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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)
7th
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)
2nd
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 April 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Parallels Desktop is 5.2%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 11.2%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Workstation11.2%
Parallels Desktop5.2%
Other83.6%
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

"Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS. It works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS and works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"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."
"Simple free virtualization solution that you can depend on."
"Overall, this is a good product and I recommend it."
"VMware workstation is expensive but with its excellent features and performance for a desktop, the cost is nothing."
"It's stable."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the speed of access and quality of upgrade."
"For all the interface customers, VMware is a one-stop solution for all the virtualization needs."
"Users can deploy the test machines or the VM machines on their own system and do the testing part, setting up their own lab or own test setup on their system and doing what they need."
"The most valuable features of the VMware Workstation solutions are the ESXi and vCenter."
 

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 biggest challenge is compatibility between VMware and Parallels because the two systems are incompatible."
"The support can be improved."
"The product could provide the features available in Microsoft Hyper-V."
"It could have more platforms and CPUs."
"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."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
"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."
"The price should be reduced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"It is an expensive solution."
"With a VDI solution, there is always extra cost running a VDI solution but it's not for cost purposes anymore. In the beginning, it was to save money on hardware but at the moment it's other aspects that are more important why you should use a VDI solution."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
"The product has a moderate price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
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: March 2026.
886,174 professionals have used our research since 2012.