Since I've been traveling a bit more again, you've noticed that I've been working on a Mac for more than 3.5 years. Even longer in my private life - but since then, my only work computer has also been a Mac. As I use Revit a lot, I often get the question: how do you actually do that? In this blog post, I'd like to share my experiences and tell you what to look out for.
There are basically two types of Macs: the older models with the Intel CPU and the newer models with the Apple Silicon chip (currently M1 - M3). Since Revit absolutely needs a Windows environment, we have the following options:
- Virtual machine with Parallels (my recommendation!)
- Bootcamp on the Intel Macs (allows you to choose between MacOS and Windows every time you boot up, I personally have never used it and would not recommend it - better buy a good Windows PC!)
You can find detailed instructions for Bootcamp on the Apple homepage, in this article I would like to go into more detail about my configuration with Parallels, with which I have had very good experiences.
Revit in Parallels
Parallels is a virtualization software with which Windows can be started directly in MacOS - but also means that MacOS and Windows share the resources in this case. How the sharing takes place can be regulated yourself and I would actually always recommend this first after installation, as the default settings are very minimal and do not make Revit happy. These are my current settings, with which I have had good experiences so far on my MacBook Pro with M3 Pro and 36 GB RAM:
I worked on a MacBook Pro with Intel i9 and 64 GB RAM for over 3 years, which worked really well - even if the fan was actually running almost constantly as soon as I had Revit open. Nevertheless, I would no longer recommend this configuration - the new Apple Silicon Macs are simply much more powerful.
I've been working on the MacBook Pro with the Silicon chip for a few months now - the big difference here is the CPU architecture: Intel i9 is based on the x64 architecture, which is natively supported by Windows, while the Silicon chips are based on the ARM architecture. Apple achieves much higher performance with much lower power consumption with ARM processors - however, the ARM processors were initially not well supported by Windows.
I ran a few tests shortly after the release of the first M1 Pro Macbook in 2021 and was very disappointed because Revit kept crashing - however, both Parallels and Microsoft have since made great progress. The list of hardware recommended by Autodesk also includes Parallels in combination with Apple Silicon, at least since Revit 2025: https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/System-requirements-for-Revit-2025-products.html
My personal recommendation: Virtualization only makes sense if you keep Windows "lean" and only need Windows software occasionally. For example, I only start Windows when I need Autodesk products - but use Microsoft Office and everything else under MacOS. As a result, I have full performance under MacOS most of the time and my Windows starts very quickly when needed. Parallels is now also very good at putting Windows into sleep mode when it's not currently being used.
So if you only need Windows software for 2-3 hours a day and otherwise feel at home with MacOS, then it's definitely a good solution! However, I don't think that someone who works on large projects in Revit for 8 hours a day will be happy on a Mac - in this case, a good Windows PC simply makes more sense.
Hi Lejla!
I've been using Revit for over 10 years with Parallels on my older MacBooks. It's perfectly adequate for training courses and presentations. The only annoying thing is the constant Windows updates. I would never want to use a laptop for commercial projects, without at least 2x4K you become blind. So my conclusion MAcBook with Parallels works great with Revit as long as you don't want to do too much with it. LG Clemens
Hi Clemens,
Thanks for the comment and your experience - I'm glad you agree with my assessment! Many people think it's "cool" and I've already had one case where someone "copied" me - but was then totally unhappy with the setup. I've been using MacOS for 20 years and Revit mostly just for testing or taking screenshots/videos, that's actually not a standard case.
There are also great Windows laptops - even if the M3 has spoiled me so much that I cringe when a fan goes on in my colleagues' office!
LG, Lejla
this a comment just to ecourage you and to tell you keep going with what you are doing,,, we "BIM users" profoundly need people like you in our community!
Thanks so much, Hussam! Will do my best to share more consistently and I can only encourage everyone else to do the same - we all have something valuable to share and imagine where our industry can get if we all learn from eachother!
Lejla, what size/type of project are you opening and running though? Wouldnt this make a huge difference to whether a mac is sufficent? A small single storey house, an apartment complex, or a multi-level healthcare facility will all require vastly different amounts of processing power.
Hi Jack, I don't work on overly complex projects and as mentioned actually mostly use Revit for testing and demos.
Big Revit projects require more RAM and while I would say that Parallels on Silicon Macs does a surprisingly good job with managing this, I would never recommend working on big projects in this environment. Hope this helps!