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VMware Fusion has become a valuable tool for users across various industries and professions. Users have found it particularly useful in …
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What is VMware Fusion?
Vmware Fusion is a virtual user session software built to run Windows applications on Macintosh to run any Windows applications.
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What is VMware Fusion?
Vmware Fusion is a virtual user session software built to run Windows applications on Macintosh to run any Windows applications.
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What is VMware Fusion?
VMware Fusion: Desktop Hypervisors for Mac
Software designed to give users the freedom to be more productive, agile and secure in a preferred environment. IT professionals, developers and businesses can use VMware Fusion desktop hypervisors for OS support, rock-solid stability and advanced features. With Fusion Player and Fusion Pro, run nearly any OS as VMs on Mac for development, testing, gaming or even simulating production clouds on local desktops.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Vmware Fusion is a virtual user session software built to run Windows applications on Macintosh to run any Windows applications.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of VMware Fusion are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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VMware Fusion has become a valuable tool for users across various industries and professions. Users have found it particularly useful in virtualizing firewalls, test systems, and OS-specific applications that are unavailable on Macs. It offers developers the ability to spin up Linux servers for early-stage development before pushing the code to an internet-facing dev server for client review. Additionally, users appreciate how VMware Fusion allows for easy maintenance of different VM images to safely and efficiently test various application environments. Furthermore, it has been used as a lab rat to test code against bleeding edge versions of PHP and popular web apps.
For businesses relying on Intel Macs, VMware Fusion proves essential by enabling them to run Windows-only business-related applications without the need for multiple physical hardware or rebooting. The software is also utilized by IT departments to test changes, such as group policy adjustments, before pushing them out. End-users in finance benefit from using VMware Fusion to seamlessly run different financial software on their Macs. Charter school management organizations have leveraged this software to virtualize MS Windows on iMacs for compatibility with Windows-only programs.
Overall, VMware Fusion fills the gap between Mac and Windows environments by allowing users to seamlessly run Windows-based software on their Macs, eliminating the need for separate computers. It provides a versatile solution for developers and quality analysts to test web development on Windows browsers like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Users appreciate its simplicity in dealing with disk partitioning, assigning RAM to new operating systems, and its feature-rich offerings like capturing snapshots and changing networks. By providing access to critical Windows applications while still enjoying the benefits of a Mac system, VMware Fusion has been enthusiastically adopted by organizations using predominantly Macs.
Intuitive User Interface: Reviewers have consistently praised the intuitive and easy-to-navigate user interface of VMware Fusion. Many users have found it straightforward to locate and customize settings, such as adjusting the hard disk size. This user-friendly interface has made it convenient for users to manage their virtual machines without any hassle.
Snapshot Functionality: The option to create and restore snapshots in VMware Fusion has received high praise from a significant number of reviewers. Users have found this feature to be both useful and easy to use. It allows them to quickly revert back to a previous state if any issues arise during their work, providing them with peace of mind.
Seamless Integration with macOS: The seamless integration of VMware Fusion with macOS has been highly regarded by many users. They appreciate features like the ability to copy and paste between environments, run applications in full screen mode for an immersive experience, and launch apps directly from the Mac desktop. This tight integration enhances productivity and convenience for users working across different operating systems on their Mac computers.
Outdated User Interface: Some users have expressed that the user interface of VMware Fusion is in need of improvement, stating that it has taken a step back and lacks modern design elements.
Unreliable Remote Host Connections: Several users have reported experiencing spotty remote host connections with VMware Fusion, making it difficult for them to establish stable connections and causing frustration during remote work or collaboration.
Difficulty Configuring Boot Camp Install: Some users have found configuring a boot camp install to run inside macOS via VMware Fusion to be tricky. This process can lead to license activation issues for certain applications, adding complexity to the setup process.
Users commonly recommend VMware Fusion for several reasons. Firstly, they suggest using VMware Fusion as the best option for running Windows on a MacBook and as an alternative to having a second laptop. Users also believe that VMware Fusion is worth the license price due to the time-saving benefits it provides. Additionally, users recommend VMware Fusion for its simplicity and ease of use in setting up and running virtual machines. They praise its stability, hardware sharing capabilities, and ability to make Windows software compatible with a Mac. Ultimately, users suggest considering VMware Fusion if you need to run programs not available on MacOSX or if your company pays for a MacBook.
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April 04, 2022
An excellent fusion of great virtualization features, high performance, and pricing that fits the bill for almost everyone.
- The option for a perpetual license makes it a cost-effective option for occasional-use scenarios.
- Features like "Unity" are well implemented to make windows applications appear as if they were native macOS apps.
