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Horizon 8 vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Horizon 8
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
VMware Workstation
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 8.0%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 17.0%, up from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Tim  Abboud - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly, reasonably priced, and simple to install
It can be challenging to assess the stability of Horizon because it relies heavily on the underlying infrastructure, including vCenter, network, and storage performance. It is important to pay attention to these factors when evaluating the stability of the system. We rely on vCenter, network, and storage performance, and any weakness in these areas will affect the performance of Horizon. When discussing this with customers, I always emphasize the importance of these factors. If the foundation is solid, Horizon should not experience any performance issues. If the fundamentals are weak, we will encounter issues with Horizon on a regular basis. However, the product itself, VMware Horizon, is highly stable. While the Horizon product itself is very stable, it is important to be well-informed about any potential side effects from using other related products.
Shambhu Narayan  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-manage solution that has really good customer support compared to other market players
VMware Workstation makes it easy to manage all the resources that we are handling. VMware Workstation has reduced our infrastructure cost. If someone wants machines, I can create them easily using the solution. VMware Workstation is easier to manage than other workstations like Oracle Workstation. VMware Workstation is an easy-to-manage solution, and its support is really good compared to other market players. Overall, I rate VMware Workstation an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution has a lot of Visual Desktop's persistent and non-persistent desktops which publish the applications."
"We like that VMware is the top competitor in virtualization."
"Great sorting feature to create UI on demand."
"It has improved our business because now we can run applications and it's easier for our students to do their exams."
"VMware Horizon is beneficial because it reduces bandwidth consumption when accessing VDI or the virtual infrastructure. It's more secure compared to accessing a Windows desktop using RDP. It enhances security, provides better app utilization, and improves performance using graphic-intensive tools like Photoshop or 3ds Max. Using the Horizon Client makes it easy to work on those tools."
"It is easy to scale. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"VMware is a hyper-converged infrastructure model. Therefore, for scaling it you just add more servers to it in the inputs. It's rather straightforward."
"The console is straightforward and easy to understand for the end user. It can be deployed on any device, including iPads and Mac OS. Users can access their daily applications and resources provided by the VMware Horizon environment from any device."
"I appreciate the ease of backup and snapshot creation. The ability to revert to previous versions without losing data is very useful for our team."
"It is much more mature compared to Nutanix or SimpliVity when it's cross-platform based."
"The solution's technical support team is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of the VMware Workstation is the ease to create a development environment. When you have different ongoing developments, you often need to create a lot of different development environments. With this workstation solution, you can have a development environment for all the things you develop."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"VMware Player's best feature is the ability to run different OS's simultaneously."
"We are able to simultaneously run multiple operating systems in a single machine and have virtually no performance hit."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
 

Cons

"I would like to see seamless integration with the cloud because right now, the dependency is on the cloud providers."
"The product has to improve its performance and connectivity."
"More ready-to-deploy templates should be available. Because they are not included, a lot of configuration is required."
"It would be beneficial to see improvements in client-side functionalities, especially for some Linux clients."
"VMware Horizon needs to integrate with Azure, Teams, and Zoom."
"The solution isn't quite mature yet. It needs more time to mature and to get more market recognition."
"VMware Horizon 7 could improve by supporting the active-active data center. At this time we are only deploying it in the production environment. Our customer is considered to deploy the VMware Horizon 7 to a secondary data center, but we found out that it cannot fully support the user in the deployment in the active-active data center. Any improvement on this would be beneficial."
"The remote connection, bandwidth usage, and error connection can be improved. Working with the load balancer sites should also be improved. For example, with Horizon, we can use two clients with a one megabit connection, but with Citrix, we can use four or five clients with the same bandwidth through ICA protocol. VMware must improve remote connection, connection stability, and load balancing."
"The solution can be expensive."
"Installing VMware Workstation isn't so easy. It's highly complex compared to Windows. I rate it four out of 10 for ease of installation. Setting up a remote desktop only takes a minute or so, but the Workstation itself takes some time."
"The price should be reduced."
"VMware Workstation’s scalability could be improved."
"The tool can improve network storage technology."
"The network configuration was not as easy as it could be and could take less time. We faced challenges with backup due to limitations in the free version, requiring us to switch to a paid version."
"They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation."
"I have had issues with the virtual network adapters in the past that has taken some time to troubleshoot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The VMware Horizon 7 license is for three months. We are in the testing stage, we are still evaluating the product. We are sure now that we need to buy a license for the production environment."
"The product is extremely expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution is more expensive in comparison to Citrix but when comparing the technicalities VMware Horizon, is worth the money."
"We are happy with the price."
"VMware Horizon View is an expensive product. My company needs to opt for a subscription-based pricing model when it comes to the licensing costs attached to the product."
"Customers pay a licensing fee."
"I rate the product cost a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"The product has a moderate price."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive tool. I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low or good price."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does VMware Workspace One compare with VMware Horizon 7?
VMware Workspace One has a powerful set of helpful features. The solution offers very good documentation, the initial setup is easy, and the product is very stable and reliable. I think the fact th...
What do you like most about VMware Horizon 7?
VMware offers a friendly environment, and it's easy to provide the user with the package. It is a bundled solution that is readily deployable. The advantage lies in its simplicity, it requires mini...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon 7?
We paid a lot of money for software that is not really fully operational out of the box. We had to have patches from VMware to get it into production. Hence, we lost a lot of time implementing the ...
Which VMware solution would you go with - Workstation or vSphere?
VM Workstation’s setup is so easy, you can use it almost instantly, it works well with Windows and Linux. We like VM Workstation primarily to test environments to determine how well a solution will...
What do you like most about VMware Workstation?
The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up.
What needs improvement with VMware Workstation?
The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.