Likelihood to Recommend Due to its perpetual licensing model, VMware Fusion is a great option for users whose needs do not change as much over time. It is also great for occasional-use scenarios such as testing and preparing code to run on newer platforms. Fusion is not really recommended for running graphics-intense applications as graphics acceleration in Fusion is fairly limited in both performance and API support. It has, however, come a very long way and offers near-native performance for many tasks.
Read full review vSphere is well suited for multiple VMWare hosts and can be very useful in larger enterprises where vMotion is used to load balance and failover running virtual machines. In smaller businesses with one or two hosts then the features can be overkill. The addition of virtual TPM support is a very nice addition to provide vm security in a more Microsoft supported methodology.
Read full review Pros Allows users to run Windows only applications on their Mac without switching devices. Fusion is excellent for Windows image creation, and works exceptionally well on the Mac environment. Assists a Mac user to virtualize Windows apps. Excellent for installing Linux distros for penetration testing. Read full review vMotion that provides seamless movement of Virtual Machines between physical hosts and datastores. Ease of Manage: vCenter provides very good management experience to the users. It provides hassle free upgrade of versions, which requires good planning. Easy to manage datastore, networks, CPU and memory resources. It also allows to convert the physical machine and bring it to vSphere Environment with minimum effort. Read full review Cons With OSX - 10.14.1 and the latest version of Fusion - 11.0.2 the user interface has taken a step back IMHO. I would like to see price decrease. Better remote host connection capabilities - remote server connections are available but connections are spotty. Read full review Allow enable EVC without requiring host shutdown More detail in recent tasks. Instead of just showing a task called "Reconfigure virtual machine" also have a link to more detailed information as to what was reconfigured, changed or removed. Allow searching tasks or events Read full review Likelihood to Renew For Apple workstations VMware Fusion is the virtualization software to use. No other application (free or paid) can do what Fusion can. The features and constant updates make Fusion an application that cant be beat.
Read full review We are constantly looking for change that will benefit our company. We are not ones to stick with a product simply because it is what we know, but rather looking for what fits us best. We can't imagine another product on the market today doing a better job of handling our infrastructure than vSphere.
Read full review Usability Sometimes the best surprise is no surprise and Fusion is just that. It's reliable and generally just works as expected every time (the only exception was running a boot camp install directly but that use-case scenario opens a can of worms due to how product activation works) The interface and settings are clean and simple and there is no hide and seek games to play.
Read full review It is a highly documented suite. If you are unsure of how to do something, a simple search will yield hundreds of results showing you how to do it. Support is also available if you need to talk to an expert.
Read full review Support Rating I have never contacted VMware, but there is a lot of support online on message boards, forums, StackOverflow, YouTube tutorial videos, and the like. VMware has been around nine years longer than its leading competitor, VirtualBox, although both seem to have a good presence of online user communities who can help solve issues that come up.
Read full review I rarely ever have to contact support and when I do need to resolve an issue, there is always an abundance of kb articles and research information available that can help quickly resolve the issue. Depending on the type of support contract you have, you may get support from some offshore group in another country and this could be a little challenging because of the language barrier.
Read full review Implementation Rating This is a workstation application and no install insights are needed.
Read full review Just make sure that when you implement, that the person implementing truly knows what they are doing and has a plan of action coming in. Since our initial implementation using a consulting service, I have implemented a few vSphere just from what I learned at the initial implementation and use over time, and the person implementing really needs to know what they are doing or you will miss out on features that may help you down the line
Read full review Alternatives Considered I've heard of other/competitive software but frankly once I tried VMware, I never looked back. There is absolutely nothing that I need that this product does not deliver. It's fast, effective and seems to be extremely durable and reliable. My only concern (and minor) might have to do with memory resources, but frankly it has not been an issue yet.
Read full review vSphere has a lot more feature sets than
Hyper-V but at a much higher cost of entry versus MS
Hyper-V . I have not been able to play with
Hyper-V as much as I would have liked, but the setup and ongoing maintenance seems to be easier in vSphere than with
Hyper-V Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model The contract terms are very clear and can be updated as per the project requirement. Customer support is also included in the contract which help us to troubleshoot critical issues very easily. Training included in contract will really help the client team to empower and hands-on on the latest updates and enhancements
Read full review Professional Services As I said earlier, they're always ready to understand our issues and propose the best and most appropriate solution for issues all the time. The security patches solution is accordingly to the business needs. Another scenario is their Knowledge Base where they're many articles that help you in order to solve something which is wrong.
Read full review Return on Investment Users using a VM often don't need something as "fancy" as VMware Fusion, and instead can use a free option like Virtual Box, so we waste money on using an extra amount of VMware Fusion licenses. Developers using and IT admins using VMware Fusion for testing saves us time and money. Simply, we know mistakes would take time and money to fix, but VMware is powerful, allows for proper and fast testing. Read full review Having vSphere helped my business quickly recover from a ransomware attack which would have crippled us for weeks if we were not virtualized. I think the ROI on something like that is immeasurable. vSphere has allowed my company to purchase bigger server hardware to host 3 or 4 virtual servers, which was at a cost much lower than buying 3 or 4 server hardware boxes, saving us thousands each time we need to upgrade hardware. Read full review ScreenShots