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

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:
 

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
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. Proxmox VE is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 18.1%, down 20.7% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 17.0% mindshare, up 13.1% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Toby Champion - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures a robust, user-friendly virtualization platform with seamless VM management, efficient resource allocation and a strong community for support
Improvements are needed for the API. Currently, there are several features inaccessible through the API, necessitating the use of either the WebUI or the command line interface. While the command line interface suffices, it's apparent that efforts are underway to enhance this aspect. In future releases, one potential feature enhancement could be improved remote screen access, allowing users to connect to the screen of another machine more seamlessly. Additionally, integrating with Terraform or providing better support for Terraform workflows might be beneficial, as there seems to be some lacking in that area. There's a minor inconvenience where you have to switch the license file from the open-source community license to an enterprise license.
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

"Many of my customers are moving away from VMware because of its acquisition by another company, which has resulted in skyrocketing prices, making it very expensive and viable only for larger enterprises."
"Its compatibility is most valuable."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is that its storage container, LVM, and everything else work out of the box."
"The most valuable feature of Proxmox VE is its storage."
"Proxmox VE has many containers. You need to download the image and do basic configuration, after which it is operational within a few minutes. The solution provides many containers that are light in use and don't use a lot of memory. You don't have to spend a lot of resources."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it allows customers to use the power of KVM easily."
"The most valuable feature of Proxmox VE is its ease of use."
"You can easily migrate VMs between hosts."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
"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 allows multiple operating systems in the same physical machine."
"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."
"It is much more mature compared to Nutanix or SimpliVity when it's cross-platform based."
"We are able to simultaneously run multiple operating systems in a single machine and have virtually no performance hit."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"We have only command lines for a management application to remove sites. The solution needs a proper GUI."
"It would be nice to have total CPU and RAM allocations show for all VMs/CTs to avoid overloading an individual hypervisor."
"I don't have enough experience to say what can be improved."
"The documentation in Proxmox VE could improve."
"Proxmox VE can improve by importing OVF or OVA files directly from OVA. I need to convert all the images to raw images before importing them to Proxmox VE. If there is a solution that I can import directly from VMDK, it would be better."
"The initial setup has a pretty steep learning curve."
"The solution is not good at upgrading and this is why I using version 6.2 and not version 7. There is no easy way to implement the upgrade. I don't have enough experience to do it safely."
"We find it difficult to find the root cause of the issues."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
"The product could provide the features available in Microsoft Hyper-V."
"They could bring in many different features from VMware vSphere to Workstation."
"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 product’s virtual machine data backup feature needs upgrading."
"They could add more integration between them, and compatibility with the standard virtualization format."
"When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player."
"The tool can improve network storage technology."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's very cheap."
"This is a free open-source solution."
"The price of the solution is priced low."
"Proxmox is free software, but if you prefer the support and a more rested repository then you can pay for it."
"It is an open-source platform."
"The product is open-source and I rate its pricing an eight out of ten. You need to pay for support and it is costly."
"There is no subscription required for Proxmox VE."
"The cost is excellent."
"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 is an expensive tool. I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low or good price."
"The product has a moderate price."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"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."
"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 product is expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Virtualization Software solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
 

Comparisons

 

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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.