- Support for external USB devices (especially audio) runs more stable than Parallels.
- Snapshots are helpful in quickly returning to a previous state if a setting or application causes issues.
- The low power footprint makes it a great option for laptops on battery power. (Idle power consumption of the VM is negligible when measured at the wall using a Kill-A-watt).
- Configuring a boot camp install to run inside macOS via VMware fusion can be tricky to configure and sometimes leads to license/activation issues depending on the application.
- Some apps become sluggish/do not behave well when running the VM in "Unity" mode.
- Fusion lags behind its competitors in terms of graphics API support.
- Although early at this time, lack of M1 support is an area of concern for the future.
- Runs a full version of Windows on a Mac, allowing access to both environments.
- Gives an immersive Windows experience when running the app in full screen. It is like having two computers in one.
- Allows for copying and pasting from one environment to another, which is very handy.
- It is very rare for this to happen, but sometimes the Windows environment loses the internet connection while the Mac environment still has it. Rebooting the Windows environment in VMware Fusion fixes it.
- It does not always recognize printers that are set up through the Mac, particularly if they are connected via WiFi instead of hardwired.
February 25, 2020
Switch Between Software Development Environments With Ease
- Running isolated software development environments. Setting up environment variables and installing the right software versions for a given project can be time consuming and fragile. By doing all of this within a virtual disk image, we can easily switch between software environments without risk of breaking anything.
- Running Windows-only programs on a Mac is invaluable. We use MacBook Pro laptops for our primary development environment. There are simply some programs we cannot run on OS X. Having VMWare Fusion is an invaluable asset for running Windows apps on Mac laptops on the go.
- This is not the fault of VMWare Fusion, per se, but the disk images are rather large. Being able to have one parent disk image and then save smaller variants of the disk image with slight changes would be nice.
- Copying files to and from the disk image and its host machine is a little bit clunky. It would be nice to be able to drag-and-drop files. I have read that this is possible but have not personally been able to get it working, so instead, I just put files in a shared folder. It's not too tricky, and I imagine there is a way to get drag-and-drop working, but it doesn't seem to work right out of the box, at least for me.
February 18, 2020
I have two computers on one screen....kinda!
- Running PC software on a Mac.
- Easy file transfer and file sharing across platforms.
- Setup a bit too cryptic.
- Options could use some easier direction.
August 29, 2019
An excellent high performing product that makes desktop virtualization simple and cost effective
- Accelerates Windows applications on Mac very smoothly.
- Great options for VM management down to CPU cores and host RAM utilization.
- Very easy to update/upgrade with just a click of the mouse.
- Video Acceleration could be improved.
- More features can be added for integration to the host OS, such as to send email to VM client.
- Smoother coherence.
- Allows users to install a lot of operating systems, like the latest Windows 10 release.
- It's possible to integrate with Chef and Vagrant.
- The price is too expensive to do things that you can do with other products for free.
- It has a lot of lag when testing a Windows 10 environment, it was supposed to be faster.
- In general, VMware Fusion is very easy to set up and manage, with a fairly comprehensive step-by-step install process for different OSs.
- For non-3D work, VMware is quite fast and can handle a number of CPU-demanding work loads.
- VMware has tight integration with macOS through various ways of sharing files b/w virtual machines and the real machine, window management (such as using macOS' native full-screen mode and its Unity mode, wherein virtual applications appear to be running natively within the OS) and printer sharing.
- VMware has a very good and reasonable licensing system - a single license is good for two computers, especially when compared to Parallels.
- VMware Fusion is designed to work with other VMware products, such as VMware Workstation, ESC and vCenter Server. This allows VMware Fusion to create a virtual machine on a remote server.
- For 3D work or 3D gaming, VMware Fusion falls short of the main competition of Parallels. Though, 3D work in general is not well suited for virtual machines.
- VMware Fusion lacks some more professional features such as a headless mode, by being run as a service in the background. In order for a virtual machine to be up and running, the VMware Fusion application must be open and the virtual machine visible. By comparison, Parallels allows for a virtual machine to automatically open at login, and in the background without the Parallels program needing to be opened. This is a great feature if a VM is being used a server and does not require regular user interaction.
- VMware Fusion's integration with Apple's Bootcamp technology is severely lacking when compared to Parallels. Whereas Parallels can boot directly from a Bootcamp partition, or even use a Bootcamp partition as a disk within a VM, VMware Fusion can only create a new VM based on a Bootcamp partition.
- While Fusion supports most Linux variations, it lacks the ability to automatically download the freely available OS install images (unlike Parallels).
