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Cisco VXI vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco VXI
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
22nd
Average Rating
7.0
Number of Reviews
1
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 March 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Cisco VXI is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 12.0%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Workstation12.0%
Cisco VXI0.8%
Other87.2%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Sina Ghozati - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Specialist at Arrow Electronics
Straightforward implementation, scalable, but performance could improve
When using Cisco VXI in virtual environments there tends to be a lot of bugs with files you have to deploy across the virtual environment. You configure for hours, and then there is a bug that stops you, and you notice that you wasted hours. There's always room for improvement with these virtual environments because you're not dealing with the actual equipment, you're dealing with a virtual version of it that you have to install in a virtual environment. The performance of Cisco VXI could improve. It requires a lot of hardware and even if you install it on a server it is heavy on resources.
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

"The initial setup of Cisco VXI is straightforward."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot."
"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."
"It has given us the flexibility to recreate live server scenarios including the supporting networks and AD domain controllers; these are then used to test upgrades or migrations with no impact on the live servers or network."
"VMware player is a very good alternative for those who want a stable and free virtualization platform that can be easily run in various Operating System platforms like Windows, Linux, Macintosh etc."
"VMware Workstation allows you to run a virtual machine."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
"The features are good."
 

Cons

"When using Cisco VXI in virtual environments there tends to be a lot of bugs with files you have to deploy across the virtual environment. You configure for hours, and then there is a bug that stops you, and you notice that you wasted hours."
"The price should be reduced."
"The tool has limited scalability."
"When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player."
"It would be better if software updates occur automatically."
"It's been a struggle at times to keep drive shares and video drivers working across updates."
"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."
"I would want to see features included that make deployment easier."
"It takes too much time to load all the plug-ins and software."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an expensive solution when there are bugs. I'm always ready to give money for a complete solution where there are no bugs in it, but you will never find it."
"The product has a moderate price."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"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 solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
"It has the best licensing modules."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
9%
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

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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

VXI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Artoni Transporti, Calligaris, CIPCO, Citrix, Comcast, Desktone, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), LightEdge, Management Science Associates, Molina Healthcare, North West Redwater, Outscale
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix, Broadcom, Omnissa and others in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Updated: March 2026.
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