VMware Workstation Reviews

It helps minimize noise and clutter in common office spaces. The virtual machines run on separate machines or servers, often located away from the office environment. Much of what we do is through PC-over-IP, which reduces the need for local hardware and streamline management. It simplifies bulk configurations, makes it easier to track updates, apply patches, and handle routine maintenance tasks like installing antivirus software.

It keeps the noise out of common office spaces because all the virtual machines run on racks away from everything else. A lot of what we do in the office is PC over IP, so this setup reduces noise and makes bulk configurations easier. It also simplifies tracking updates, applying patches, installing antivirus software, and handling routine maintenance tasks.

Having ten people working off a single piece of hardware reduces costs.

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. They want the flexibility to use the same type of mouse at work, but it's not supported.

I have been using VMware Workstation since 2015.

Since HP bought it, response times have slowed. Most smart people stayed, but they let them lose over time. This has caused longer response times, though the remaining staff is top-notch. 

When setting up VMware, you have to install the software and virtual machines. The speed of the underlying hardware affects how long the setup takes. Typically, the team creates one configuration and then duplicates it across as many virtual machines as needed. Each virtual machine setup takes about ten minutes, but the initial configuration can take a few hours to tweak and ensure everything is working properly, including network addresses. Aside from a few manual changes after each copy, it's straightforward.

It's less complicated than keeping your Windows machine at home up to date. You can deploy updates in bulk to all the virtual machines overnight from a single location without anyone needing to intervene. This ensures everyone is on the same version with the same patches, which brings a lot of consistency.

It is very cost-effective.

You can get a pre-bundled, pre-packaged, pre-configured virtual machine from a provider like Cisco. When you create the virtual machine, you specify the number of cores and the amount of memory, and the package handles the rest, setting up the Cisco infrastructure.

Since the most recent Windows update and with the PC over IP solution we use, we've been experiencing occasional conflicts with workstation cards that connect to the remote desktops. These random crashes, which started in the last three months, are unrecoverable, and we have to reboot the entire base hardware.

It's clean and stable.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use VMware Workstation for cybersecurity features while testing virtual machines in our environment.

The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot.

They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation.

I rate the platform’s scalability a ten out of ten.

I have worked with multiple virtual machine technologies. In terms of performance, VMware Workstation can be resource-intensive, particularly when compared to alternatives like Hyper-V or VirtualBox.

The initial setup is easy. However, it could be a learning curve for new users and require training. I rate the process a ten out of ten.

The platform saves much time as it snapshots the testing process for reuse across different environments. It proves crucial in a development workflow by allowing the creation of a base image. It takes snapshots at different development stages or scenarios, and teams can effortlessly switch back to specific points for testing. The snapshot functionality can isolate and manipulate guests independently, impacting only the host system.

It has sped up the project management process. We don’t have to go back and reinstall it from the beginning.

The cloning feature in VMware Workstation benefits operations such as penetration testing and ethical hacking. We can clone a box and ship it to the customer for easy deployment.

I rate it a nine out of ten.

We use VMware Workstation for basic server management.

The product offers a cost-effective solution.

VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another.

They could work on the pricing model for the end users. It could be more affordable. There could be more integration with different tools.

We have been using VMware Workstation for a year. At present, we are using the version 17.

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

We have four VMware Workstation users in our organization. We use it 24/7. I rate its scalability a three out of ten. There is room for improvement. It does impact the workflow in terms of backup and restore.

The technical support team takes time to respond.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward. I rate the process an eight out of ten. The deployment involves setting up a server with the help of a system administrator.

We implement the product with our in-house team. It requires four executives for deployment and maintenance.

The product has a moderate price. There are no additional costs. I rate its pricing a six out of ten.

We evaluated Microsoft Hyper-V. It is an expensive product. So, we decided to go with VMware Workstation.

I recommend VMware Workstation and rate it an eight out of ten.

We use VMware Player mostly to connect the server hosting the client. I use the solution more like a manager.

The most valuable feature of VMware Player is the ability to snapshot with or without memory.

When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player. You'll see it on your web front, and you'll be unable to change the resolution. You can't manage any of them without clicking on them.

