Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Oracle VM vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Oracle VM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (7th)
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. Oracle VM is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 7.4%, up 5.9% 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

Rasika Sudasinghe - PeerSpot reviewer
A cheap option available for Linux environments which is useful for many workloads
Oracle VM is an obsolete product in that no new features are coming for it. The new version is called Oracle KVM. The only improvement needed for Oracle VM is the look and feel of the interface. When comparing the user console with vCenter, the interface used to control VMware environments, Oracle VM's user interface is not that rich in terms of user experience. If Oracle could improve that, it would be good. Besides that, we don't know if the solution comes with a roadmap because it comes free of charge with Oracle x86. We can't expect something similar to vCenter in KVM, but at least if you can improve what users can experience, then it would be good.
Phanindar Ada - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers ease of deployment and use along with a comfortable configuration process to be handled
The tool's performance is really good, so I can rate it a ten out of ten. The product did meet my expectations by allowing me to run multiple operating systems simultaneously. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up. I took care of the integration part of VMware Workstation with vSphere. I describe the product's documentation as a good area. My company gets complaints about technical notes from VMware. My company does face limitations with the product, and it is based on the licenses that we have purchased from VMware. I rate the overall product a ten 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

"What I like the most is the failover and the quick restore of virtual machines."
"The Foundation is the most valuable feature of Oracle VM."
"It is a stable product that has been reliable for several years."
"It's easy to adjust the size up and down."
"There's a lot of space to customize the solution if you need to."
"The biggest advantage of Oracle VM is that you can separate your clusters to get your licenses agreement in scope."
"It is a scalable solution."
"We've noticed that when working with Citrix with our Oracle clients who also use Oracle Linux, the monitoring and testing is simpler and easier for us to do."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"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."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"It's stable."
"Great at solving connection problems."
"Having ten people working off a single piece of hardware reduces costs."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
 

Cons

"The user interface of the version that we have requires improvement. They have already improved the user interface in the latest version, but we are yet to migrate to that. The new UI is much better. I would like it to be simple. It is serving all of our needs, and I don't think it is necessary to keep adding. We are able to provision a VM in ten minutes, and provisioning it in five minutes will not have any added benefit."
"The documentation for implementation could be improved because we were not able to find an easy way to implement our company's features due to a lack of understanding."
"The tool's price and stability could be better."
"I've found that using Oracle VM is like stepping back in time. It's not kept up with technology. The only reason anyone uses it is that they're afraid of Oracle's licensing. Oracle has a tremendously bad licensing approach."
"Deployment should be simplified."
"If you do a gap analysis between VMware and Oracle VM, you can't do VM Snapshot. That's one thing you can't do. It's a sort of a snapshot, but it's not really Snapshot technology. It requires that you're running on CFS-2."
"There is no memory over-subscription and CPU over-subscription. That has to be improved in terms of Oracle VM perspective. The other leading virtualizing software solutions have this feature."
"We do have a little trepidation with systemd, as it does have a learning curve."
"It could have more platforms and CPUs."
"The tool can improve network storage technology."
"Performance could be improved, it's somewhat clunky."
"I have had issues with the virtual network adapters in the past that has taken some time to troubleshoot."
"The support can be improved."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"It would be helpful if VMware Workstation included an in-built monitoring tool for monitoring things."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this product is high."
"Oracle's VM VirtualBox is a powerful, free, and open-source virtualization tool."
"The pricing for the platform is aligned with other enterprise virtualization solutions."
"All other vendors are selling their licenses to use the VM, but Oracle isn't doing that, which is its biggest advantage. It is free. All you have to do is get the hardware. You can create an unlimited number of VMs for free. With VMware, you have to purchase licenses for the number of VMs that you want to create. You only pay for their premium support, and even that is optional. I am now learning this product, and we can even do without the support."
"The cost of scalability. You pay for what you use. It's free to download, free to install, and the support side has been very helpful."
"Licensing costs are less for Oracle Linux and for clients moving to the Oracle Cloud, as it is included in the price of the subscription."
"The licensing for Oracle VM solution is very nice because you license the box."
"Pricing and licensing is one of the main decision making reasons for going to Oracle VM because it was cost effective."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"It is an expensive solution."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Virtualization Software solutions are best for your needs.
830,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
47%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Oracle VM or KVM?
I would prefer if KVM was easier to scale and not so limited. Overall the product has been helpful. It is easy to use, and was quite straight-forward to set up. Since I have been using KVM, I have ...
Which is better - Oracle VM or VMware VSphere?
Oracle VM seems to me to be kind of outdated. Nevertheless, it is fairly straightforward to use and maintain. The solution can just be set and you can forget about it, and the scalability is consid...
What do you like most about Oracle VM?
If you want to access the VM from anywhere over the Internet, you put it in a public subnet. So, VMs are linked to that. The subnets are linked to it. So, it's perfectly secured if it's a private n...
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

 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ambulance Victoria, Australian Finance Group (AFG), Avnet Technology Solutions, CERN, cloudKleyer, Danish Tax Authority (SKAT), Data Intensity, Dubai World, Engineers Australia, Enkitec, Groupe FLO, Guerra S.A. Implemento, s Rodovišrios, Interactive One, IT Convergence, Jesta Digital, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, KT, Kyoto Prefecture, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory / National Ignition Facility, Multinet Pakistan, National Australia Bank (NAB), Navis LLC, Overhead Door, Overstock.com, Paragon Data, Parks Victoria, Pella, Sunway Shared Services, St. Louis Metro, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., University of Massachusetts, Versace,
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: December 2024.
830,526 professionals have used our research since 2012.