Windows 11 within macOS. To date, our favorite way to install Windows 11 on a Mac has been through using Parallels Desktop 19 for Mac, a great virtualization software designed for macOS. However, a Parallels 19 license costs $100, so it's nowhere near as accessible to Mac users as the free and pre-installed Boot Camp program was. For users looking for a powerful and reliable virtualization tool to run on their Mac, there's good news. As of this month, VMware Fusion Pro 13 is available for personal use completely free.

It took quite a while for VMware to support Apple silicon, and it released the first version of VMware Fusion Pro that worked on M-series chips in 2022. At the end of last year, VMware was bought by Broadcom, and that is likely a factor in VMware Fusion Pro 13 going free. Broadcom primarily focuses on business-to-business sales, so it isn't really focused on selling individual licenses to people using software for personal use. That's probably why VMware Fusion Pro 13 is now free to use, while the lower-end versions of VMware are discontinued. Whatever the reason, it benefits macOS users who want to run Windows 11.

How to install VMware Fusion Pro 13 for free

You need to register for a Broadcom account, but that's it

Now that the software is free, installing VMware Fusion Pro 13 on a Mac is quick and easy. It's not as simple as using Boot Camp, but that's obviously because VMware Fusion Pro 13 isn't pre-installed on your Mac. Aside from having to go to Broadcom's website to download the software and creating an account, the setup process is as simple as it can be. You do have to provide your name and address in order to download VMware Fusion Pro 13, which some users might be put off by. Broadcom says this is for regulatory reasons. If you want an idea of how VMware Fusion Pro 13 works or want to try it yourself, here are the steps for getting started.

Downloading VMware Fusion Pro 13 from Broadcom

1. Register for a free account on Broadcom's website.
2. Make sure you're logged into your Broadcom account, then navigate to the company's downloads page.
3. Select the VMware Fusion 13 Pro for Personal Use option.
4. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the download and install VMware Fusion Pro 13.

Setting up a Windows 11 virtual machine using VMware Fusion Pro 13

After you've downloaded VMware Fusion Pro 13, you'll need to set up a virtual machine for the operating system you want to run. For most people, this will be the Arm version of Windows 11, which runs on Apple silicon Macs. However, the VMware Fusion Pro 13 app works across all kinds of Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. The process for downloading Windows 11 and setting up a virtual machine is painless, since VMware Fusion Pro 13 pretty much takes care of everything for you. Here's an overview of how it works:

1. After downloading VMware Fusion Pro 13, click the app icon to add it to your applications folder and initialize it.
2. Then, pick a Windows 11 installation method. For most people, selecting Get Windows from Microsoft will be the best option.
3. From there, pick the Windows 11 version and language. Wait for the installation file to download.
4. Configure your virtual machine, or press Finish to proceed with the default settings.
5. Windows 11 will now install, and you can complete the setup process like on any other Windows PC.

Windows 11 doesn't work perfectly out of the gate, as it opens up in a small window with a weird scaling and resolution. However, after you adjust this in the Windows 11 display settings, VMware Fusion Pro 13 is a breeze to use. It works just like any other macOS app, except it is virtualizing a Windows 11 instance within.

How does VMware Fusion Pro 13 perform?

Excellent for productivity, but lacks the deep optimization of Parallels

Apart from the aforementioned hiccups that came with optimizing Windows 11's resolution and scaling on my M2 MacBook Air, using VMware Fusion Pro 13 was a great experience. From the Windows 11 setup and installation process to using it like a regular Windows PC, everything worked as expected. Even though Parallels has had a head start in optimizing their virtualization software for Apple silicon, VMware Fusion Pro 13 held its own in tests. Like with any virtual machine, you're going to sacrifice performance compared to using your machine natively. Performance will depend on how you configure your Windows 11 virtual machine, and you can adjust how many processor cores are used in addition to allocating RAM and storage access.

Just to get an idea of what performance will be like using VMware Fusion Pro 13, I ran a Geekbench 6 benchmark test three times: on macOS, within VMware Fusion Pro 13, and within Parallels. During the macOS test, my M2 MacBook Air was able to use all of its processor cores and memory. For the virtual machine tests, each VM was given two processor cores and 4GB of unified memory. Here's how it turned out.

The results were certainly close, but VMware Fusion Pro 13 managed to pull a bit more performance out of its Windows 11 virtual machine than Parallels. This is great for people who just want to use their VM for productivity work, like to run an app that doesn't play nice with macOS. However, it's worth noting that Parallels 19 is better optimized for graphical performance, and is still the best software for virtualized Windows gaming on a Mac. Parallels 19 also has more nice-to-have features, like supporting Touch ID for Windows 11 sign-in. In all, despite being a free client, VMware Fusion Pro 13 performed great as a Windows 11 VM.

Parallels 19 is still the more complete option

But you have to pay for it, while VMware Fusion Pro 13 is free

In reality, VMware Fusion Pro 13 and Parallels 19 probably aren't fighting for the same user base. People who thought the feature set offered by Parallels 19 was worth $100 are likely to still believe that, since there are plenty of Parallels features that aren't available on VMware Fusion Pro 13. Instead, now that VMware Fusion Pro 13 is free, people who originally balked at the price of Parallels 19 have a professional-grade way to run Windows 11 on their Mac. Both are great options, but if I had to pick one, it'd still be Parallels.

• Free pick

  VMware Fusion Pro 13

  VMWare Fusion Pro 13 is completely free for personal use, and is a solid way to run Windows 11 on your Mac.

  Free download at Broadcom
• Best overall

  Parallels Desktop

  Parallels Desktop is the software to use if you want to run virtual machines on your Mac. That means you can run Windows, Linux, and other macOS instances in one place.

  $100 at Amazon $100 at Parallels