We compared VMware Player and VMware Fusion based on our user's reviews in several parameters.
In summary, VMware Player is praised for its ease of use, compatibility, and performance, while VMware Fusion excels in seamless integration, powerful performance, customer service, pricing, and ROI. Users mention areas for improvement in both products, such as enhancing performance and customer support for Fusion and overall improvements for Player.
Features: The valuable features of VMware Player include ease of use, seamless virtual machine integration, extensive compatibility with operating systems, efficient resource utilization, and reliable performance. On the other hand, VMware Fusion is praised for its seamless integration, powerful virtual machine performance, and extensive support for different operating systems.
Pricing and ROI: VMware Player has no available data on pricing, setup cost, and licensing. In contrast, VMware Fusion is considered reasonably priced but has concerns about setup cost, requiring technical expertise. Users appreciate its flexible licensing options., The ROI from VMware Player is not provided, while VMware Fusion receives positive feedback on its ability to improve productivity, cost-effectiveness, and time savings.
Room for Improvement: VMware Player shows potential for improvement based on the provided answers. On the other hand, VMware Fusion has been highlighted by users for its need for enhancements in performance, hardware compatibility, user interface, customer support, and bug fixes.
Deployment and customer support: The user reviews for VMware Player do not provide any information to summarize the reviews. On the other hand, the reviews for VMware Fusion vary greatly in terms of the duration required for establishing a new tech solution. Some users spent three months on deployment and an additional week on setup, while others only needed a week for both phases. This suggests that the terms deployment and setup may refer to the same period, but it also highlights the need to consider the context in which users use these terms to accurately evaluate implementation time., VMware Player lacks available information on customer service, while VMware Fusion receives exceptional feedback. Users praise Fusion's prompt assistance, knowledgeable and professional support staff, and efficient resolution of issues, ensuring a smooth user experience.
The summary above is based on 9 interviews we conducted recently with VMware Player and VMware Fusion users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The whole point of it is to run Windows VMs on a Mac. This is the most valuable feature. There is snapshotting, but we don't really use that. The Pro version allows me to actually attach to the Windows ESXi infrastructure at the backend, and I'm able to create a session that I can attach to the VMware hooks at the backend, so one is running a VM, and the whole operating system is running on the actual Mac. The other one is literally a frontend to the VMs that are running in the infrastructure at the backend. These are the two main features I use."
"The most value that it provides is that it is versatile."
"The product is easy to use and has a simple user interface."
"The solution's technical support team is excellent."
"VMware Player helps you to virtualize and install Ubuntu or any other operating system, even on a Windows laptop."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Player is the ability to snapshot with or without memory."
"VMware Player's best feature is the ability to run different OS's simultaneously."
"It's really easy to build testing environments with VMware Player."
"Its installation process could be simpler."
"VMware Fusion's licensing cost needs improvement."
"The way they handle snapshotting can be improved. One time, I moved a machine from one to another, and I tried to pull it up on the second machine, but it didn't work. This was because I had not cleaned up the snapshot before I deleted it and moved it across. So, when I tried to pull it up, it wouldn't let me bring it up. The backups for the VMs themselves can also be improved. I pretty much have to rely on Windows backups and not something on VMware. That's where it needs improvement. I am able to upload from my Fusion into the ESXi easily. I'm able to spin something up on Fusion and push it into the big arena, but the reverse is not as easy, that is, trying to pull something down from that. I would love to have a functionality where I could pull something from the VMware infrastructure into Fusion, but I'm not sure if I can take something from ESXi and pull it into Fusion."
"I would like to see newer and updated cloud functions."
"Its networking features need improvement."
"VMware Player isn't downgradable, so if you have a later set of VMs, you need to upgrade it or figure out a workaround."
"When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player."
"The tool has limited scalability."
"VMware Player should provide a cloud version with no limitations to hardware resources."
VMware Fusion is ranked 7th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 5 reviews while VMware Player is ranked 8th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 10 reviews. VMware Fusion is rated 9.0, while VMware Player is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of VMware Fusion writes "Robust software with efficient snapshot and cloning features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Player writes "A highly stable solution that has the ability to snapshot with or without memory". VMware Fusion is most compared with Parallels Desktop, VMware Workstation, VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon and Citrix Workspace, whereas VMware Player is most compared with VMware Workstation, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace and Parallels Desktop. See our VMware Fusion vs. VMware Player report.
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