I was trying to get ViDL working and thought maybe if I install it on an older macOS it'll work. VMWare Fusion 13 Player has a free personal license (you need to register to customer connect) so I tested that first. Player is normally $150 ($80 upgrade).

10.10.5 Yosemite
- after security update mouse/kb don't work
- doesn't recognize many ssl certs (this is a macOS problem because it's so old I guess)

10.11.6 El Capitan
- during install mouse/kb don't work
- VMWare Tools won't install on older macOS versions and when it installs it triggers a security warning

10.12.6 Sierra
- works fine

10.13.6 High Sierra
- works fine

Unfortunately with 10.12 and 10.13 ViDL couldn't update youtube-dl.


Parallels Desktop 18 is normally $100 ($70 upgrade) although 25% off on sale for a couple days. If you run it without a license it goes to 14-day trial mode and a few features are disabled.

10.10.5 Yosemite
- mouse and kb work fine
- Parallel Tools installs without issues

10.12.6 Sierra
- mouse and kb work fine
- Parallel Tools installs without issues

Unfortunately turns out ViDL needs 10.12 and won't update youtube-dl in any case.


I also had a Windows 10 Fusion VM which I updated and then you can import into Parallels though I had to use the command line tool to manually import it.


My impression is that Fusion has low development priority. Doesn't quite work with older macOS versions. VMWare Tools seemed to make the VM slightly glitchy. Also it seems like Fusion no longer officially supports macOS VMs.

Parallels didn't have the above issues. It's also gets yearly releases and supports more advanced features faster (such as Mx processors and Direct X 13 acceleration). Also a bit cheaper so if I was paying I'd go with Parallels.

That said I rarely use VMs (I'm more partial to CrossOver/WINE) so I'll stick with VMWare Fusion 13.