When comparing Parallels Desktop vs Paste, the Slant community recommends Paste for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Paste is ranked 43rd while Parallels Desktop is ranked 59th. The most important reason people chose Paste is:
Allows to copy and paste and keep clipboard history in sync across devices.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Best-in-class gaming performance
Compared to other VMs, Parallels has the best gaming performance. Still, a good framerate can only be achieved with games that have very low resource requirements. A much better option for resource intensive games is dual booting Windows (via Boot Camp).
Pro Easy to use
Parallels has an easy to learn and use UI. All important features are wizard based. It requires only a few clicks for the wizard to download and set up the latest Chrome OS, Windows or Linux build.
Pro Can run Windows apps as native OS X apps
Parallels has a "Coherence View" mode that allows running Windows applications as if they were native OS X apps. In this mode Windows is virtualized in background and Windows features like Jump Lists, Taskbar, Start Menu, etc can be embedded directly within OS X.
Pro Best integration ever
Pro Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
Allows to copy and paste and keep clipboard history in sync across devices.
Pro iCloud sync
Syncs clipboard history across Mac, iPhone, iPad.
Pro Simple design and usage
Pro Offers free trial
14-days free trial.
Pro Actively maintained
Gets updated with new features constantly.
Pro Allows editing
You can edit clipboard history items in place.
Pro Offers "Copy as plain text"
Pro Allows sequential paste
Pro Offers named folders
Can be used to organize frequently used snippets like signatures etc.
Pro Offers search and filters
Fast and efficient search by content and metadata.
Pro Supports rich text data
Generates previews for any type of content.
Cons
Con Very expensive
Parallels upgrades are very expensive. Even if I bough several versions of Parallels I will switch back to free VirtualBox as they even "invented" the Pro version - mainly doubled the price you have to pay each year to have the software updated.
Con Can't import OVA files
OVA files are useful because they include all of its supporting files. Unfortunately, Parallels doesn't support these useful files.
Con Requires buying a new version of the software with each new OS X release
Chances are that the same version of Parallels won't work with different OS X releases, requiring a separate purchase of Parallels for each OS X version.
Con Home edition doesn't work with Vagrant or Docker Machine
Make sure you purchase the Pro edition (the subscription) if you need command-line access to the hypervisor.
Con Can't export OVA files
One you use parallel you get trapped into a proprietary format.
Can't share disk blocks on two unrelated virtual machines (KSM for disk) too.
Con Subscription based
Con Closed source
Con You shouldn't buy separately from a subscription like SetApp
Free/inexpensive options probably good enough for most users.