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Horizon 8 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

Horizon 8
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
VMware Workstation
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 7.6%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 17.0%, up from 13.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Tim  Abboud - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly, reasonably priced, and simple to install
It can be challenging to assess the stability of Horizon because it relies heavily on the underlying infrastructure, including vCenter, network, and storage performance. It is important to pay attention to these factors when evaluating the stability of the system. We rely on vCenter, network, and storage performance, and any weakness in these areas will affect the performance of Horizon. When discussing this with customers, I always emphasize the importance of these factors. If the foundation is solid, Horizon should not experience any performance issues. If the fundamentals are weak, we will encounter issues with Horizon on a regular basis. However, the product itself, VMware Horizon, is highly stable. While the Horizon product itself is very stable, it is important to be well-informed about any potential side effects from using other related products.
Shambhu Narayan  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-manage solution that has really good customer support compared to other market players
VMware Workstation makes it easy to manage all the resources that we are handling. VMware Workstation has reduced our infrastructure cost. If someone wants machines, I can create them easily using the solution. VMware Workstation is easier to manage than other workstations like Oracle Workstation. VMware Workstation is an easy-to-manage solution, and its support is really good compared to other market players. Overall, I rate VMware Workstation an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution is seamless and easy to use."
"It is stable and easily scalable."
"I think the tool is very useful for attracting new people, either new hires or consultants. Remote usage is also a significant benefit. VMware Horizon's security features depend on the customer and what they want. Of course, if they have multi-factor authentication, VMware Horizon supports that. It depends on their policies, but it works with pretty much anything."
"Horizon View's best features are that it gives you more control over the PCs on your infrastructure, and it's specialized for banking environments."
"The USB redirection is one of the valuable features of VMware Horizon"
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"One of the most interesting features in the enterprise version is the ability to do some support. There is a feature for remote control and debugging, which is something we didn't have before having Horizon 7 and the enterprise version."
"Instant Clone instantly creates another VM with a Delta disk, which is just the VMware backend. This helps with scalability and management."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the speed of access and quality of upgrade. Those are the more important and pertinent aspects as far as we were concerned. Functionality and features were relevant for the customers. What a customer chose, we had to make sure that it operated."
"VMware Workstation is great for migrating and patching operating systems."
"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."
"VMware Workstation is easy to manage and understand."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"I haven't faced any inconveniences working with this solution. It is very easy to use."
"We are able to simultaneously run multiple operating systems in a single machine and have virtually no performance hit."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
 

Cons

"We would like to see better performance with the product."
"I would love to see so they can actually allow the use of Linux, from a hosting environment as well as from a VDI client environment."
"Deployment and configuration could be simplified."
"The initial setup may be a little difficult for those with no experience."
"There is room for improvement in support. The response time could be faster."
"The initial setup was complex, and you need system experience to walk through it."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The technical support offered by VMware is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The network configuration was not as easy as it could be and could take less time. We faced challenges with backup due to limitations in the free version, requiring us to switch to a paid version."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
"I would want to see features included that make deployment easier."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"VMware Player should provide a cloud version with no limitations to hardware resources."
"The support can be improved."
"VMware Player isn't downgradable, so if you have a later set of VMs, you need to upgrade it or figure out a workaround."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing depends on the use cases. It depends on the company's needs and budget. For us, it was okay, not too expensive."
"VMware Horizon only has one license, which is a license to run desktops."
"VMware Horizon View is an expensive product. My company needs to opt for a subscription-based pricing model when it comes to the licensing costs attached to the product."
"I cannot provide a detailed comment on the pricing; however, I can say that it is quite expensive."
"It falls on the more expensive end in terms of cost."
"We have a three-year contract, for which we pay about ten euros per user per month."
"For long-term use, perpetual licenses are more cost-effective, and for short-term use, subscription-based would be more cost-effective."
"The solution is more expensive in comparison to Citrix but when comparing the technicalities VMware Horizon, is worth the money."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"It has the best licensing modules."
"The product is expensive."
"It is an expensive solution."
"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."
"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 product has a moderate price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does VMware Workspace One compare with VMware Horizon 7?
VMware Workspace One has a powerful set of helpful features. The solution offers very good documentation, the initial setup is easy, and the product is very stable and reliable. I think the fact th...
What do you like most about VMware Horizon 7?
VMware offers a friendly environment, and it's easy to provide the user with the package. It is a bundled solution that is readily deployable. The advantage lies in its simplicity, it requires mini...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon 7?
We paid a lot of money for software that is not really fully operational out of the box. We had to have patches from VMware to get it into production. Hence, we lost a lot of time implementing the ...
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.
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.