I have worked with VMware Player for about three years.

VMware Player is a pretty stable solution. I haven't had any problems connecting the solution to a much older client appliance. It didn't have any issues with what it was supposed to do.

VMware Player's scalability works fine. You could potentially add as many users as you want on it, and I haven't had any issues adding multiple clients.

VMware Player's technical support is good. Overall, the technical support team gets back to you pretty quickly.

Positive

VMware Player's initial setup is straightforward. Once you install the solution, you can build your own local cluster or connect an external one.

VMware products are usually pricey. With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair.

Overall, I rate VMware Player a nine out of ten.

I'm a teacher and I show it to students. I use the solution for virtualization for testing some systems and features in IT, for example, containers. 

The most valuable aspect is virtualization. It is very strong on workstations and PCs.

It is easy to implement the product.

There is a free version.

It's stable.

The solution is missing a snapshot feature.

The solution can be expensive.

It's not as easy to use as, for example, Oracle's Virtual Box.

I started using the solution 11 or 12 years ago. I've used it for a while at this point. 

I haven't had any stability issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

I have not noted any scalability at all with this product.

I also use Oracle Virtual Box. I use it more regularly. I now use Workstation very little. It's also less comfortable to use than Oracle. Both are easy to set up.

The implementation process of the solution is very straightforward and simple. It's not overly complex. 

I have it for personal use or just to teach and therefore I don't find it expensive. I use the free version. It's a bit expensive, the paid version. 

I'm an end-user.

Beyond the high cost, it is a very good product. I'd rate it eight out of ten.

I am a system integrator and have experience with many different IT products. I regularly work with a lot of different technologies. Recently, I have been working on configuring VMware and virtualization. For example, I am considering upgrading the ESXi.

We run VMware Workstation locally. You can run it on AWS but that's not necessary for what we're doing. There are use cases where it will be applicable but I'm dealing with a construction company, as opposed to a heavily vested IT company. The use cases are quite a bit more laid back.

We primarily use it for virtualization. We image older systems, so we have a backup copy that's immediately accessible. Those are the major use cases.

Virtualization is awesome when you're running particular applications and you need to cookie-cutter them, which is what I'm doing. I've got the mining rig pre-built, and I just clone it, set the number of CPUs, and let it run. It can't get easier than that.

I would prefer running off of virtualization for everybody's computer. I would just load the images in them if I could, but that would be asking too much of the consumers, so I don't do stuff like that.

Having a user-friendly interface is important for me. I'm not a coder, even though I do a little bit of programming. Also, I don't use the command-line interface when I can avoid it. When I do have to use it, I look up what I'm supposed to type and then type it.

Virtualization in and of itself is the use case feature. We are able to simultaneously run multiple operating systems in a single machine and have virtually no performance hit. I've got 16 cores and 32 threads, so nobody cares if I use 24 of them for mining and use the rest of them for my desktop. It's basically like having a free computer. With all of the resources already paid for and running, why wouldn't you virtualize when you have that many cores? It doesn't make sense not to.

If you've only got four cores, then I would understand if you don't want to virtualize for that purpose. But if you do, why wouldn't you virtualize and have an unRAID server and a video-optimized system, and another one for something else? It just depends on what suit you want to wear that day.

Technical support is an area that needs improvement.

The interface is a little wonky and needs to be improved. Honestly, the biggest problem with VMware is not with their interface, as much as their support for the interface.

In order for a virtual machine to run on your system, you have to set the hardware up correctly. If it's an AMD, you need to have virtualization enabled on the CPU. That means going into the BIOS and making sure that your VX is set if it's Intel, or an AMDV is enabled. But, you don't actually find that on an AMD. Rather, you have to go to the SPV and check the box that's there. It would behoove VMware as a company to have better documentation that shows people how to do all of this setup.

It wasn't too big of a deal for me to figure it out because I've been working with it, but I could imagine that someone who's not familiar with the BIOS and not familiar with SPV could get into a lot of trouble just to set it up for virtualization. That's unfortunate. I'm not saying they should make the interface overly simple to use. I'm just saying that they should make their documentation easy to access for the stuff that you need. Specifically, if you're in an area of the application, it should have an information link that goes into detail and sub-detail at that point. That would be good.

