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Hyper-V vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

Hyper-V
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (3rd)
VMware Workstation
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. Hyper-V is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 14.1%, down 15.4% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 17.0% mindshare, up 13.2% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Ananth Narayana Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective and good for small workloads while addressing update-driven challenges is needed
I use Azure Monitor and other monitoring solutions to support clients in Accenture's managed services. We support multiple environments, primarily on cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and also on-premises environments with operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Solaris, among others…
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 virtualized applications and real time audition of the VMA is quite a good feature."
"Hyper-V can expand storage. For instance, if I have a VM running on NetApp or another platform, I can expand the storage without interrupting operations. It is useful when I need to quickly allocate more storage without causing downtime or performing maintenance tasks."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from how my company uses Hyper-V for replication."
"The most valuable feature of Hyper-V is the replica service."
"It is a very stable product. We have not had any issues with Hyper-V crashing itself."
"Hyper-V is much easier to deploy because Hyper-V is already installed inside Windows Server OS. You only need to turn on Hyper-V as a service, and then you can use it. The most convenient thing about Hyper-V is the operating system."
"The solution has good scalability."
"It's a very manageable product."
"VMware Workstation is great for migrating and patching operating systems."
"Great at solving connection problems."
"We are able to simultaneously run multiple operating systems in a single machine and have virtually no performance hit."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the DirectX support, you can run Microsoft Hyper-V in virtual environments which is good for me to test different installations. Additionally, you can set up different VLANs, and overall it is a complete solution."
"We can undo some changes using the snapshot feature."
"We initially intended to work with Hyper-V because we are selling a virtual appliance and thought our customers would want to run that on Hyper-V."
"It's stable."
 

Cons

"The security part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Sometimes there's a bit of slowness in the VMs."
"Hyper-V should ensure the features of VMware are covered within its platform."
"Microsoft tech support is horrible."
"There is a hard limitation of 20 gigs per file with Dropbox, so you've got to overcome that by chunking the zip files into something smaller and manageable."
"The solution should be compatible with different systems."
"We have our cluster connected to a Dell EMC VNX (SAN). The Hyper-V nodes are on Cisco UCS blades, and everything is interconnected via fiber. I attempted to use a virtual Fibre Channel connection to present a SAN volume to a VM but was not able to make that work."
"For critical workloads and more stable environments, I would recommend VMware over Hyper-V."
"The network configuration was not as easy as it could be and could take less time."
"The solution can be expensive."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"The problem we are facing with stability is that the network adapter causes crashes of the VM when we're using it for developing purposes."
"It takes too much time to load all the plug-ins and software."
"The solution should provide a guide on its installation."
"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."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting capabilities, particularly around snapshot activity. It would be helpful to have a summary of changes made prior to deploying an application, allowing us to provide comprehensive reports to our management on a regular basis."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I wish the licensing was simpler, and allowed for a greater number of VM's with the Microsoft standard licensing, but overall I think it's fair. The pricing is definitely fair."
"The licensing costs depend on the environment you have. If you have an environment of less than 10 or 30 VMs, It's nice to have a Hyper-V, but if you have more than 100 or 200, I would recommend using VCenter, VMware virtualization, especially for an on-premise solution."
"I would not say that it is a totally reasonably priced product as it is merged with our overall costs associated with Microsoft products. We bought some enterprise licenses for our company's data center for Windows Server 2019."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"It's cheap, but not the best."
"Licensing needs to be a lot easier to manage with Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware is easier."
"The product comes with Windows Server."
"I think it is expensive. I think if they want it to be more competitive, they should lower the price."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"It has the best licensing modules."
"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."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"The product has a moderate price."
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to virtualize Server or Client OS as it is a feature on Windows Server since 2008 a...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same features as with the more well-known products. Proxmox VE is very easy to deploy - it...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Akademiska Hus
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