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IBM PowerVM 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

IBM PowerVM
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (9th)
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. IBM PowerVM is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 1.3%, up 1.1% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 15.1% mindshare, down 15.4% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers mobility and you can seamlessly move a VM between different PowerVM instances
PowerVM is likely one of the most stable hypervisors available, albeit highly specialized. However, it is solely command-line based. When someone manages virtualization as a whole, they typically expect a graphical user interface (GUI) for configurations. This is the case for Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMware. But with PowerVM, you need to understand and memorize commands to operate the hypervisor. I believe PowerVM should have a GUI; that would be a significant improvement.
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

"Active Memory Sharing dynamically reallocates memory of running partitions based on changing workload demands. The memory for the pool is carved out from Physical memory and is made logical memory. The said memory is not available to be assigned to partitions as dedicated memory. A min, max and desired as well as weight is assigned to the memory of each lpar to help hypervisor make a decision in case a condition where priority is to be given to a certain lapr to use the memory form shared pool."
"It's scalable. Whenever we buy another product other than hardware, it's easily integrated into the virtualization software that we download."
"I rate IBM PowerVM a ten out of ten for its capabilities in the cloud environment."
"PowerVM stands out for me as a hardware-based hypervisor, which is optimized with less overhead."
"PowerVM excels in efficiently managing all systems and environments, including development, UI, and production."
"IBM PowerVM provides robust virtualization capabilities, integrated within the machine itself."
"IBM PowerVM has the highest clock speed."
"What I like about this solution, is that it is easy to configure."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The performance is good."
"The simplicity of the deployment and the implementation, and the footprint for the hardware are some of the solution's valuable features."
"It's stable."
"The initial setup is simple and takes only five minutes to complete."
"I appreciate the ease of backup and snapshot creation. The ability to revert to previous versions without losing data is very useful for our team."
"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

"A GUI version of VIOS would be a great plus for people moving from Intel-based hypervisors."
"The product's pricing could be less expensive compared to other competitors."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"The performance should be improved."
"IBM PowerVM does not integrate with Microsoft."
"To make it a ten, I would like for them to add automation and configuration tools in order to help use the manager."
"IBM PowerVM could improve the price because it is expensive."
"The licensing could be better."
"They could add more integration between them, and compatibility with the standard virtualization format."
"Lacks the ability to clone onto another system rather than starting from scratch."
"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."
"They could bring in many different features from VMware vSphere to Workstation."
"They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation."
"Performance could be improved, it's somewhat clunky."
"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 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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is on the higher side. Typically, we invest in the machine and support for two, three, or five years."
"The tool is competitively priced, especially right now."
"The pricing for PowerVM is on the higher. Regarding the license, it can be on a monthly or annual basis, depending on the deal. Customers may choose to pay annually, one-time, or monthly based on their agreement with the sales team. As for additional costs, customers need to pay for support if they opt for it. If not, they only pay for the hardware cost as per the agreement."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price of the solution could improve, it is expensive."
"The license cost is bundled with IBM Power Systems as it is limited to RISC-based IBM systems only."
"The price varies from case to case and you have to negotiate it for every project."
"IBM PowerVM's pricing is cheap."
"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."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM PowerVM?
Managing other operating systems is also straightforward with IBM PowerVM.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM PowerVM?
IBM’s licensing model offers flexibility in subscription terms, now allowing one- to five-year options. They have introduced a subscription-based model for some systems, creating a more cost-effect...
What needs improvement with IBM PowerVM?
From a product perspective, I would like to see faster certification of open-source products on IBM Power Systems ( /products/ibm-power-systems-reviews ). While the product has robust features and ...
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

 

Also Known As

PowerVM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sto, Soitec, SNO, Bundesrechenzentrum GmbH, Al Mansour Holding, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Huhtamaki, ELK Group, IT-Informatik, Arkansas Tech University, Pneuhage
Akademiska Hus
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