Azure Virtual Machines vs VMware Workstation Pro

Likelihood to Recommend

Easy way to utilise development of applications inside of the MS eco-system. Also enables integration into a pre-existing billing structure on Microsoft cloud

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Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 1-10 employees

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When you use the vSphere client to open a remote console you have what appears to be a slimmed-down version of Workstation. The full version can be used in that same role, but instead of going to vSphere first you can directly get to your VM tree through Workstation. This makes it quick to move from VM to VM. Sandboxing is where Workstation is especially well suited. You can run test apps, difficult apps, and deprecated apps/OSs in a sideways fashion that is not dangerous to your production environment. If you're not a VMware shop, this product could be used but would be less appropriate.

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Verified User

Director in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Azure Virtual Machines

VMware Workstation Pro

Virtual machine automated provisioning

Management console

Live virtual machine backup

Live virtual machine migration

Hypervisor-level security

Pros

Testing and developing
Maintaining small and medium databases
Maintaining low and medium traffic web servers

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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You can have different test machines on a single developer host.
It's almost as fast as a physical machine.
You can use snapshots to quickly experiment with new things and updates without worrying you will lose everything.
With the Network Editor, you can configure whole LANs, which would require a lot of effort and equipment to set up physically.
The VMX configuration file is easily editable for more advanced features.

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Vlad VARNA

Principal Software Architect

NortonLifeLockComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Cons

Provisioning of the VM becomes slow while adding a customized script.

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Nishant Arora

ICT Specialist

HatchConstruction, 10,001+ employees

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Making it easy to export VMS is something that Workstation struggles with; exporting to OVA which is the primary type of VM we export to is cumbersome and can be difficult without proper knowledge on how to do this.
Management of VMS could be a little bit more in depth.
I think the networking portion of Workstation could use some slight improvements, more in-depth segmentation to support containers, however, this is a small issue and not something many people will miss or need.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 10,001+ employees

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Likelihood to Renew

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

VMware Workstation Pro 9.0

Based on 1 answer

It's a solid product, and if they make it compatible with HyperVM (WSL, Docker, etc.) it would be great

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Vlad VARNA

Principal Software Architect

NortonLifeLockComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

VMware Workstation Pro 9.0

Based on 1 answer

There are some settings that can only be done by editing the VMX file. However, that is easily done, and you can find examples on the internet easily.

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Vlad VARNA

Principal Software Architect

NortonLifeLockComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Support Rating

Azure Virtual Machines 8.7

Based on 3 answers

I give the overall support for Azure Virtual Machines a 7 because I think while the overall support do a great job there are still areas that it could improve on such as efficiency and speed. So while I only give it a 7 and it has some issues it is still better than the overall support at Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling.

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

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VMware Workstation Pro 6.6

Based on 6 answers

I haven't had to call VMware Workstation support. The majority of the time, whenever I have a problem, I can perform an online search and find the answers I need. Online forums and users with similar situations are generally sufficient to answer any questions I have had, though, from previous experience at another company, their support is outstanding and responsive to circumstances. However, that is generally for a paid support contract and should be expected when you are paying for that support.

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Tyler Twitchell

Senior System Engineer

NetDocumentsComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Azure VM is more complicated, but provides the same scale of services

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Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 1-10 employees

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I like using VMWare as it is really easy to configure, very much user friendly. I also like to use the additional features it have for migration like import export in different formats, clone of the virtual machine. I really like using VMware Workstation user console and ESXI at my college

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Ramandeep Singh

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Lewis UniversityHigher Education, 501-1000 employees

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Return on Investment

The pay as you go model helps saves cost.
We segregate the virtual machines in different resource groups and hence can setup auto shutdown as per their type and requirement.

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Nishant Arora

ICT Specialist

HatchConstruction, 10,001+ employees

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Positive impact would be that VMware is a simple, inexpensive solution. To be able to run such other software you would need completely new hardware, but VMware can run it for you virtually, thus, the savings are incredible.
One VMware instance can run multiple instances of images simultaneously, therefore, it is very time-saving.

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Stefan Trbojevic

CCC Team Lead

NCR CorporationInformation Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Azure Virtual Machines Editions & Modules

Edition

Spot - General Purpose - Av2	$0.005¹
Spot - Compute Optimized - Fsv2	$0.0104¹
Spot - General Purpose - Dv3	$0.0125¹
Spot - Memory Optimized - Ev3	$0.016¹
3 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S	$0.0038¹
3 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2	$0.0307¹
3 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3	$0.0369¹
3 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3	$0.0481¹
1 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3	$0.0753¹
1 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S	$0.0059¹
1 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3	$0.0548¹
1 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2	$0.05¹
Pay as You Go - Burstable VMs - B1S	$0.0075¹
Pay as You Go - Compute Optimized - Fsv2	$0.0846¹
Pay as You Go - General Purpose - Dv3	$0.096¹
Pay as You Go - Memory Optimized - Ev3	$0.126¹

Per Hour

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

VMware Workstation Pro Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Azure Virtual Machines

VMware Workstation Pro

Azure Virtual Machines

VMware Workstation Pro

Azure Virtual Machines

VMware Workstation Pro

Azure Virtual Machines

VMware Workstation Pro

Azure Virtual Machines vs VMware Workstation Pro