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VMware Fusion Pro vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

VMware Fusion Pro
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
9
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 May 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of VMware Fusion Pro is 8.6%, down from 25.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 10.4%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Workstation10.4%
VMware Fusion Pro8.6%
Other81.0%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Bruce Lundberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux HPC Systems Administrator at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Create custom virtual environments quickly with minor macOS integration issues
The primary advantage of VMware Fusion Pro is its simplicity in creating custom virtual machines. It allows quick construction and provides connectivity to full VMware server systems, enabling remote management. It facilitates downloading images from main VMware servers for local testing. The ability to construct a virtual environment on my laptop meets my needs, even ones I wasn't aware of.
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 most value that it provides is that it is versatile."
"The most value that it provides is that it is versatile."
"For me, VMware Fusion Pro has been invaluable, allowing me to meet all my needs with a single system."
"Veeam Backup and Replication is the common product for backing up virtual machines."
"My advice right now would be to download it for free and use that instead of a VirtualBox or some of the other free stuff because it is more flexible than other solutions."
"The primary advantage of VMware Fusion Pro is its simplicity in creating custom virtual machines."
"VMware Fusion Pro offers simplicity of use and stability."
"VMware Fusion Pro offers simplicity of use and stability."
"The most valuable features of the VMware Workstation solutions are the ESXi and vCenter."
"I like that it's easy to use. It's easy to deploy virtual machines. You have to insert your ISO and the image of your OS and configure it. They provide a step-by-step guide, and you have to follow it. In the end, you have to start the machine, and that's all you have to do. I liked that they synchronized the mouse, keyboard, and everything. When you finish the installation, it directly links to your laptop. This makes copying and pasting things from my laptop inside the virtual machine easy."
"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."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the speed of access and quality of upgrade."
"The product is really easy to use."
"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."
"It will not harm any of the computer settings to run a specific program, because we have an individual copy of Windows installed on the virtual machine so anybody can access that, and it helps us a lot."
"This product is solid and useful for quick test/dev environments."
 

Cons

"Fusion is not meant to be scalable. It runs on desktops and laptops, indicating limitations in scalability."
"Its installation process could be simpler."
"Additionally, enhancing the API interactions could improve the ability to manage VS and deploy various kinds of guests."
"The backups for the VMs themselves can also be improved. I pretty much have to rely on Windows backups and not something on VMware."
"VMware Fusion's licensing cost needs improvement."
"The only issue I've experienced with VMware Fusion Pro is that it doesn't register correctly with the main macOS system, causing repeated notifications about background installations."
"The only issue I've experienced with VMware Fusion Pro is that it doesn't register correctly with the main macOS system, causing repeated notifications about background installations. This is a minor inconvenience."
"Fusion is not meant to be scalable as it runs on desktops and laptops."
"The price should be reduced."
"I think that performance could be improved by making it more effective and less resource consuming."
"One improvement is mouse emulation. Some people in the office want to use a five—or seven-button mouse like they're used to at home, but they can't with the workstation setup."
"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."
"For our needs, the issue is that there is no way to take an existing system out of the testing environment, clone it with everything that it's currently set up on, and put it into production without having to create a whole new one."
"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."
"VMware Workstation has some network limitations which could improve, it is not as flexible as VMware NSX. Additionally, it could support operating systems better. I only run some Linux versions and Windows at the moment but it would be nice to be able to take whatever operating system you want and run it."
"The initial setup is quite easy, but can be daunting to someone unfamiliar with desktop computing environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost varies depending on the season and whether it is scaled up or scaled down, but I would guess that it's approximately $1,000 per month."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven or eight. It is highly-priced."
"Starting with version 12, it is now free on a Mac for personal use. Fusion Pro has a cost."
"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 would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"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."
"The product has a moderate price."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"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’s pricing is moderate."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
University
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Fusion?
The pricing of VMware Fusion Pro is reasonable. The licensing covers all minor version updates, while major updates require payment every three years. Buying it once can sustain you for years witho...
What needs improvement with VMware Fusion?
In future updates of VMware Fusion Pro, I think there should be another community to input features. It is an infrastructure tool that may need embedding some AI to help or catching up with the new...
What is your primary use case for VMware Fusion?
My specialty is about IBM AS/400 applications, so I got to be in contact with several packages, including LX, which is why I had this research on your website.I'm mostly interested in ERP packages;...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NetApp
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware Fusion Pro vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.