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VMware Fusion Pro vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

VMware Fusion Pro
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
9
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 June 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of VMware Fusion Pro is 7.4%, down from 24.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 9.8%, down from 17.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Workstation9.8%
VMware Fusion Pro7.4%
Other82.8%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Bruce Lundberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux HPC Systems Administrator at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Create custom virtual environments quickly with minor macOS integration issues
The primary advantage of VMware Fusion Pro is its simplicity in creating custom virtual machines. It allows quick construction and provides connectivity to full VMware server systems, enabling remote management. It facilitates downloading images from main VMware servers for local testing. The ability to construct a virtual environment on my laptop meets my needs, even ones I wasn't aware of.
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

"VMware Fusion Pro offers simplicity of use and stability."
"My advice right now would be to download it for free and use that instead of a VirtualBox or some of the other free stuff because it is more flexible than other solutions."
"The product is easy to use and has a simple user interface."
"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 important feature of VMware Fusion is that it helps me rapidly launch a new OS."
"Veeam Backup and Replication is the common product for backing up virtual machines."
"For me, VMware Fusion Pro has been invaluable, allowing me to meet all my needs with a single system."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
"It's really easy to build testing environments with VMware Player."
"It paid for itself multiple times, especially when we had to pull in older Windows 2003 servers for disk manipulation."
"The most valuable feature of the VMware Workstation is the ease to create a development environment. When you have different ongoing developments, you often need to create a lot of different development environments. With this workstation solution, you can have a development environment for all the things you develop."
"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."
"For all the interface customers, VMware is a one-stop solution for all the virtualization needs."
"I haven't faced any inconveniences working with this solution. It is very easy to use."
 

Cons

"I would like to see newer and updated cloud functions."
"Additionally, enhancing the API interactions could improve the ability to manage VS and deploy various kinds of guests."
"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."
"VMware Fusion's licensing cost needs improvement."
"Its installation process could be simpler."
"The backups for the VMs themselves can also be improved. I pretty much have to rely on Windows backups and not something on VMware."
"Fusion is not meant to be scalable. It runs on desktops and laptops, indicating limitations in scalability."
"The only issue I've experienced with VMware Fusion Pro is that it doesn't register correctly with the main macOS system, causing repeated notifications about background installations. This is a minor inconvenience."
"I think that performance could be improved by making it more effective and less resource consuming."
"The initial setup is quite easy, but can be daunting to someone unfamiliar with desktop computing environments."
"The price of VMware Workstation could improve."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"I have had issues with the virtual network adapters in the past that has taken some time to troubleshoot."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"The solution can be expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost varies depending on the season and whether it is scaled up or scaled down, but I would guess that it's approximately $1,000 per month."
"Starting with version 12, it is now free on a Mac for personal use. Fusion Pro has a cost."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven or eight. It is highly-priced."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"The solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive tool. I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low or good price."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
17%
University
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Fusion?
The pricing of VMware Fusion Pro is reasonable. The licensing covers all minor version updates, while major updates require payment every three years. Buying it once can sustain you for years witho...
What needs improvement with VMware Fusion?
In future updates of VMware Fusion Pro, I think there should be another community to input features. It is an infrastructure tool that may need embedding some AI to help or catching up with the new...
What is your primary use case for VMware Fusion?
My specialty is about IBM AS/400 applications, so I got to be in contact with several packages, including LX, which is why I had this research on your website.I'm mostly interested in ERP packages;...
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 needs improvement with VMware Player?
Here's what happened with us regarding the prices for VMware Workstation: we purchased everything through Dell, and as is common, we got busy and didn't get everything activated. By the time we tri...
What is your primary use case for VMware Player?
I have a bunch of VMware servers set up, including our domain servers, our data servers, and some test machines on VMware. We're not really using VMware Workstation as workstations. We've got a cou...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NetApp
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware Fusion Pro vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.