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Azure Virtual Desktop 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

Azure Virtual Desktop
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Workstation
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Azure Virtual Desktop is 7.1%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 9.5%, down from 15.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Workstation9.5%
Azure Virtual Desktop7.1%
Other83.4%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

RC
Senior Advisor at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enhanced collaboration and security with seamless remote access has transformed work efficiency
We can integrate anything with Azure Virtual Desktop from an application perspective. The App-V has evolved into MSIX. To deliver an application to Azure Virtual Desktop, MSIX can be used by expanding it as a virtual hard disk and attaching it to the virtual machine. When this is done, users who need the application will have immediate access through Active Directory group assignment. One challenge with Virtual Desktop infrastructure is application delivery. From an infrastructure perspective, it's beneficial as we can have a fallback point - if one machine is down, we can have a disaster recovery site for redirection. The delivery of applications is a tedious process. Microsoft is working on building new products for efficient application installation. This feature might be included in upcoming releases. Currently, it's burdensome for IT administrators to create applications compatible with Virtual Desktop infrastructure, unlike traditional machines where direct installation is possible.
GC
Director of IT at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I've always found Azure Virtual Desktop to work for me without issues."
"This integration enhances productivity 100%, as it makes it much easier for us to give access to external third parties to work with us for collaboration."
"Absolutely, this solution is probably the leader in its field."
"Azure Virtual Desktop provides users the ability to do remote work in a secure environment that is easy to manage."
"Azure Virtual Desktop enables anyone connecting to Microsoft to use MFA (multi-factor authentication), totally secured to connect and has end-to-end encryption through tunnel encryption."
"The best feature is scalability, as it can be used from anywhere."
"The auto-scaling option allows provisioning additional virtual desktops based on user demand, making it scalable and flexible."
"The scalability is probably the most valuable feature since I can quickly add or remove machines or increase or decrease the size depending on resources to manage the cost better."
"It is much more mature compared to Nutanix or SimpliVity when it's cross-platform based."
"VMware Workstation is easy to manage and understand."
"It's really easy to build testing environments with VMware Player."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the speed of access and quality of upgrade. Those are the more important and pertinent aspects as far as we were concerned. Functionality and features were relevant for the customers. What a customer chose, we had to make sure that it operated."
"VMware Workstation made various enhancements to the system once the deployment was completed."
"The product is really easy to use."
"VMware Workstation allows multiple operating systems in the same physical machine."
"This product is solid and useful for quick test/dev environments."
 

Cons

"My overall rating of Azure Virtual Desktop is five out of ten. While the stability and cost-effectiveness are commendable, there is room for improvement in technical support."
"The costs are a bit difficult to predict upfront."
"One of the issues I had was the ability to add an internet proxy. I would like to see built-in proxy and internet filtering."
"The main issue is the response time, which needs improvement to be faster."
"The delivery of applications is a tedious process."
"I see areas for improvement in Azure Virtual Desktop, specifically regarding cost, as it is a little bit expensive."
"The costs are a bit difficult to predict upfront. When I am trying to sell it to a customer as a consultant, it is hard to give them a fixed price."
"The initial setup of Azure Virtual Desktop overall is complex. The complexities I've noticed are with application optimizations, and it can get complex by meeting customers' security requirements."
"It could have more platforms and CPUs."
"Customer Service: I think support is an issue for VMware - they only offer support for this product once you purchase more than 10 licenses. This is a show-stopper for smaller organizations like us."
"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."
"VMware Workstation could improve the export and import of virtual machines."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Eventually, we had to get some licenses with Broadcom, and all the costs went up dramatically to the point where if I had it to do over again, I might have made a different decision."
"Its networking features need improvement."
"If you have a big environment with thousands of servers, VMware Player can have problems, and migrations can be extremely slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"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."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"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."
"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."
"It has the best licensing modules."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Media Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Virtual Desktop?
The usual amount customers pay for this tool varies. I have seen large deployments catering to 500 or 700 users. Enterprises do use it, and they pay quite a bit for this.
What needs improvement with Azure Virtual Desktop?
I see areas for improvement in Azure Virtual Desktop, specifically regarding cost, as it is a little bit expensive. However, when you account for replacing dedicated hardware and the maintenance it...
What is your primary use case for Azure Virtual Desktop?
We use RDP with Azure and have some virtual desktops. A major use case for Azure Virtual Desktop is that we give access to external consultants so they can access our information and interact with ...
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 needs improvement with VMware Player?
Here's what happened with us regarding the prices for VMware Workstation: we purchased everything through Dell, and as is common, we got busy and didn't get everything activated. By the time we tri...
What is your primary use case for VMware Player?
I have a bunch of VMware servers set up, including our domain servers, our data servers, and some test machines on VMware. We're not really using VMware Workstation as workstations. We've got a cou...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Virtual Desktop vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.