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VMware Workstation vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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

VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
456
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (2nd)
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. VMware vSphere is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 16.1%, down 20.0% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 15.4% mindshare, up 15.3% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…
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

"Its scalability potential is good."
"I like stability and the organization of the different functions into the I#M feature which is also quite useful, quite stable."
"It is highly scalable. We need to scale out and up, and we can do that with vSphere. We can easily add more storage, drives, or memory."
"It is a single pane of glass that lets you access your hosts and VMs."
"We have removed the need for backups and going to the office at three in the morning to change a server. I do everything during my business hours. It gave me my life back."
"What I like about it is being able to see my entire organization, especially with some of the newer enhanced links. All of my data centers show up in one view and I can see every server that's running. I also get performance statistics so if there are issues, major problems going on, I can see them."
"It is very easy to use and very stable."
"It is a powerful solution that enables us to take a snapshot and clone any version of machine."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot."
"We can undo some changes using the snapshot feature."
"VMware Workstation is easy to manage and understand."
"VMware Workstation allows multiple operating systems in the same physical machine."
"The performance is good."
"The technical support is good."
"The product is really easy to use."
 

Cons

"As we introduce the DevOps culture, we need to make sure that the principles and tools used to support this approach can be easily integrated and interoperated with the vSphere environment with no (or less) redundancy in tools and functionality."
"Sometimes you can't find items and you need to log onto different physical servers to do technical tasks. I don't fully understand why this is the case."
"VMware vSphere could be more secure and well-known to everyone."
"It would be highly beneficial for VMware to collaborate with local hosts and partners in countries like those in Africa to establish specific pricing that would align with the economic conditions of countries in Africa, ensuring suitability and compatibility with our consumption capabilities."
"The solution is stable. However, it could improve by being more secure."
"They need to further develop graphics virtualization."
"It could be more composable. At present, a fluid pool is not available to us. It would be great to have the flexibility."
"The technical support is good. However, it could be more seamless when it comes to chat support and lower response times."
"VMware Workstation uses more resources like CPU and disk space, especially the CPU, which is a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"VMware Workstation has some network limitations which could improve, it is not as flexible as VMware NSX. Additionally, it could support operating systems better. I only run some Linux versions and Windows at the moment but it would be nice to be able to take whatever operating system you want and run it."
"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 problem we are facing with stability is that the network adapter causes crashes of the VM when we're using it for developing purposes."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"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."
"The tool can improve network storage technology."
"My experience with Workstation is limited, so I don't know all the functionalities of this tool. Maybe Workstation could add some more compatibility with other vendors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You will find the cost is reasonably cheaper."
"Considering the number of users, it is pretty reasonable. I am not aware of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"The price of the solution could be cheaper compared to others."
"We pay for our license."
"They can do better by giving better pricing. Their pricing is on the expensive side. As a matter of fact, we are considering switching to OpenStack. We only work with perpetual licenses. As a company, we don't do subscriptions."
"The price is high, but you get back a lot."
"It keeps together a lot of different environments, making it easier and faster to work. It definitely has a good turn around."
"This is an expensive product and the price needs to be reduced."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"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."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"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."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Dec 15, 2021
Dec 15, 2021
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 work before we put it into production. VM Workstation can also give us an idea of the issues we can anticipate and how best to address them. This solution is also great at creating labs for our team ...
2 out of 4 answers
Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 23, 2021
Both are VMWare products. simply v-sphere is a hypervisor Tier-1 technology stack VMWare workstation is a desktop release installed on windows or Linux OS if your requirement is limited need few VMs for testing purpose you can go for Workstation. but if you need production VMs you need a separate independent hardware server for v-sphere esxi hypervisor. 
Nov 24, 2021
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 work before we put it into production. VM Workstation can also give us an idea of the issues we can anticipate and how best to address them. This solution is also great at creating labs for our team when working on certifications. VM Workstation can be a bit clunky, though. There is a lot of resource consumption and the overall performance could be a bit more effective. Visio stencil for technical documentation would be a nice improvement. This solution is relatively expensive.. VMware vSphere is very good from a recoverability point of view; everything can be stored much easier on a virtual server than a physical one. VMware vSphere is very good with memory sharing between VMs and CPU scheduling between VMs. The command-line tools integrate well with Microsoft products, so it’s easy to manipulate them. VMware vSphere is very stable and very scalable. The initial setup with VMware vSphere can be a bit complex. You need to have a good understanding of VMware. This solution does not permit hard partitioning. We found there were occasional bugs and errors and that the HTML5 is not up to par. The pricing and licensing options can get expensive. Conclusion: The two solutions are both VMware and perform amazingly. They are dependable and very reliable. VM vSphere is a hypervisor and is created for large-scale production. VM Workstation is best as a test environment, although many choose to use VM Workstation in front of VM vSphere and migrate test projects, results, and data documentation to VM vSphere.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
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