December 10, 2018
VMware Fusion - The go to Mac virtualization application
- Managing workstation-specific virtualization for Mac.
- Host/Guest resource management.
- Feature and patch releases are added several times a year to make sure Fusion maintains its leadership role
- 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.
September 07, 2018
VMware Fusion is a great choice for IT pros
- Lightweight desktop hypervisor. Less invasive into the system than the main competitor.
- Good performance. I don't notice VMs being any slower than the native OS.
- Conveniently integrates with VMware ESXi servers. Good for working with standalone servers.
- Not as tightly integrated with the host filesystem as competitors. Creates the occasional challenge if you want to open a file from someplace outside your Desktop, Documents or Downloads folders.
- Video performance is fine for business apps, but doesn't seem to cut it for demanding video applications.
- USB drivers are sometimes flaky with Windows VMs and don't work as well as one could hope.
- VMware Fusion provides an excellent platform for running Microsoft Windows on a Mac.
- VMware Fusion provides a way for our dev/ops team to run isolated servers and applications.
- VMware Fusion is also very intuitive for our users.
- VMware Fusion has the ability to open apps from the Mac desktop.
- Installation could be easier.
- Pricing is a little higher compared to other virtualization platforms.
- Need the ability to covert VM to other platforms such as Hyper-V and others.
- Need better ability for nested VMs.
April 12, 2018
Virtualization for Macs!
- 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.
- Windows 10 setup could be slightly more user-friendly
- Price could be cheaper
- Some testing a VMWare on different Mac hardware configurations, because I have had issues with Fusion being sluggish at times.
December 19, 2017
Running Windows on A Mac
- Testing different operating systems versions
- Running Windows on a Mac
- Running Internet Explorer on a Mac
- It works great
November 20, 2017
Fusion, make any Mac even more effective!
- VMware fusion lets you install Windows applications on MacOS computers.
- VMware fusion lets you run fully in Windows if you want on a Mac computer, so if you are more comfortable with Windows, you can still get a Mac and slowly transition yourself to the MacOS if you want.
- You no longer have to worry about incompatibilities with your Mac computer anymore if you have VMware Fusion.
- It would be awesome to get VMware fusion preinstalled on every Mac!
- It takes several minutes to startup VMware Fusion the first time you use it after a reboot.
- Using Vmware fusion can slightly slow down your computer while you are using it.
November 14, 2017
Intuitive, Simple, and Quick!
- Integrates other operating systems seamlessly with Mac OS.
- Can cause your system fans to come on at full power at times but that may just be part of running multiple operating systems at the same time.
May 16, 2017
VMware Analysis
- Resume virtual machine state
- Create virtual machines
- Flexibility
- Requires a fair amount of RAM to run constantly - I had to upgrade to 16GB
April 10, 2017
VMware Fusion-Best of both worlds!
- Running multiple OS with few clicks. For example, for a project I required windows and ubuntu OS. I was able to run both of them easily with VMware fusion.
- Snapshots of OS. Easy recovery from snapshots. For example, I was doing my project in openstack kilo version but already did other things in juno version. So with the snapshot of juno version, I was all set with my previous work.
- I have found the product perfect. Cannot find any flaws.
April 05, 2017
VMware Fusion is a legit tool for corporations.
- Getting around the settings of VMware Fusion is very intuitive, I've never had trouble finding or tweaking a setting (hard disk increase for example).
- Creating and restoring Snapshots is very easy and useful.
- Installing and pulling in a previously created VM is very simple.
- Running VMware Fusion in Unity on a Mac is not always reliable. Sometimes, launching a Windows app just does not work. Either it will not come up or will not run with the same settings I had I opened it in the original VM.
- Continuing on Unity mode, it just doesn't feel as straight forward and simple as the rest of the program is.
- Sometimes, after I have been using a Windows VM for a few months, VMware Fusion will say its messed up and ask me to try to repair it, and of course I can never get a successful repair, so I have to recreate the VM.
November 03, 2016
Fusion OS
- Ease of opening Windows apps.
- No need for rebooting. Loading a new os.
- It's fast and like you're using a native Windows box directly on Mac hardware.
- Installation of Windows.
- More of a turn key solution for non tech savvy users.
- Need for more compatibility.
September 13, 2016
Vmware Fusion From a Mac IT guy
- Quickly creates virtual machines for testing.
- Easily allows management of VMs even in other VMware products.
- The user interface could use a little update, but mostly it works fine.
- It would be nice to have the option of having network templates for commonly used setups to make testing easier.
- Compression of virtual machines would be a nice option also, making them take up less of a footprint.