VMware is having a Black Friday in July sale. Discounts are also available if you're upgrading.
The following are prices if you're buying:
Although there are good free virtualization alternatives (e.g. VirtualBox), this might be a good opportunity to save some money if you want a VMware solution.
Thanks, I needed that
With this price, better off buying the W10-Pro licence and just use Hyper-V out of it natively. Some might even prefer to use the even cheaper Virtualbox (free). Really don't get why the Mac version is that much cheaper than the Win licence.
Hyper-V is good in terms of performance and stability, generally speaking. The major difference is in the range of features. Hyper-V lacks a unity/seamless mode, and doesn't provide Vt-x/Vt-d/etc pass through (eg no vm within a vm)
Hyper-V is fine until the networking breaks. Then you are in for a world of hurt…
VMWare Workstation is a great product with a lot of features and capabilities. Virtualbox and Hyper-V are good, but don't quite match VMWare Workstation. For example, the nested virtualisation capabilities of VMWare Workstation are better than the others. (With the Windows version anyway .. have no experience with Mac).
Yep, I encourage others to evaluate all virtualization options. Hyper-V may suffice but it's also only a "Type 1" hypervisor (whereas Fusion & Workstation are "Type 2"). Also, last time I used Hyper-V, it did not support "sound" unless you used something like RDP.
I suspect that Fusion (Mac) might be cheaper than Workstation (PC) because there are substantially fewer hardware permutations. I suspect that virtualization is may be fussier and may hit different issues with different hardware. VMware may need to invest more time in ensuring that everything works smoothly.
Black Friday in July?
lol.. was 2 weeks ago with Friday 13th.. (that sort of Black friday I suppose)..
How come noone mentioned Virtual Box which is free? Great value for a free product.
That was my bad. I originally wrote "VirtualPC" but meant "VirtualBox". I've updated the text.
VirtualBox is really great, but I personally ran into some issues with audio cracking and lagging.
I moved to Hyper-V from Workstation Pro and never came back..
If you study IT at TAFE, your lecturers usually sign you up to 'On The Hub', which provides you with software and its product keys to activate licensed products, such as VMWare vSphere and Workstation 12 Pro, Windows Server and Consumer editions, and other paid-software for free.
Click on the link below and navigate to 'Menu' > 'Find Your School' to find your educational institution:
https://onthehub.com
Virtual bargain!