So I have had a license for VMWare Workstation through work since 2004. I have been a loyal user for eight years. However, my current job is not going to provide any further VMWare Workstation licenses.

Price of VMware Workstation vs Hyper-V

Because Hyper-V is included in Windows 8 Pro and the Microsoft Windows 8 Pro Upgrade is under $70 for a full version (not upgrade) of Windows 8 Professional System Builder DVD 64-Bit you are only looking at over $125.00 on sale (normally $199). VMWare Workstation alone is $249. VMWare Workstation is $50 more expensive than paying full retail price for the full version of Windows 8. If you are planning to buy Windows 8 Pro anyway, then technically, VMWare Workstation $249 too much.

Hyper-V vs VMWare Workstation

Having used both, I am going to mention some differentiating features.

• Hyper-V virtual machines seem to snapshot and revert must faster than VMWare Workstation.
• VMWare auto sizes the screen does, Hyper-V doesn’t.
• VMWare workstation has a cool mode where you can run apps from the virtual machine as if they were regular desktop apps.
• VMWare workstation works better with alternate operating systems.
  • Both only have minimal support for FreeBSD, though VMWare support for FreeBSD is probably a little better: FreeBSD Now Supported on Windows Server Hyper-V Via Beta Release

There are advanced features that I haven’t tested. For example, when I worked at LANDesk we need to test PXE Booting so the ability for the virtual machine to PXE Boox was extremely important, and VMWare worked really well with PXE Booting. I haven’t tested Hyper-V with PXE Booting, so if you have please post and let me know if how it works.

Of course, don’t forget about Virtual Box. The open source edition, Virtual Box OSE, is free no matter what operating system is the host, whether it is Windows 8 or FreeBSD or Linux. It has been free for a while and yet VMWare Workstation is still popular so maybe it will remain popular despite Windows 8 Pro?