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VMware Workstation vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
452
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (2nd)
VMware Workstation
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. VMware vSphere is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 19.6%, up 18.8% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 17.2% mindshare, up 14.5% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Vikas Dhumale - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems
Speaking about the application deployment process, I work at the L1 level in my company. In my company, the L3 is a different department that manages the application deployment process, and most of them go for tools apart from the ones under VMware to manage the VMs. I am only creating new VMs and assigning RAM space, and if something comes up, then I create new RHEL-based systems. When it comes to the application deployment process, my company manually deploys the applications. For automation purposes, our company uses Jenkins to collect the logs and provide a GUI with the help of a username and password to the end user, after which they can collect the logs from Jenkins. I work at an L1 level in my company. The integrations and infrastructure-related areas of the product are managed by another team in my company. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. Nowadays, people don't prefer to go for cloud-based solutions. Most of the companies prefer VMware as they want some level of security in the environment. VMware allows users to have in-house products. Most companies or banks are not moving over to cloud-based tools. VMware is used in banking systems. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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

"It's easy to use."
"The tool provides 99.99% uptime."
"The visibility that we have of our VMs is also important. What's being applied? Who has management of them? Laying it out in a virtual environment allows us customization for our students. We're able to respond to the students' needs much more quickly than we could in a physical environment."
"In terms of overall features, vSphere's stability stands out on top. Not only is it highly stable, but we're also able to have a quick backup server on standby."
"Very reliable with a great community."
"The tool's most valuable features are CPU virtualization and RAM allocation, which are better than those of other hypervisors."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the overall good ease of use and the good interface which makes it very easy to migrate from one bare metal to another. These are the two things which I like about it."
"The most useful features are ESXi, DRS, Auto Deploy, and the Lifecycle Manager."
"The product works well."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"It's really easy to build testing environments with VMware Player."
"Technical support is very good."
"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."
"The solution's technical support team is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is an easy-to-use product."
"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."
 

Cons

"I think the pricing could be lower, and the technical support could be improved."
"I would like to see the configuration simplified."
"The vSphere Client always feels slow, and/or like it doesn't keep up with what I'm trying to do. So I usually use the thick client most of the time."
"They need to stop pushing code out so fast."
"The management could be simplified for base-level customers, but of course, it would be difficult to match all customer needs."
"The only concern that I have with VMware is the support. It is very limited and can be better."
"I do not find it to be simple and efficient to manage. The tools, the interface to manage it, are a pain. In the latest version, they moved us to web-only, the Web Client and it's terrible. It's slow. It crashes. It's annoying. I used the Web Client in the older version and was happy. I would go back to the regular thick client but I don't have that option anymore, so I am always fighting it."
"As we continue to push mission-critical workloads into vSphere, and those workloads are not readily protected at the application layer for availability, continuing to increase the size limitations on FT-protected VMs would be a great advance."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
"I would want to see features included that make deployment easier."
"They could add more integration between them, and compatibility with the standard virtualization format."
"The tool can improve network storage technology."
"It would be great if VMware Workstation had more networking options and compatibility, that would be great. I would like to deploy virtual switches and play around with networking a bit more. Otherwise, I have to deploy ESXi Virtual Edition and emulate it, which is painful and clunky."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the licensing cost depends on the number of users."
"The licensing has become cheaper over time."
"The product is worth what you pay for it. I definitely feel like I"m getting good value."
"There are a lot of management and soft skills that we end up being able to save on. For example, my engineers in Canada could watch over systems in China, California, and Phoenix. Thus, it gives us the flexibility of administration."
"The pricing is reasonable and you are able to purchases licencing for certain time frame intervals, monthly, yearly etc."
"VMware licensing and pricing are a bit more expensive compared to others, like Hyper-V. However, you get what you pay for."
"Do not buy based on price alone. Many of my customers chose the lowest cost option only to discover that the additional funds needed to access even a few more features would have been money well spent. Likewise, if you are going to spend more money on additional features, then have a plan to actually deploy and integrate those features into your infrastructure. Many customers never take full advantage of the many features that they are paying for and that can be avoided by being proactive in developing your overall vision for the infrastructure."
"We don't have an active subscription. We have a prepaid or permanent license."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"VMware Workstation has a high price than competitors in the market."
"The product is expensive."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"With a VDI solution, there is always extra cost running a VDI solution but it's not for cost purposes anymore. In the beginning, it was to save money on hardware but at the moment it's other aspects that are more important why you should use a VDI solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Dec 15, 2021
Dec 15, 2021
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 work before we put it into production. VM Workstation can also give us an idea of the issues we can anticipate and how best to address them. This solution is also great at creating labs for our team ...
2 out of 4 answers
SA
Nov 23, 2021
Both are VMWare products. simply v-sphere is a hypervisor Tier-1 technology stack VMWare workstation is a desktop release installed on windows or Linux OS if your requirement is limited need few VMs for testing purpose you can go for Workstation. but if you need production VMs you need a separate independent hardware server for v-sphere esxi hypervisor. 
Nov 24, 2021
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 work before we put it into production. VM Workstation can also give us an idea of the issues we can anticipate and how best to address them. This solution is also great at creating labs for our team when working on certifications. VM Workstation can be a bit clunky, though. There is a lot of resource consumption and the overall performance could be a bit more effective. Visio stencil for technical documentation would be a nice improvement. This solution is relatively expensive.. VMware vSphere is very good from a recoverability point of view; everything can be stored much easier on a virtual server than a physical one. VMware vSphere is very good with memory sharing between VMs and CPU scheduling between VMs. The command-line tools integrate well with Microsoft products, so it’s easy to manipulate them. VMware vSphere is very stable and very scalable. The initial setup with VMware vSphere can be a bit complex. You need to have a good understanding of VMware. This solution does not permit hard partitioning. We found there were occasional bugs and errors and that the HTML5 is not up to par. The pricing and licensing options can get expensive. Conclusion: The two solutions are both VMware and perform amazingly. They are dependable and very reliable. VM vSphere is a hypervisor and is created for large-scale production. VM Workstation is best as a test environment, although many choose to use VM Workstation in front of VM vSphere and migrate test projects, results, and data documentation to VM vSphere.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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.
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
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