When comparing Parallels Desktop vs Sequel Pro, the Slant community recommends Sequel Pro for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Sequel Pro is ranked 22nd while Parallels Desktop is ranked 59th. The most important reason people chose Sequel Pro is:
Clean, easy to use, highly polished interface.
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 Great UI
Clean, easy to use, highly polished interface.
Pro Native OS X from the start
Unlike other solutions, Sequel Pro was built specifically for OS X and for MySQL from the beginning and as such the design takes better advantage of OS X features and is optimized for MySQL.
Pro Free and open source
Licensed under MIT.
Pro Multiple connection methods
Sequel Pro can choose between standard and SSH connection methods.
Pro Multiple import/export options
Sequel Pro can export to SQL, CSV and XML files and import SQL and CSV files.
Pro Command line access
Sequel Pro can also access and manage everything from the command line.
Pro Excellent user management
Has easy user privilege management.
Pro Highly flexible filters
Sequel Pro has highly flexible and customizable filters.
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 Crashes constantly
Crashes when working with mysql 8.0.12 for macos 10.13. Unable to do anything.
Con Not maintained
The app crashes when you close a tab.
Con No MySQL 8 support
Con Not adapted for MacOS Catalina
Con No multiple query tabs
Sequel Pro does not support multiple query tabs in its editor. This is incredibly frustrating for a power user.
Con Text in the query lost on connection failure & crashes
Con OS X only, no Linux or Windows versions
Power users have to manage in many different environments. A consistent admin interface is hugely beneficial.
Con Query editing capabilities much poorer than MySql Workbench, Querious, and others
Con No visual query editor
Con Unable to import from binary SQL files
I frequently import binary multipolygon data from another source, and it won’t open.