I understand the segmentation of different markets that they're trying to achieve in terms of sales, but it would be really nice if they just enabled you to scale. You're limited to a certain number of threads as it is now. It might be 32 threads or 32 CPUs max on VMware Workstation. ESXi can go to 128 or even 700-and-something if you scale it up to vSphere. However, it would be nice if someone purchased VMware and then was able to add those feature sets onto it. That's how their software's actually built. It's all VMware Workstation, yet depending on the configuration and how much you pay, some can allocate 738 CPUs and other ones can only do 32.

I have been working with VMware Workstation for 15 years.

They're very stable. VMware is remarkable in this regard. Given how well it works, I think that it's insane that people are doing it any other way.

I ran a miner in Windows directly, and it would occupy all of the cores and slow down the computer and cause a ton of problems. Interestingly, it wouldn't yield as much as this virtualized Linux system would in Windows, on the same machine.

I'm not sure how it makes sense that a virtualized machine inside Windows works better than something where you eliminate the middle man and you just run it in Windows, but that's exactly the case.

When you run these virtualized systems, they're running on bare iron, pretty much. They may be in Windows, and Windows might be using other stuff, but they're going to the CPU and saying, "This one, this one, this one, this one is mine," and it just runs.

This means that you get all of the performance advantages of Linux, and none of the overhead of Microsoft spying on you. This is why I think that building every computer out there as a baseline virtualized machine makes a lot more sense. You just press a button on your keyboard, and there's your Windows. Press another one, there's your Mac. Press another one, there's your Linux. Have them all be able to swap files back and forth, and everybody could be having the best of all possible worlds for whatever kind of system they want. Ultimately, Linux would grow and win out.

However, as it is, you give them a bunch of money and they tend to develop theirs a little faster. Linux may be the best system in terms of efficiencies because it's monetized to do so. All of those companies with all Linux servers know that by cutting away the fat, they make the thing work better and they earn more money with the hardware they've spent so much money on. That's the financial incentive.

The technical support is good, although it could be better.

I would rate them a three out of five.

I have experience with some similar products. For example, Cisco has one that you can use for free. VMware is what I've been primarily using for the past five years.

I choose to work with VMware because I like the interface and its support for development. I also keep up to date with the most recent versions. For example, there was an update that happened this morning.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The installation is really easy, aside from little issues that it doesn't necessarily tell you when you're cloning something. For example, it may not point out which thing to click on but you can reasonably guess because it's at the top of the list, and it works.

I'm still in the process of tweaking the miners, so optimizing the system is an ongoing process. With this particular software, things change depending on the situation with the mining because you're working on a large network.

It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to clone the system once you've got the image done. The image that I made yesterday, I probably spent an hour or so setting up, and then I can cookie cutter. However, I'm continuing to look into how to optimize it for the number of CPUs, whether two processors with six cores are better than one processor with 12 cores, etc.

The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year.

That said, I'm not doing anything major. If I had vSphere and multiple servers, and I was loading up 700 processes, then it would be a different story. However, I'm not at that level.

The reason that I chose and continue to like VMware is that it's a commercial product and it's funded and it develops and they're improving it. I love open-source, but I understand that some levels of development are more easily attained when there's a monetary incentive behind it.

Overall, this is a good product and I recommend it. My advice for anybody who is considering VMware Workstation is to go ahead and implement it. That said, there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I use the solution in my company since I want to use Linux-based machines and for it I built a VMware Workstation. I created the virtual machine and Linux-based machine on VMware Workstation.

The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that in terms of the interface or if you want to create a virtual machine, the options provided by the product are very good.

The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.

I have been using VMware Workstation for a month and a half.

The tool's scalability is good.

My company deals with different customers who use the tool.

The solution's technical support is good.

The product is easy to deploy.

The product's deployment phase consists of areas like updating the packages, which takes time.

In our company, we have a team of ten members to take care of the deployment and maintenance of the product. My company specifically does not have a development team, but we do have a support team that offers different levels or different kinds of support.

The solution can be deployed in around 30 minutes.

The tool's performance is really good, so I can rate it a ten out of ten.

