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Parallels Desktop vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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

Parallels Desktop
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
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 February 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Parallels Desktop is 6.3%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 12.7%, down from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Workstation12.7%
Parallels Desktop6.3%
Other81.0%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

MH
Payments Architect at Self Employed
A great platform to develop interoperable code on
The decision to transition away from Intel chips to their silicon. They are processing, and there are many examples. Instead of not having a product to use for a while, they have just released it now. However, if you're seeking a product that is industry-ready regularly or has plans to make it so, considering the upcoming changes, I recommend trying out Parallels Desktop in beta. When you're only dealing with Windows, we do much in the Windows version, but it is not improving the Windows operating system. If you're hosting a Windows platform or another version of the machine, the code will have limitations. Windows is not a walled garden, with no significant volatility or instability. Windows is quite versatile. I never encountered intrusive ads or unused features, which is quite good. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
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 like how, with Parallels, you can either boot into Mac or Windows to get better control over the resources of the laptops since you're sharing the resources in dual mode."
"Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS. It works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"VMware Player helps you to virtualize and install Ubuntu or any other operating system, even on a Windows laptop."
"The technical support is good."
"I haven't faced any inconveniences working with this solution. It is very easy to use."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
"Technical support is very good."
"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."
"It is much more mature compared to Nutanix or SimpliVity when it's cross-platform based."
 

Cons

"The biggest challenge is compatibility between VMware and Parallels because the two systems are incompatible. It can be challenging if you are switching between Windows and Mac. I recommend sticking with one product because there isn't good compatibility between the different products."
"There may have been some issues with device drivers on my Mac. Similarly, there are some issues with transferring data from Parallels to the Mac."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The big issue that we've always had with VMware, was the disparity between what was presented for a Windows-based client and a Linux-based client. The Windows client was always two or three releases ahead of the Linux client. We always wanted VMware to change and improve the feature sets between the client connector on Linux and on Windows."
"The price of VMware Workstation is an area of concern where improvements are needed."
"The product’s virtual machine data backup feature needs upgrading."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"VMware Workstation’s scalability could be improved."
"The solution should provide a guide on its installation."
"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

Information not available
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"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."
"The solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lytro, University of Washington, Slalom, Veeva Systems, Oklahoma Christian University
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Parallels Desktop vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.