TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

VMware Workstation Pro

Score8.1 out of 10

93 Reviews and Ratings

What is VMware Workstation Pro?

VMware Workstation Pro is virtualization software which allows running multiple x86-based operating systems on one PC. Users can run Windows, Linux and BSD virtual machines on a Windows or Linux desktop.

Categories & Use Cases

Top Performing Features

  • Hypervisor-level security

    Hypervisor-level security including antivirus and anti-malware

    Category average: 8.2

  • Virtual machine automated provisioning

    Automation of virtual machine provisioning through use of vm templates

    Category average: 7.6

  • Live virtual machine backup

    Ability to backup vms without interrupting service

    Category average: 7.7

Areas for Improvement

  • Management console

    Management console for central administration of vm environment

    Category average: 7.9

  • Live virtual machine migration

    Downtime minimization by migrating live vms between hosts and across clusters

    Category average: 7.8

Great little virtualization tool for lots of potential.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

For the most part, we use it to support businesses' operating systems that are required for legacy software, allowing them to virtualize these systems on new hardware. It runs Windows XP Pro OS on top of Windows 10 and 11, making it possible to utilize custom legacy software and allowing for the use of COM/LTP ports.

Pros

  • Legacy OS Virtualization.
  • COM/LTP support.
  • Virtual Hard Drive manipulations.

Cons

  • Easy P2V migration utility.

Return on Investment

  • Thousands of dollars of savings virtualizing legacy operating systems.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

VMware ESXi, Hyper-V, VMware Fusion, VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter

Other Software Used

VMware ESXi, Hyper-V, VMware vCenter, Sage Accounting, Sage 50, Sage 500 ERP

Expensive, yet fine enough hypervisor solution

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It helps to virtualize and deploy critical workloads like application and file servers, phone systems, backup appliances, etc.

Pros

  • Well documented, well known hypervisor solution
  • Easy, fast setup
  • Simple, easy to deploy virtual appliances

Cons

  • Support is useless; you need to relay on Googling and community support
  • Compatibilty challenges on major OS platforms like Windows and Linux based on out-of-date development
  • Performance issues with Linux distros

Return on Investment

  • Business continuity because you have inherited the software
  • Low maintenance
  • Expensive

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Hyper-V

Reliable Yet Clunky

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use it to connect to and manage our servers which are all virtualized. I also use it to connect to our other clusters that host our VDI environment in order to maintain and update the master VMs.

Pros

  • Allows connections to multiple vCenters
  • Multiple tabs for each VM makes navigation easy

Cons

  • App is clunky and slow to expand inventories

Return on Investment

  • It's made it easier to manage VMs
  • It still requires using the web interface for some functions

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Hyper-V and Oracle VM VirtualBox

Flexible Cloud Services Management Product which offers the Easy and Effective Options with Various IT Solutions.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Highly powerful and easy Cloud package for the business data easy visualization and the management of multiple running services for the companies is effective. The VMware Workstation Pro provides us with great production workflow management possibilities and the ability to create required reports via this platform is fantastic and the ability to protect data through their Cloud services channels is effective.

Pros

  • I like the easy to integrate the solution.
  • Functionalities on data migration is good.
  • Useful platform for the project time management.

Cons

  • Very easy platform but the interface is not that friendly to new user.
  • For those new providing productive data analytics for multiple data is challenging.
  • The performance on poor hardware machine is very poor.

Return on Investment

  • Productive solution with nice performance for easy analytics production and the reports are very classy.
  • Preparation and collection of valuable data insights.
  • Excellent for easy project workflow management and file management tool.

Alternatives Considered

IBM PowerVM, Hyper-V and ServiceNow App Engine

Other Software Used

IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions, SAP HANA, Pantheon

Powerful Virtualisation Tool

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using VMware Workstation Pro for testing temporary environments during the development life cycle. VMware Workstation Pro is very convenient for creating, managing, and moving environments from one PC to another for testing the code level changes. We have deployed Oracle local environment on VMware Workstation Pro and it is performing as expected.

Pros

  • Virtual Machine deployment.
  • Best for creating temporary environments.
  • Flexibility.

Cons

  • Resource Sharing.
  • License Cost.
  • More OS support.

Return on Investment

  • Low cost.
  • Less reliable.
  • Resource allocation.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Other Software Used

Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Simple Email Service, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)