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to virtualize old applications that require maintenance has provided an efficient solution compared to running them on outdated hardware.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.
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VMware Workstation Pro Reviews
14 Reviews
Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees)
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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)
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.
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.
VMWare Workstation pro is used in many different scenarios. The main use case is for lab environments for Engineers. We use VMWare workstation pro on a user's machine so they can run simulation programs like GNS3 and Eve-NG. With a high-end machine, you can dedicate enough resources to create a network or multiple networks in a lab and test.
Pros
Virtualization
Easy Setup.
Quick to learn the basics.
Cons
Licensing can always be improved.
Installation instructions.
Could be a free program to encourage users to pick VMWare workstation over other options like Virtual Box.
Likelihood to Recommend
VMWare workstation allows a user to create an entire group of VMs on their local computer. This is something used in IT areas like networking and telephony for testing new ideas and scenarios in a controlled environment before trying in production. Giving users a local option means the user is isolated to their machine and not working on a production VMWare environment to run tests or simulations. It also allows the user to work off-network or offline since the app is local.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
VMware Workstation Pro is being used by our IT department. We use it for training, testing and beta debugging purposes. It's so easy to install and manage. Also it is useful if you have a Vcenter environment. With the help of VMware Workstation Pro you can easily connect to Vcenter servers, ESXi servers and you can do most of the management tasks from there with comfort. I use it with a portable M2 SSD drive. I can carry my VM's with ease to where ever I work. That's my favorite. I backup and convert my old pc's to virtual and keep them because sometimes old software needs the hardware and environment they were used to working in. Instead of keeping them physically with the help of VMware Workstation I always keep them virtually. And last but least it is a must have tool for learning, developing, testing environments.
Pros
VM Creating
VM Converting
VCenter Basic operations
VM Mobility
Cons
Snapshot speed
Display enchancements
Likelihood to Recommend
VMware Workstation Pro is ideal for training, development envoirements. Using snapshots makes possible to revert back the system in case something went wrong. That's why I prefer to use it without interfere the production environment. Also sometimes if you need to connect an ESXi or Vcenter server it is a best shortcut. You can do most of the management tasks incase of incident.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
I use VMware Workstation Pro to try new features, software, or updates of my system without the need to deal with real problems. VMware Workstation Pro is a great virtualizing software that fits multiple scenarios. You can use it to test new features, try new software before installing on your production system or just to take a look at new operating system.
Pros
Virtualize physical machines to test new updates.
Provide a controlled environment to try out new software without compromising your production system.
Great tool to try on new features or updates.
Cons
For my level of utilization I didn't find any feature that was missing.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need to install a new piece of software and don't want to compromise your production computer, VMware Workstation Pro is the perfect tool. You can virtualize a physical machine and then make all the changes you need to test without the need to deal with disasters.
VMware Workstation Pro is a tool we use to simulate or to make tests on operative systems or production machines without being to deal with possible performance impact or disasters in the production infrastructure. We recently migrated our production server from Windows Server 2012 to Windows Server 2019 and VMware Workstation Pro was a crucial tool to make all the tests on our migration plan before even touch our actual infrastructure.
Pros
Test new software on an actual server, previously virtualized
Make all the changes to our production server before deploy
Deal with real problems without any impact on production infrastructure
Cons
We found that some network settings were hard to set up
Likelihood to Recommend
VMware Workstation Pro is the most complete virtualizing solution on the market, it's incredibly powerful when you need to make changes on some important points of your infrastructure. When you need to try test some changes on your servers or make some important changes that may affect the performance of your applications, the best way to be sure that nothing bad happens is to try with a virtualized environment
VMware Workstation is used to run VM's that can be discarded and recreated with little effort. These VM's run on our location desktop or laptop with the intended purpose to obfuscate the work that goes on within our organization and that of our production use. These virtual machines are running and supported within VMware to act as a barrier between production access and regular access to our corporate environments allowing up to have a separation of duties within the working environment.
Pros
Create test systems to validate specific builds.
Allow for a separation of duties as well as keep network traffic segregated.
Cons
Some changes could be made to help with multi screen support.
VMware Workstation is difficult to span between different host OS (Windows vs Mac).
Likelihood to Recommend
The ability to deploy a server to test a specific piece of software is of great benefit, and if you mess up with an install, as long as you have a copy of the machine you started with, you can quickly delete an OS and start over. The same works if you need to share a single image among many people.
VMware Workstation is being used by a few departments to do a variety of things. It is being used by some to access VMs on our host clusters, it is being used by others to create and run local sandbox VMs, and we have used it to copy deprecated VMs to an end-users desktop giving them the opportunity to start that VM and do data recovery on into the future. Workstation provides a good alternative to a remote desktop for managing your servers if they are all virtual. It also provides a great way to do testing and one-off application usage on your desktop in a sandbox.
Pros
It provides a great remote access tool for accessing and managing servers in virtual environment. With the security risks surround remote desktop this provides a good alternative to do the same functions.
The app itself is very lightweight and easy to install/maintain.
Sandbox testing can be a time consuming thing to setup and do. Workstation makes this easy to create, use, and put away. This make you more willing to put new things in the sandbox and test them before production usage.
The cost of workstation is very affordable for the functionality that you get and you can try it for free before you buy it.
We use it to run apps that can be difficult to setup or conflict with other apps. We just spin this app VM up run it, and then shut it back down. The startup and shutdown is very quick.
Cons
It's not free? With all the money spent on a VMware environment, they could easily give this product away as a tool to use with the overarching products.
Initial licensing can be a bit of a challenge as with any VMware product.
We have never needed support as the product is very easy to use, but VMware as a company doesn't provide the greatest support.
As you read the three things above, you will notice that we really don't have any ideas on how to improve the product as it works very well over all.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
VU
Verified User
Director in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
