What is the difference between Workstation, Player and Server? |
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VMware Workstation, VMware Player and VMware Server seem like redundant products. However there are quite a few destinctions, which are quite apparent from their names already.
VMware Workstation is intended for "desktop use", for a user who creates and edits Virtual Machines and uses them on his/hers desktop. It has features useful for product development that no other VMware product has such as integration with MS Visual Studio or VM teams, where the network between virtual machines in the team can be specified, including bandwidth and packet loss. VMware Workstation usually gets the new virtual hardware releases first and supports the widest guest OS range. It is optimized for interactive use and has some Direct3D capabilities (DirectX 8.1). Workstation is not free. More information: http://www.vmware.com/products/ws/new.html VMware Player is a stripped-down version of workstation, so it offers the same virtual hardware as Workstation. However, it is intended only for "playing" or running virtual machines that someone else has made and provides no means for editing them. Manual edits to the virtual machine setting file (.vmx) is possible. Player is a free product. More information: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/features.html VMware Server is meant for creating and editing virtual machines and running server-like loads. It is optimized for IO rather than interactive use on the local terminal. Server usually provides older or same generation of virtual hardware than Workstation or Player. Server is a free product. More information: http://www.vmware.com/products/server/features.html VMware Server cannot be installed at the same time with Workstation/Player. This is most likely due to conflicting, different kernel modules and cannot be circumvented. Note that even if this article says that the intended use is something, this does not mean that the product could not be used for something else. Just don't expect Player to be a good Server.
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