MacOS – Parallels 12 – Hypervisor: Parallels or Apple

macosparallels-desktopvirtualization

The new version 12 of Parallels Desktop For Mac has a new configuration option. In the configuration panel > Hardware > CPU & Memory > Advanced Settings > Hypervisor is a popup menu for:

  • Hypervisor
    • Parallels
    • Apple

Which one do I should I be using when running macOS Sierra as the guest OS?

What exactly is the difference, the pros-and-cons of each?

The Parallels app Help has no mention of this new setting.

Best Answer

From About Parallels Desktop system extensions on macOS Big Sur (and later), October 2020:

At WWDC20, Apple was quoted as saying that “System Extensions improve the reliability and security of macOS, and deprecated kernel extensions will not load by default in macOS Big Sur”. Eventually, to make Parallels Desktop fully compatible with the new macOS Big Sur 11.0, Parallels Engineering has gone through years of engineering work of rebuilding Parallels Desktop and its features using the new macOS system APIs. This extensive and time-intensive development resulted in the all-new Parallels Desktop, explicitly designed to work and integrate with new macOS Big Sur technologies, and at the same time, deliver performance and productivity improvements to benefit Parallels Desktop customers.

[... snip ...]

For now, our team continues to work on supporting both Parallels and Apple hypervisors and continues collaborating with Apple on implementing the rest of Parallels Hypervisor features to Apple Hypervisor. We recommend using Apple hypervisor, and if you notice any difference between Apple and Parallels hypervisors for your use case, please let us know.

(Emphasis mine)

TL;DR: Security changes in MacOS have motivated Parallels to build on top of Apple's native system APIs.

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