VMware Workstation Pro

The best virtualization software I've never used !

I just love how easy it is to use this software while it is andvanced and have many features on it!

I suppose what virtual machine software is best to use depends a lot on what your host OS is and your objective. As a casual home user, on the mac, VMWare Workstation isn't even available whereas Virtualbox is cross platform beinv available on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Virtualbox works like a dream on mac osx. The one glaring thing it doesn't excel at yet is OSX guests (on a mac host), but I think it's around the corner. Waiting for guest additions to work for 10.11 El Capitan, once that's in there things will be pretty effin sweet. I especially appreciate being able to mount host devices in the guest machine (like usb, bluetooth accesories etc).

If you're on Windows or Linux, IDK, maybe VMWareWorkstation would be worth the cash, although I don't know why, I've not found virtualbox to be lacking. Although I shudder to think of trying to use the command line tools with Virtualbox in a Windows host environment (which is sometimes neccesary to resize or shrink disks) with CYGWIN or something, yuck.

For a first time home user I'd definitely get started with virtualbox, it's a very complete software considering it's free. I think enterprise would pay for expert support maybe.

Have these on a few machines just for patron use. It's very easy to use and manage.

I've been using VMware for almost two years now for testing and several other things. So far, it has worked wonders on me. It is powerful, fast and efficient at getting the job done, and saves me from botching up my own computer while I run tests and download new programs. The cost might dissaude a lot of people from using it but the performance is far superior. Tried Virtual box but found it to be less intuitive and made my computer's performance decrease a bit and get laggy.

I prefer it to Virtualbox, much easier to use and user friendly but I find v11.0 to be crashing and lagging a lot lately.

Yes, free is always good but not necessarily better. It all depends on what you want to do with virtual machines and whether the product provides you with the mandatory features that you seek. VMware Workstation is geared towards developers, testers, trainers and people who just want to tinker with operating systems and environments.

Considering all the additional features you get over other alternatives, $189 (heaps cheaper for students, educational institutions etc) may not be a lot of outlay if it saves you time and effort.