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

Cisco VXI 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

Cisco VXI
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
20th
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Workstation
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
1st
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 December 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Cisco VXI is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 13.9%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Workstation13.9%
Cisco VXI0.6%
Other85.5%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Sina Ghozati - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Specialist at Arrow Electronics
Straightforward implementation, scalable, but performance could improve
When using Cisco VXI in virtual environments there tends to be a lot of bugs with files you have to deploy across the virtual environment. You configure for hours, and then there is a bug that stops you, and you notice that you wasted hours. There's always room for improvement with these virtual environments because you're not dealing with the actual equipment, you're dealing with a virtual version of it that you have to install in a virtual environment. The performance of Cisco VXI could improve. It requires a lot of hardware and even if you install it on a server it is heavy on resources.
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

"The initial setup of Cisco VXI is straightforward."
"Technical support is very good."
"Instead of relying on dual-boot operating systems, I can utilize open-source tools within my infrastructure. This approach allows me to create an in-house cloud platform suitable for testing. VMware Workstation enables me to perform tasks across various operating systems using a single device. It has helped me save time."
"We initially intended to work with Hyper-V because we are selling a virtual appliance and thought our customers would want to run that on Hyper-V."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"VMware Workstation has tons of third-party support, the largest partner ecosystem. VMware works with a ton of different vendors. They have plugins for almost everything. Other hypervisors lack the flexibility that VMware Workstation offers."
"The performance is good."
"Great at solving connection problems."
"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."
 

Cons

"When using Cisco VXI in virtual environments there tends to be a lot of bugs with files you have to deploy across the virtual environment. You configure for hours, and then there is a bug that stops you, and you notice that you wasted hours."
"The solution should provide a guide on its installation."
"VMware Player isn't downgradable, so if you have a later set of VMs, you need to upgrade it or figure out a workaround."
"The network configuration was not as easy as it could be and could take less time. We faced challenges with backup due to limitations in the free version, requiring us to switch to a paid version."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"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."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"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 solution can be expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution when there are bugs. I'm always ready to give money for a complete solution where there are no bugs in it, but you will never find it."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions are best for your needs.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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.
 

Also Known As

VXI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Artoni Transporti, Calligaris, CIPCO, Citrix, Comcast, Desktone, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), LightEdge, Management Science Associates, Molina Healthcare, North West Redwater, Outscale
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Citrix, Omnissa and others in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.