The product did meet my expectations by allowing me to run multiple operating systems simultaneously.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up.

I took care of the integration part of VMware Workstation with vSphere.

I describe the product's documentation as a good area. My company gets complaints about technical notes from VMware.

My company does face limitations with the product, and it is based on the licenses that we have purchased from VMware.

I rate the overall product a ten out of ten.

I use it in my Windows and Linux systems. I create VMs.

I also use vSphere Client. 

The dashboard can be improved. 

I have been using it for three years and two months.  

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. There are around 350 end users using this in our organization. 

We use it on an everyday basis. 

We used vSphere. In our case, we have 23 servers saved on vSphere with the hostname AD2012.

The initial setup is easy. The deployment took a few days. 

I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive. It is expensive. 

It's the best solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

I have worked in education and production in one of my previous companies with VMware Workstation. In my current company, I use VMware Workstation for personal use. I have used the solution since my company has a personal server, which is not an extra production server.

VMware Workstation is something that I have used on my laptop, while at times I have used the solution for testing process purposes, with Linux, Windows, and servers. I have used VMware Workstation for testing purposes in the production environment.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is an easy-to-use product. VMware Workstation is useful for safety purposes. With VMware Workstation, you can easily select CPU hardware or hard disk and install them to the solution. In general, the product allows easy installation with any hardware specifications. If you select a 3 GB or 15 GB hard disk, you can select it.

VMware Workstation uses more resources like CPU and disk space, especially the CPU, which is a shortcoming that needs improvement.

I have been using VMware Workstation for six months.

The stability of the solution depends on the solution's license. If you opt for a license purchased from VMware Workstation, then it remains very stable. The unlicensed version of the solution is not very suitable or stable.

Based on what I have seen, I rate the solution's scalability a seven out of ten.

I didn't use the licensed software version of VMware Workstation, because of which I can't comment on its efficiency.

Though I am unsure, I feel that six to seven users use the solution for their personal use in my company.

Currently, I don't plan to use the version offered by VMware Workstation.

I did not directly contact VMware Workstation's support person since I could get all the answers to my questions through VMware's blogs.

I have moved from VMware Workstation to Oracle VM VirtualBox since I got to use it for free, while VMware Workstation wasn't a free option.

I rate the initial setup a six and a half out of ten. The initial setup of the solution is not complicated, but it may not be stable or as good as it should be if you use the tool without VMware Workstation's license or licensed software.

The solution is deployed by enabling virtualization on my laptop.

The time taken for the deployment depends on the size of your operations. The installation of VMware Workstation only takes around 20 to 30 minutes.

For deployment steps, download the free version of VMware Workstation for all the licenses, and then by clicking the next options available after clicking the EXE file, we can install the solution. You get around 60 days to use the free version of the solution, after which you need to pay for VMware Workstation.

I use the free version of VMware Workstation.

I have stopped the use of ESXi in VMware Workstation.

It is important to note that VMware Workstation may not be a good solution for my company since it is not a perfect solution.

I don't personally recommend VMware Workstation to those planning to use it since it is a type 2 hypervisor. It is always better to use a type 1 hypervisor, but if someone prefers to use a type 2 hypervisor, then it is always best to choose the paid or licensed version of the solution.

I rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

We use VMware Workstation to establish virtual machines. You can deploy it as Windows or Linux and use it as your computer.

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.

It would be better if software updates occur automatically.

I have been using VMware Workstation for about two or three years.

VMware Workstation is a stable solution.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give stability a ten.

We use VirtualBox at my company, and I use VMware Workstation for personal use. I switched to VMware Workstation because of the colors in the user interface. There is a difference in the ISO and how both products create software images.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's very user-friendly. The deployment time depends on the software image and the configuration. If it's small, it's really quick, like five minutes. The longest deployment I did was probably almost one hour. Large enterprises with a lot of virtual machines usually have a dedicated IT department to manage them. 

I implemented this solution. 

You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment. 

I would tell potential users that they don't have to have any prior knowledge. They have to follow the prompts and fulfill the steps. I would recommend this solution; it's very user-friendly.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give VMware Workstation a ten.