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Proxmox VE 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
Proxmox VE offers cost savings, enhanced server capabilities, and improved efficiency, with benefits outweighing its learning curve challenges.
Sentiment score
1.0
VMware Workstation enhances cost savings, enabling efficient application testing and integration, resulting in improved job performance and satisfaction.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Proxmox VE users often utilize community resources and documentation over paid support, though improved direct communication is desired.
Sentiment score
2.9
VMware Workstation's customer service is mixed, with varying responsiveness and reliance on community resources after HP acquisition.
On a scale of one to 10, I would rate their support or customer service a two or three since they never did anything.
The documents provided for Workstation were not hard to understand.
It's a very special way of working with VMware Workstation.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Proxmox VE is praised for its scalability, ease of resource addition, and seamless migrations, though vertical scaling could improve.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware Workstation is versatile, supporting multiple VMs, though opinions vary on scalability for larger operations and single installations.
VMware Workstation is scalable enough for larger companies, though it requires some skills.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Proxmox VE is highly stable and reliable, performing well on older hardware with minimal performance issues.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Workstation is highly reliable, with improved stability post-v6, though minor virtual network issues may occur in specific scenarios.
The problem we are facing with stability is that the network adapter causes crashes of the VM when we're using it for developing purposes.
 

Room For Improvement

Proxmox VE faces challenges with performance, interface complexity, support, and lacks effective monitoring, documentation, and scalability features.
VMware Workstation needs performance, usability, and cost improvements, enhanced stability, better documentation, and streamlined integration and scalability.
Eventually, we had to get some licenses with Broadcom, and all the costs went up dramatically.
We faced challenges with backup due to limitations in the free version, requiring us to switch to a paid version.
The problem we are facing with stability is that the network adapter causes crashes of the VM when we're using it for developing purposes.
 

Setup Cost

Proxmox VE is an open-source, cost-effective virtualization solution with optional support, valued for its affordability against competitors.
VMware Workstation is pricey but offers integration benefits with cost-saving opportunities through sales and varies by user needs.
 

Valuable Features

Proxmox VE provides a user-friendly, scalable, and affordable virtualization solution with strong community support and feature-rich environment.
VMware Workstation offers user-friendly virtualization, multi-OS operation, and superior testing flexibility, outperforming alternatives like Oracle VirtualBox.
VMware will just create a new machine immediately if we have a problem.
VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox.
Simply being able to run several Windows PCs with different development environments has had the largest impact on our operational efficiency.
 

Categories and Ranking

Proxmox VE
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (1st)
VMware Workstation
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. Proxmox VE is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 16.7%, down 19.7% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 14.5% mindshare, down 15.4% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proxmox VE16.7%
VMware vSphere16.5%
Hyper-V14.8%
Other52.0%
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Workstation14.5%
VMware Fusion Pro18.6%
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)13.0%
Other53.9%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Juan Barandiaran - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortless management with robust support enhances performance and cost savings
My primary use case for Proxmox VE focuses on replacing VMware solutions and migrating to a Centric Solution for medium-sized companies. This product serves as a hypervisor in environments where performance is crucial Proxmox VE has provided performance improvements, particularly with its…
Gary Comorau - PeerSpot reviewer
Creating and destroying test machines has simplified our operations and reduced manual recovery time
The Snapshot feature has helped with workflows by allowing us to more easily reconstruct something if we lose it or need it. We've been making Snapshots on a consistent basis, mainly of servers. The VX Rail has worked effectively because we can create machines as we need them. It's helpful for resetting and has helped with our operations because I had set up failover servers on Vertex, but we don't have to do that anymore since VMware will just create a new machine immediately if we have a problem. We're doing our domain servers on there, and we've been very happy with that. We appreciate that we can create machines simply to test things out and then destroy them. I use it for a test machine for checking emails, so if the email has a virus in it, we can just destroy the machine and create a new one. We're slowly moving into the VMware environment, although the pricing with Broadcom has been a disaster.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
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...
Proxmox VE or KVM?
I use Proxmox VE and have been very happy with it. In my opinion, it is a complete and stable solution with excellent tools for managing servers. It has a lot of different features, and I also love...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Municipality of Trento, SwitchMIA, inDenova, Valmeita City Council, Alpha IT AS, Grupo Inversor Veracruzano S.A.P.I. de C.V. (GRIVER), Laut und Schoen, IT-Services - Hamburg e.K., KMI Learning, Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., Serwise AG
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: August 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.