Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

VMware Workstation vs VMware vSphere 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

VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
456
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (2nd)
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. VMware vSphere is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 16.1%, down 20.0% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 15.4% mindshare, up 15.3% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…
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

"Technical support was helpful and knowledgeable."
"We use it to virtualize our server infrastructure. Virtualization has made it easier for us to manage our environment. We can manage it from location, the vSphere web client."
"The most valuable features are that it's stable, easy to use, and it's flexible."
"It's easy to use, and it is flexible."
"The solution is user-friendly. It is easy to convert, create, and manage systems."
"The features in VMware vSphere data recovery are excellent. Sometimes I've deleted an entire server before and was able to recover the deleted VM. I just used some command line tools and I was able to restore the deleted VM."
"Most valuable features are quick provisioning, High Availability, and DRS for balancing workload."
"I like the capability of vMotion, DRS, high availability, and resource distribution."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"It's stable."
"We can undo some changes using the snapshot feature."
"VMware is incredible and is designed for simple use. They help with efficiency."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the speed of access and quality of upgrade. Those are the more important and pertinent aspects as far as we were concerned. Functionality and features were relevant for the customers. What a customer chose, we had to make sure that it operated."
"The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up."
"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."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot."
 

Cons

"The platform's main area for improvement has increased, particularly after Broadcom acquired VMware."
"The one area where I would love to see an improvement is the HTML5 client. It's great, but it could get better."
"The price is a big issue for us because the market is very competitive in our country, so we can't really push our VMware vSphere products because the customers will prefer to use something cheaper."
"I would like to see better fault and performance reporting in the GUI."
"Where I think there is room for improvement is in the HTML5 interface in vCenter. What it lacks, for me, is integrating to VMware's other products, especially NSX."
"From my point of view, my advice is to design the solution properly the first time."
"They need to stop pushing code out so fast."
"I would like to see AI in future releases."
"The interface is a little wonky and needs to be improved."
"It could have more platforms and CPUs."
"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."
"VMware Workstation uses more resources like CPU and disk space, especially the CPU, which is a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"I would want to see features included that make deployment easier."
"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."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
"VMware Player isn't downgradable, so if you have a later set of VMs, you need to upgrade it or figure out a workaround."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license growth of vSphere depends on the growth of the visual environment and the addition of more hosts."
"This is an expensive product, especially because we need to pay in US Dollars."
"Our customers incur a yearly licensing fee, one of three or five years, in fact."
"The price of the solution could be cheaper compared to others."
"There is a standard license required for this solution."
"In today's market, agility is the new currency. Without virtualization, and vSphere in particular, we wouldn't have the level of agility in the business that we have today."
"VMware vSphere on-premises is still cheaper than the cloud."
"I'm satisfied with the VMware vSphere price. They have a bundle that is priced well. However, any advantage feature is very costly."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"The product has a moderate price."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"The solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Virtualization Software solutions are best for your needs.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.