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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 February 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 9.5%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 16.9%, up from 13.5% 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

"It stands as a robust setup with considerable capabilities."
"The solution includes good user profiles and policies."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"Users can log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices."
"Instant Clone instantly creates another VM with a Delta disk, which is just the VMware backend. This helps with scalability and management."
"We use VMware Horizon to provide remote access for remote users."
"The solution is secure."
"Users can log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices."
"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."
"I like that it's easy to use. It's easy to deploy virtual machines. You have to insert your ISO and the image of your OS and configure it. They provide a step-by-step guide, and you have to follow it. In the end, you have to start the machine, and that's all you have to do. I liked that they synchronized the mouse, keyboard, and everything. When you finish the installation, it directly links to your laptop. This makes copying and pasting things from my laptop inside the virtual machine easy."
"It will not harm any of the computer settings to run a specific program. For example, if a program needs a specific security policy, we don't have to use the shared configuration. We have an individual copy of Windows installed on the virtual machine, so anybody can access that. It helps us a lot."
"It's stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is an easy-to-use product."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the DirectX support, you can run Microsoft Hyper-V in virtual environments which is good for me to test different installations. Additionally, you can set up different VLANs, and overall it is a complete solution."
"The performance is good."
 

Cons

"VMware has purchased by Dell, they started to remove a lot of their support for non-Intel hardware and that's a bit of a problem. They dropped a lot of support for hardware that people commonly use and it just so happened that this hardware is not Intel. It makes it difficult to get assistance."
"My deployment is complex and I hope it will only take a month."
"We would like to see better performance with the product."
"The vendor must move the infrastructure into the public cloud."
"Lacking in documentation for app settings."
"We have limited capabilities since we are not using a multi-instance solution, just single instances. The solution underutilizes its capabilities."
"In the next release, the performance, the speed, and the price need to be improved."
"I would like to see more useful monitoring within users and a more useful help desk."
"The price of VMware Workstation could improve."
"Performance could be improved, it's somewhat clunky."
"It would be helpful if VMware Workstation included an in-built monitoring tool for monitoring things."
"The price should be reduced."
"The big issue that we've always had with VMware, was the disparity between what was presented for a Windows-based client and a Linux-based client. The Windows client was always two or three releases ahead of the Linux client. We always wanted VMware to change and improve the feature sets between the client connector on Linux and on Windows."
"VMware Workstation could improve the export and import of virtual machines."
"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."
"My experience with Workstation is limited, so I don't know all the functionalities of this tool. Maybe Workstation could add some more compatibility with other vendors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product cost a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."
"The license could be cheaper."
"The license cost has increased significantly, so we’re helping some customers with Azure VMware desktop solutions to save on licensing."
"Licensing and hardware outsourcing is expensive, but can be cost-effective in the three to five-year range."
"VMware Horizon View pricing is high compared to other solutions. I rate it two out of ten. Its licensing costs are monthly."
"Customers pay a licensing fee."
"I would rate the pricing of VMware Horizon View a five out of ten. The price is average."
"The solution is more expensive in comparison to Citrix but when comparing the technicalities VMware Horizon, is worth the money."
"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."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"The product is expensive."
"With a VDI solution, there is always extra cost running a VDI solution but it's not for cost purposes anymore. In the beginning, it was to save money on hardware but at the moment it's other aspects that are more important why you should use a VDI solution."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"The solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
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: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.