TrustRadius Insights for VMware Workstation Pro are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Business Problems Solved
VMware Workstation Pro provides a versatile solution for a range of use cases across different industries. For businesses, it offers a secure environment to test software and ensure its safety by running it in a virtual setting with malware. This feature has been widely appreciated by users looking to safeguard their systems. Additionally, users leverage VMware Workstation Pro to deploy development web servers in Linux on Windows machines, enabling efficient software testing. The ability to easily simulate different networking conditions using the Network Editor feature is another valuable use case, as it allows users to test scenarios that would be difficult to replicate physically. IT operations teams rely on VMware Workstation Pro for running lab environments, conducting tests, and validating software solutions and updates. This capability has proven to be indispensable in minimizing risks and ensuring smooth transitions in production infrastructure changes. Furthermore, departments find value in VMware Workstation Pro for running Android applications by virtualizing the Android platform. The software's ability to virtualize old applications that require maintenance has provided an efficient solution compared to running them on outdated hardware. In addition, users appreciate being able to try new features, software, or system updates without encountering real problems through the use of VMware Workstation Pro. This feature has allowed for seamless experimentation and risk-free exploration of new technologies. Overall, from simulating and testing operating systems or production machines to managing virtual labs or supporting older software versions, VMware Workstation Pro serves as a reliable tool for diverse user needs. Its optimized performance, resource utilization capabilities, and flexibility have made it a popular choice among users across various sectors and fields.
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
VMware Workstation Pro is well-suited for testing various products before deployment into a production environment. Also, running virtualized legacy systems, such as Windows XP, is an option for those who can't replace custom or legacy software, yet still need full functionality and availability on newer hardware systems.
VU
Verified User
Account Manager in Information Technology (11-50 employees)
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
Likelihood to Recommend
If you have multiple VMs to manage that are hosted on one or multiple vCenter servers, Workstation makes it really easy to monitor and manage all of them all in one window using multiple tabs.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
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
Likelihood to Recommend
You inherited that particular hypervisor solution like in our company and you need to continue to use it until you are ready to migrate to a better suited or cheaper alternative. You know the software that is easy to deploy virtual appliances/
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (11-50 employees)
We actively use VMware Workstation Pro for virtualization. Thanks to virtualization, we can do cost-oriented studies. In this regard, the best product on the market belongs to WMware Workstation Pro. Apart from classical virtualization scenarios, we see the benefit of creating test environments before we incorporate new technologies into our projects. In addition to what I wrote, sometimes it may be necessary to use more than one operating system on a computer. At this point, it would be a good solution to quickly set up the system and get your work done.
Pros
It offers a safe working environment.
Fast and solution-oriented work.
It does very well creating temporary or virtual machines.
It creates safe areas for your new and testing projects.
Cons
I think the resource consumption is too much. Improvements can be made, especially in terms of CPU usage.
Likelihood to Recommend
Let's exemplify;
<ul><li>Before installing major updates in operating systems, you can test them in a virtual machine.</li><li>If your projects need to run on a different operating system than the one you are using, you can quickly set up a new virtual machine.</li><li>It is suitable for long-term operation.</li><li>These features allow you to create device-independent portable operating systems. You can continue to run a machine you set up on another machine quickly without losing files.</li></ul>Thus, it provides a flexible and reliable working environment.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)
We have Controls Engineers that use VM's where the software only supports older Windows versions. So that we can keep the users laptop up to date. I use Workstation Pro for testing Policy changes and testing software. Also, duals as a sandbox area where I can test server changes from clones made from our production environment.
Pros
Testing Environment
Supports pretty much every OS
Networking options for VM's
Cons
Sometimes the networking setup can be a little confusing. Kind of wish there was a network map with the current setup with vSwitches and vNics which would make it easier to visually be able to see all network connections and what adapters they are running through.
There might be a reason, but I wish snapshots would run a little faster. I know when I snapshot a VM in vSphere it is almost instant. Again, there might be a reason behind why it takes so long compared to vSphere, just can get annoying waiting for it to complete before testing.
Likelihood to Recommend
I would not recommend using a VM as a complete replacement for your everyday driver, but I would recommend
it for testing. One way that I use Workstation Pro is with testing GPO's. I can
make a change to a user or computer GPO, take a snapshot, reboot the computer
to pull the GPO, see if it worked. If it didn't, I revert to the last snapshot before the GPO was pulled, make some changes to the GPO again, and test on the test VM. The same style
of testing can be used with creating and changing scripts for computer changes.
We have a whole computer setup script that installs software and changes a ton
of settings. On a VM you can test over and over to make sure the script runs
how you want it to and revert if you didn't like the script outcome. Especially
handy with software installs, so you don't have to wait for a program to
uninstall and then edit the script and run the script again. Using snapshots save me so much time in testing!
VU
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
VMware Workstation Pro is well suited for temporary and low-cost environments specifically for testing environments. This is well suited for small companies and home-based users and for corporate and large scale businesses it is less suited as VMware Workstation Pro is not much reliable for production environments and load-based applications.
Currently we use VMware Workstation for a number of reasons.
1. We utilize it for the benefit of testing where we will have applications running and to test it within our network we will utilize a virtual machine to simulate its run and completeness.
2. It is used also to run production systems so users can remote into the system. This also allows us to make precise backups in the event of any changes made that may deem the VM unusable we can quickly revert.
Pros
allow virtualization of physical system
creation of a wide range of virtual systems from linux to windows
adapting to your current networking
ability to virtualize with other software such as GNS3
Cons
as with the latest, option for shared vm
improved network configuration manager
improved compatibility with other virtual machine software
Likelihood to Recommend
Some scenarios where VMware Workstation pro is best suited are:
1. Utilization for testing software - can install a virtual machine to simulate software requirements and testing it on your network.
2. Testing operating systems upgrades and installation on specific hardware requirements.
3. Virtualizing a physical server
4. Being able to backup a whole server and restore from it in the event of any issue occurring.
VU
Verified User
General Manager in Information Technology (1-10 employees)
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
Reliable platform to keep multiple Cloud services active and provide effective data security for all the business data that are being processed through VMware Workstation Pro environment. The data collection ability from multiple platforms through its stable data integration functionalities is impressive. The processing of data and the data planning tools with software were very beneficial to our business.
I've been using VMware Workstation Pro for project development using different software through all VMs integrating all software’s using a virtualized environment for performance testing and software debugging. Also, software’s are implemented in customer servers in bigger server-client structures.
Pros
System Creation.
Network Management.
Easy implementation.
Great performance.
Cons
Video Graphic performance.
Updates are usually not well received by users due to problems.
Likelihood to Recommend
I've been using VMware Workstation Pro for project development using different software through all VMs integrating all software’s using a virtualized environment for performance testing and software debugging. Also, software’s are implemented in customer servers in bigger server-client structure.
I primarily use a MacBook and there are some requirements that will need me to use other operating systems. VMWare Workstation Pro is very handy in these situations for me to run virtual machines, especially Windows ones. It is extremely helpful in switching between tasks and managing environments is very easy with this.
Pros
Easy to install and use.
Doesn't lag even on extensive usage.
Probably the best tool for managing different virtual environments simultaneously.
Cons
Network setup could be tricky at times.
I didn't really find anything negative for my level of usage other than network issues.
Likelihood to Recommend
Easy to install and use Very powerful when it comes to running resource-intensive tasks as a well clean and convenient tool to run any number of different virtual machines I wouldn't recommend using this tool to run a virtual machine and make it your primary machine Gets the job done quickly with no hassle.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Research & Development (10,001+ employees)
