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Hyper-V vs VMware Workstation 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

Hyper-V
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (3rd)
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. Hyper-V is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 14.1%, down 15.4% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 17.0% mindshare, up 13.2% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Ananth Narayana Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective and good for small workloads while addressing update-driven challenges is needed
I use Azure Monitor and other monitoring solutions to support clients in Accenture's managed services. We support multiple environments, primarily on cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and also on-premises environments with operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Solaris, among others…
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

"The simplicity and intuitiveness of the platform. It was a very simple adaptation, if you have any experience in virtualization."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate the Hyper-Visor center from one console."
"Hyper-V improved the infrastructure drastically, not only from a performance perspective but from a control/administration view as well."
"We appreciate how easy this solution is to implement on standalone severs."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"Live migration, SMB3."
"I value the simplicity of configuration because it has worked as expected for my client."
"Hyper-V helps to make a replica server between two machines. It is very easy to learn."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"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."
"VMware Workstation allows multiple operating systems in the same physical machine."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
"Great at solving connection problems."
"We can undo some changes using the snapshot feature."
 

Cons

"Hyper-V is hosted on OS but if your OS scratches you are in big trouble. In addition, if a host fails, automatically the machine and the virtual machine should boot from another source. Those type of features would benefit Hyper-V."
"Disaster recovery capabilities are the primary choice for improvement."
"There needs to be more functionality overall in the Hyper-V manager."
"The product can be a bit difficult to use."
"For critical workloads and more stable environments, I would recommend VMware over Hyper-V."
"Hyper-V could benefit with improvements to their management interface."
"I suggest improvements in platform support and performance considerations for Hyper-V."
"There are some storage problems which do occur in high load systems, especially SQL workloads."
"When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player."
"Its price could be better."
"The tool can improve network storage technology."
"VMware Workstation could improve the export and import of virtual machines."
"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."
"Performance could be improved, it's somewhat clunky."
"The price of VMware Workstation could improve."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is competitive, and a bit less than other options on the market."
"We rent our licenses for this solution, which means that we also have access to premium-level support. The rental cost is payable annually and includes a number of products that work with this solution. It also allows us to run unlimited virtual machines without needing a license for each one."
"We previously used VMware, but we switched because Hyper-V is cheaper and delivers the same stability for less money."
"Hyper-V is part of Windows Server, so there are no extra costs for the product."
"I do not have any comments about pricing or licensing of the product."
"We did not have to pay extra money for the Failover Clustering feature."
"In terms of the licensing, if you are using Microsoft Windows 100%, it is OK. But, when you start mixing other environments, it becomes quite tricky."
"The Hyper-V pricing and licensing are very good."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"The solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
"It has the best licensing modules."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"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's costs are lifetime."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
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

How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to virtualize Server or Client OS as it is a feature on Windows Server since 2008 a...
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...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
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

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Akademiska Hus
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