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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

"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."
"Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS and works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
"VMware is way cheaper if I take it as an application or a software compared to any hardware."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
"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."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"VMware Player helps you to virtualize and install Ubuntu or any other operating system, even on a Windows laptop."
"The most valuable feature of the VMware Workstation is the ease to create a development environment."
"Simple free virtualization solution that you can depend on."
 

Cons

"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."
"The biggest challenge is compatibility between VMware and Parallels because the two systems are incompatible."
"The price should be reduced."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"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."
"Lacks the ability to clone onto another system rather than starting from scratch."
"Compared to Virtualbox, VMware Player is slightly heavier on resource usage than Virtualbox."
"They could bring in many different features from VMware vSphere to Workstation."
"VMware Player has a very high memory footprint and requires a lot of memory for running multiple operating systems under a single host system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"The product is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
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: April 2026.
890,071 professionals have used our research since 2012.