We compared VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
VMware Workstation is praised for seamless virtual machine creation and reliability, but lacks feedback on customer service and ROI. In contrast, VMware Fusion offers exceptional customer support, reasonable pricing, and positive ROI. Fusion users also suggest areas for improvement, such as performance enhancements and better customer support.
Features: Valuable features in VMware Workstation include seamless VM creation, efficient resource use, reliable performance, helpful snapshots, and compatibility with different OS. In contrast, VMware Fusion emphasizes seamless integration, powerful VM performance, and extensive operating system support.
Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for VMware Workstation is not specified in the available data. However, for VMware Fusion, users have expressed concerns about the setup cost, as it may require technical expertise., The ROI for VMware Workstation is not provided, while user feedback for VMware Fusion describes a positive and beneficial ROI. Users found value in its ability to run multiple operating systems, improving productivity and cost savings.
Room for Improvement: VMware Workstation has no feedback for improvements, while VMware Fusion needs enhancements in performance, hardware compatibility, user interface, customer support, and software updates based on user feedback.
Deployment and customer support: From the user reviews, it is unclear how long it takes to deploy, set up, or implement VMware Workstation. However, for VMware Fusion, some users took three months for deployment and an extra week for setup, while others only needed a week for both. This suggests the terms deployment and setup may refer to the same period, and evaluating user context is crucial., The customer service for VMware Workstation cannot be assessed due to a lack of information. In contrast, user experiences with VMware Fusion's customer service have been exceptional, with prompt and helpful assistance, knowledgeable staff, and efficient and reliable support.
The summary above is based on 31 interviews we conducted recently with VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The product is easy to use and has a simple user interface."
"The whole point of it is to run Windows VMs on a Mac. This is the most valuable feature. There is snapshotting, but we don't really use that. The Pro version allows me to actually attach to the Windows ESXi infrastructure at the backend, and I'm able to create a session that I can attach to the VMware hooks at the backend, so one is running a VM, and the whole operating system is running on the actual Mac. The other one is literally a frontend to the VMs that are running in the infrastructure at the backend. These are the two main features I use."
"The most value that it provides is that it is versatile."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The most valuable features of the VMware Workstation solutions are the ESXi and vCenter."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"The product is really easy to use."
"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."
"It's stable."
"The features are good."
"We can undo some changes using the snapshot feature."
"The simplicity of the deployment and the implementation, and the footprint for the hardware are some of the solution's valuable features."
"VMware Fusion's licensing cost needs improvement."
"The way they handle snapshotting can be improved. One time, I moved a machine from one to another, and I tried to pull it up on the second machine, but it didn't work. This was because I had not cleaned up the snapshot before I deleted it and moved it across. So, when I tried to pull it up, it wouldn't let me bring it up. The backups for the VMs themselves can also be improved. I pretty much have to rely on Windows backups and not something on VMware. That's where it needs improvement. I am able to upload from my Fusion into the ESXi easily. I'm able to spin something up on Fusion and push it into the big arena, but the reverse is not as easy, that is, trying to pull something down from that. I would love to have a functionality where I could pull something from the VMware infrastructure into Fusion, but I'm not sure if I can take something from ESXi and pull it into Fusion."
"I would like to see newer and updated cloud functions."
"Its installation process could be simpler."
"VMware Workstation’s scalability could be improved."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
"VMware Workstation could improve the export and import of virtual machines."
"They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"The support can be improved."
"They could bring in many different features from VMware vSphere to Workstation."
"It could have more platforms and CPUs."
VMware Fusion is ranked 7th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 5 reviews while VMware Workstation is ranked 2nd in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 42 reviews. VMware Fusion is rated 9.0, while VMware Workstation is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of VMware Fusion writes "Robust software with efficient snapshot and cloning features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Workstation writes "An easy-to-manage solution that has really good customer support compared to other market players". VMware Fusion is most compared with Parallels Desktop, VMware Player, VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon and Citrix Workspace, whereas VMware Workstation is most compared with Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, KVM, Proxmox VE and Oracle VM VirtualBox. See our VMware Fusion vs. VMware Workstation report.
See our list of best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
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