VMTN Blog

I'm proud to work with a team that produces software like VMware Workstation that keeps getting better and better, keeps receiving award after award, and keeps winning review after review. (Did you know we got put into the Jolt Hall of Fame so somebody else could win for a change?) Randall Kennedy at InfoWorld seems to be of a similar opinion.

Link: Virtualization showdown: VMware Workstation vs. Sun xVM VirtualBox | InfoWorld | Review | 2008-09-11 | By Randall C. Kennedy.

Legendary thoroughbred
What is there left to say about VMware Workstation? Few products have spent as much time at the top of the heap. But as I mentioned in my preview of the Workstation 6.5 Beta earlier this year, the company simply refuses to sit on its laurels. With each new major release, VMware raises the bar for would-be competitors. And not just by a few inches -- in the case of version 6.5, think several feet. The change log is that impressive.

                        

But where to begin? I suppose I could talk about my favorite new feature, Easy Install. Simply create a new VM, point it to the installation media for the desired Windows OS edition (client or server), and grab a cup of coffee. By the time you return, VMware has installed the OS (including specifying product keys and default user accounts), slipstreamed its own VMware Tools suite, and basically left you with a fully baked guest OS image that's ready for work. If you spend a lot of time building and tearing down VMs like I do, you will instantly fall in love with Easy Install. ...

Of course, the biggest changes involve Workstation's support for VMware's ACE technology. Whereas in the past you had to run a separate version of Workstation -- the ACE Edition -- to edit and apply ACE policies, version 6.5 incorporates these features seamlessly into the base Workstation UI. You can now enable/disable ACE functionality for a VM with a single click, and given the depth and breadth of options available, one click may be all you need to securely lock down and manage a wayward VM. ...

Calling VMware Workstation 6.5 versus Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.0 a two-horse “race” might have been misleading. With Workstation's                            expansive feature set and top-notch performance, it really isn't much of a competition.

OK, I've cherry-picked the good Workstation quotes, but Randall does give plenty of props to VirtualBox as well. VirtualBox is pretty good and provides the basics, but it's 30% slower than Workstation and doesn't provide at all the same features for an enterprise user or developer.