Virtualbox had limitations on the amount of memory allocated to graphics (that may have changed). Parallels is arguably the best of the VM software, but Fusion runs a close second; both are way better than VirtualBox in my opinion. Fusion has the advantage of having a free version that has no baggage the way Parallels supposed free version has. For me, VMWare Fusion is the VM to use.
Apple introduced quite a few technical changes in recent years starting with 10.13 or so including Metal stack, 64bit, SIP (limited signed kext, RO system), switch to ARM, virtualization framework (only on ARM). Existing software needed a ton of work to port things over to fit Apple's restrictions.
x86 virtualization on MacOS is dying due to this. There is no return for investment to keep virtualization going on x86 (Intel) since most people will be buying ARM Macs.
In general, VirtualBox being an acquisition has not been Oracle's focus for years. It is pretty much left to the community to maintain it. It may feel a little unpolished in some cases.
Fusion's strength is built on their investments in eras of the past that carried over today. Fusion/Workstation isn't VMWare's most money making business and is under heavy cost cutting (they fired the US Workstation team a few years ago). The emphasis on profit has only increased since Broadcom's acquisition. Fusion has no future as a product in VMWare because their main market is servers. (Workstation is a bridge for IT admins testing in corp environments, but no corp IT environment/server farms runs on Macs) I wouldn't be surprised if they discontinue it entirely in the next few years.
Parallel is the only one with incentive to keep their product going. The company is a lot more dedicated to this niche area. They still dedicate resources into x86 virtualization as long as Apple supports x86 officially. But I expect them to face a lot of competition from free solutions (UTM) on top of Apple's built in virtualization framework in the new ARM era.
Apple changes too fast and I gave up trying to keep current and just try to use what works and update as I can. iOS is much easier as well as TVOS at this point.
Apple has always been pushing changes fast when they want to. If they announce a new API for developers and deprecate the old API, the developers are forced to migrate to the new API by the next OS release or else their software won't run (ask NVidia about their web drivers). But as a user you don't usually notice it, because the developers are shouldering the burden.
It's just that MacOS has a lot more freedom than iOS and TvOS - more open source software where the developer complains that they needed more time to migrate, or you may run old versions of software you downloaded years ago (iOS does not allow this, you are only allowed to run the latest software on the App store). So you as the user feel the pain too.
And also MacOS having 8-9 years of update (including both OS and security updates) from Apple is relatively short for consumers' expectation. Consumers have built a habit of changing our phones a lot more frequently than our computers (with components such as batteries that have a limited useful life), so we're always on the latest and greatest iPhone, but still stubbornly holding our 10 years old Mac. Being officially supported by Apple makes a big difference in terms of "it just works" or "I needed to do some work and it kind of works".
