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Hyper-V vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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
141
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (3rd)
VMware Workstation
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
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 15.2%, down 16.6% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 17.7% mindshare, up 14.7% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

NagendraC - PeerSpot reviewer
Quickly provisions virtual machines with ease and efficiency
I use Hyper-V primarily to create virtual machines (VMs) I find the quick provision feature in Hyper-V to be extremely helpful. Additionally, the ease of setup since we have been using it for a long time also adds value. Hyper-V supports the creation of VMs efficiently. Today, most backup tools…
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 is an affordable platform."
"The installation was straightforward."
"There are some products that you can mount over Hyper-V that provide the features that, in today's Hyper-V, are not present."
"It helps us build servers."
"It is definitely the toughest competitor for VMware. It easily increases memory for our virtual machines."
"I like that Hyper-V comes for free with Windows Server. You don't need to buy the license, and you only have to pay for the management aspect in System Center."
"With each update, the security of this solution just gets better and better. It is very stable."
"Microsoft has documentation that is easy to find, helpful, and readily available."
"VMware Workstation allows multiple operating systems in the same physical machine."
"Because the setup is so easy, this is a solution that can be used at a moment's notice."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"VMware Player helps you to virtualize and install Ubuntu or any other operating system, even on a Windows laptop."
"The performance is good."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
 

Cons

"We've had many issues with Hyper-V's stability, including resource crunches and memory leakage."
"Many vendors, such as Cisco and HPE, are discontinuing support for Hyper-V as they believe it does not have a significant market share."
"I encounter issues such as mouse cursor problems, dependencies, lagging, freezing, and unresponsiveness using Hyper-V."
"There is a hard limitation of 20 gigs per file with Dropbox, so you've got to overcome that by chunking the zip files into something smaller and manageable."
"I think the setup for the Virtual Network Manager could be improved."
"I would like Microsoft to put more effort into the Admin Center interface and make it much easier. It is customizable, but you have to be a PowerShell expert to customize these things. That is a limitation."
"When it comes to Hyper-V the worst thing is it's based on the Windows operating system. For the installation of Hyper-V, you're supposed to install the right operating system. For me, it's strange."
"The management interface is in need of the biggest improvement."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
"One improvement is mouse emulation. Some people in the office want to use a five—or seven-button mouse like they're used to at home, but they can't with the workstation setup."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The tool has limited scalability."
"The price should be reduced."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting capabilities, particularly around snapshot activity. It would be helpful to have a summary of changes made prior to deploying an application, allowing us to provide comprehensive reports to our management on a regular basis."
"The solution freezes sometimes."
"They could add more integration between them, and compatibility with the standard virtualization format."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's price is low."
"Microsoft recently tacked on a higher price for their software to use the storage migration in the Storage Spaces Direct array. That was just terrible."
"I think it is expensive. I think if they want it to be more competitive, they should lower the price."
"In terms of the licensing, if you are using Microsoft Windows 100%, it is OK. But, when you start mixing other environments, it becomes quite tricky."
"Because we're an NGO or a charity, we get discount rates from Microsoft. The costs are not astronomical for us. To give you an example, Office 2019 would only cost 30 or 45 for us. We tend to use the on-premises version rather than the cloud version. The reason is that the subscription service works out more expensive after a few years than the on-premise version. We're not worried about having the bleeding edge stuff. We just want it to be functional."
"The pricing is competitive, and a bit less than other options on the market."
"The Hyper-V pricing and licensing are very good."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The product has a moderate price."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"VMware is expensive. Licensing can be tricky. For example, I recently had a client running VMware vSphere Essentials and wanted to migrate to a more scalable solution. However, they had no choice but to purchase a completely new license and deploy a completely new instance of VMware."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"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."
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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
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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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