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Hyper-V vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

Hyper-V
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (3rd)
VMware Workstation
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. Hyper-V is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 14.5%, up 14.3% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 15.1% mindshare, down 15.4% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Ananth Narayana Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective and good for small workloads while addressing update-driven challenges is needed
I use Azure Monitor and other monitoring solutions to support clients in Accenture's managed services. We support multiple environments, primarily on cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and also on-premises environments with operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Solaris, among others…
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 simplicity and intuitiveness of the platform. It was a very simple adaptation, if you have any experience in virtualization."
"The interface is quite good."
"The most valuable feature of Hyper-V is the replica service."
"The replication, creation, and import wizard, as well as the integration with reporting tools, are the most useful features."
"The support with Microsoft is great."
"I find the ease of use the most valuable asset of the solution."
"The virtual SAN feature is helpful."
"The most valuable features of Hyper-V include high availability and management for virtual machine management."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
"VMware Workstation is great for migrating and patching operating systems."
"We can undo some changes using the snapshot feature."
"The simplicity of the deployment and the implementation, and the footprint for the hardware are some of the solution's valuable features."
"I haven't faced any inconveniences working with this solution. It is very easy to use."
"The product is really easy to use."
"VMware Workstation has tons of third-party support, the largest partner ecosystem. VMware works with a ton of different vendors. They have plugins for almost everything. Other hypervisors lack the flexibility that VMware Workstation offers."
"VMware Workstation is easy to manage and understand."
 

Cons

"We'd like a template feature to help deploy VMs quickly."
"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"ometimes a server or machine shuts down and doesn't automatically restart."
"The solution is lacking in numerous features and lacks flexibility."
"It would be better if it demanded less memory. Once you have allocated those memory spaces for the installed server, fewer resources are left to allocate for the Hyper-V virtual environment. That's the drawback with that. For example, once you install Windows 10, and let's say Windows 2019, Windows 2019 will take at least 10 GB of memory. If a customer has only 16 GB of RAM on the system, they think of installing Hyper-V. Because when you have windows 2019 or something else, they give two free Hyper-V virtual licenses. But we can't because there's not enough memory. We can, however, install this as a VMS. But this UI isn't that user-friendly for most customers. They like to have a user interface with VMI, and it's not easy when you install VMI. It would also be better if they can improve their core Hyper-V version to be a bit more familiar and user-friendly with its interface. I think it would be much easier. We had a few issues with the VM Hyper-V virtual network. Once you have such issues, it's very difficult to find out where they came from. They had such issues, and we had to resolve the system again. But other than that, if it's useful and keeps working nicely, it will work very nicely even if something happens. But it's very hectic and challenging to find out where it's happening. In the next release, it would be better to control this data store part in a manageable way. This is because once we install and create a Hyper-V machine, it goes everywhere. It would be better if it had a single location and a single folder with a heartbeat and virtual machine information. You can just go forward, and the data store and everything are going into one place like the C drive. But something always goes fast, or everything gets lost if the customer doesn't manually change the direction of where the virtual hard drive routes, the more serious the problem. It would be better if they could merge all that together. This includes the virtual machine and the virtual hard drive in the same folder when creating the virtual machine. I think that it would be much easier to manage and in case something happens. Technical support also could be better."
"The solution is heavily reliant on Microsoft's active directory for authentication, for coordination between nodes. Therefore, it inherits all the issues that are within the active directory."
"Hyper-V needs to improve its support."
"The the only challenge for us was moving existing physical machines to virtual machines."
"VMware Player should provide a cloud version with no limitations to hardware resources."
"They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation."
"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."
"It could have more platforms and CPUs."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The support can be improved."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing cost depends on the edition you choose. There are two main options: Standard and Datacenter. With a Datacenter license, you can only create two virtual machines that are covered by the license itself. You can create more VMs, but they won't be licensed and could result in charges during an audit."
"Thanks to our enterprise agreement with Microsoft, Hyper-V is free for us."
"I think I'm okay with the cost. There are no monthly or yearly costs or additional costs."
"There is a license required to use Hyper-V and there are bundle packages you can purchase making it cheaper than other solutions, such as VMware. Additionally, if there is a lot of guest OS that requires Windows, then Microsoft becomes cheaper."
"The pricing is not much. We have a very big environment, and pricing is no problem."
"I do not have any comments about pricing or licensing of the product."
"There is a perpetual license to use the solution and there are additional fees for support."
"The Hyper-V pricing and licensing are very good."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"It has the best licensing modules."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to virtualize Server or Client OS as it is a feature on Windows Server since 2008 a...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same features as with the more well-known products. Proxmox VE is very easy to deploy - it...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Akademiska Hus
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