We performed a comparison between Parallels Desktop and VMware Workstation based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS. It 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."
"VMware Workstation is great for migrating and patching operating systems."
"VMware Workstation is easy to manage and understand."
"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."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"VMware Workstation allows you to run a virtual machine."
"It will not harm any of the computer settings to run a specific program. For example, if a program needs a specific security policy, we don't have to use the shared configuration. We have an individual copy of Windows installed on the virtual machine, so anybody can access that. It helps us a lot."
"It is much more mature compared to Nutanix or SimpliVity when it's cross-platform based."
"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. 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."
"VMware Workstation has some network limitations which could improve, it is not as flexible as VMware NSX. Additionally, it could support operating systems better. I only run some Linux versions and Windows at the moment but it would be nice to be able to take whatever operating system you want and run it."
"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."
"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."
"It would be better if software updates occur automatically."
"The solution can be expensive."
"I have had issues with the virtual network adapters in the past that has taken some time to troubleshoot."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"I need to buy a newer version of the tool to support Windows Server."
Parallels Desktop is ranked 10th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 2 reviews while VMware Workstation is ranked 2nd in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 41 reviews. Parallels Desktop is rated 7.6, while VMware Workstation is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Parallels Desktop writes "A great platform to develop interoperable code on". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Workstation writes "An easy-to-manage solution that has really good customer support compared to other market players". Parallels Desktop is most compared with VMware Fusion, NComputing vSpace, NVIDIA GRID, VMware Horizon View and Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), whereas VMware Workstation is most compared with Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, KVM, Proxmox VE and Oracle VM. See our Parallels Desktop vs. VMware Workstation report.
See our list of best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
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