--- title: VMware Fusion Reviews meta_title: 'VMware Fusion Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 126 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how VMware Fusion works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.4 review_count: 126 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-04' parent_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # VMware Fusion Reviews **Vendor:** Broadcom **Category:** [Server Virtualization Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/server-virtualization) **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 126 ## About VMware Fusion VMware Fusion is a powerful desktop hypervisor developed by VMware, enabling Mac users to run multiple operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, and other versions of macOS, concurrently with their native macOS environment. This capability allows for seamless integration and operation of diverse applications across different platforms without the need for dual-booting or additional hardware. Key Features and Functionality: - Broad OS Compatibility: Supports a wide range of guest operating systems, including various versions of Windows, Linux distributions, and older macOS versions, facilitating diverse development and testing environments. - High-Performance Virtualization: Utilizes hardware-assisted virtualization technologies to deliver efficient and responsive virtual machine performance, ensuring smooth operation of applications within VMs. - Seamless Integration with macOS: Features such as Unity mode allow Windows applications to run alongside Mac applications, providing a cohesive user experience without switching between operating systems. - Advanced Graphics Support: Offers support for DirectX and OpenGL, enabling users to run graphics-intensive applications and games within virtual machines. - Snapshot and Cloning Capabilities: Allows users to capture the current state of a virtual machine, facilitating easy rollback to previous configurations and efficient management of multiple VM instances. - Support for Apple Silicon: Recent versions have introduced compatibility with Apple’s M-series chips, expanding support to the latest Mac hardware. Primary Value and User Solutions: VMware Fusion addresses the need for Mac users to access and operate applications exclusive to other operating systems without compromising the macOS experience. It is particularly beneficial for developers, IT professionals, and power users who require cross-platform compatibility for testing, development, or running legacy applications. By providing a stable and high-performance virtualization environment, VMware Fusion eliminates the need for multiple devices or complex dual-boot setups, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity. ## VMware Fusion Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users find it **super easy to deploy** a Dev environment VM on MacBooks, even the M\* series models. (1 reviews) - Users find VMware Fusion to be **super easy to deploy** a Dev environment VM on their MacBooks. (1 reviews) - Users praise the **hardware support** of VMware Fusion, making VM deployment effortless on M\* series MacBooks. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **difficult navigation** of the Broadcom portal for downloading Fusion extremely confusing and frustrating. (1 reviews) ## VMware Fusion Reviews ### 1. Great VMware Platform for Mac! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 16, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** I love how easy it is use. I can build and destroy multiple (primarily Linux) OS builds within my OSX environment. There are also OVA files that make deploying and playing with other OS's even easier. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** At least with the versions I worked with, I couldn't deploy Windows OS VM on Fusion. Not sure there are ways around this or license purchases required, but this is a big limitation with this verision. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Linux OS Testing on available Mac Hardware. Repurposing old hardware. ### 2. VMware Fusion on a Mac **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Erin H. | Executive Assistant, Marketing and New Product Development, Sporting Goods, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** It was easy to switch between Windows and OS X. Instead of having to rely on two laptops, this makes the transition from Windows-run programs to Mac users almost seamless. It was user friendly as I was familiar with Windows and was easily to get the hand of. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Every time I signed into the program, I would have to update my Windows, and it was always a slow, tedious process. But that is the downside to using a Windows operation system. I also had network issues but I can attribute that to the IT department having their own issues. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Be patient. It doesn't run as fast as if you were using only a Windows machine, but considering the size of the program, it is very efficient. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** I had to use software that was only available on a Windows operating system, but I had a MacBook Air, so I was able to use VMware Fusion to run Windows on my Mac with relative ease. ### 3. Good software for emulating different Operating Systems **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consumer Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 27, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Able to run seamlessly familiar applications in windows and my El Capitan. Switch between different OS , share files and folders across multiple OS. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** The virtual machines created from vmware fusion sometimes do not do well in terms of performance. Connecting different USB devices has been known to give troubles. Intermittent networking and internet issues. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Hosting Multiple Operating Systems for the entire team on a single hardware. ### 4. VMware Fusion **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Collette K. | Cyber Security Forensic Lead, Insurance, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 19, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** It is better than virtual box, settings options are easy to navigate, VM ware tools is great **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** running multiple virtual machines at a time is sometimes a problem, getting vmware tools to run sometimes is a problem **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Running windows programs on a mac, creating new environments for testing ### 5. VMware User **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Maria R. | Software Consultant, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 07, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** What I like about this program is that it lets you create a virtual machine within the Windows environment with another operating system, which saves having to install another operating system on the computer. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** What I like least is that a large portion of memory blocks, all the memory that is allocated at the time of creation, not use it again while you are in Windows, which can sometimes be a problem. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** The problem it solves, is that as a developer, sometimes needs to have more than one operating system, and with this program, that problem is solved, in a very fast and effectively. ### 6. Good integration with OSX **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Krzysztof L. | IT Systems Engineer, Hospitality, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 16, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Seamlessly integrates with OSX, can choose to run files in your VM or OSX as default. Also nice key profile feature where you can map certain keys or short cuts to be presented differently in the VM. Installation is straight forward, can convert Bootcamp into VM or vice-versa **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Price, there is number of open-source products available that can do mostly the same (minus the integration). The WiFi bridging to your VM doesn't work as expect. The VM doesn't get DHCP packets, on static or LAN Bridge works correctly. VMWare never addressed this issue in past 3 major versions of this software. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Used here mostly for running Windows as VM on OSX for testing or access to software not available for OSX. ### 7. Great product. Latest version is much better than Parallels **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** W. Daniel B. | Director of Product Infrastructure, Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 09, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Snapshot and Time Machine integration works very well. Great support for USB passthrough. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Interface and OSX integration isn't as slick as Parallels. Price is a bit high and upgrades are often charged for. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Pricey software but more powerful than Virtualbox and more stable than Parallels. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Prototyping java based solutions such as Weblogic, Coherence, and micro services. ### 8. We use Fusion to run many windows applications on MACs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Duane B. | Independent Contractor, Computer Software, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 12, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** We have a very diverse compute environment for different teams within our company. Sometimes, IT does not have MAC base applications and we need to be able to run Windows applications on those systems. This solves all our problems in one simple package. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** I have no complaints about this product. I only wish I knew about it earlier. My life would have been much easier. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** We need to run windows based applications, but not everyone in the company is running windows. We use this software to run windows applications on MAC. ### 9. VMware Fusion **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bree V. | Manager, Central Sterile Processing, Hospital & Health Care, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 19, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Ability to run a windows OS on my mac, it makes running Windows program easy. It is easy to setup individual VMs, change the settings within each VM **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Running multiple VMs at a time is a pain. Having to shut down the VM to change certain settings, ability to run vmware tools on certain VMs sometimes does not work **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** running windows programs on a mac ### 10. It just works **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lukas S. | CTO, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 02, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** It's fast, easy to use, i almost never have any problems, it just works. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Sometimes i need some advanced settings that I just can't configure inside of VMWare Fusions GUI, requiring a lot of tinkering with config files and VMWares cli tools, this can be really annoying sometimes. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** If you are using this on a notebook with a small internal hard disk you may want to use a USB or Thunderbolt hard disk for your VM images, as those can get quite big depending on the software you are installing inside. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Testing operating systems and software in a controlled and easy to use environment. ### 11. I am a VMware Fusion user on a daily basis. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nigel H. | Systems Engineer, Mining & Metals, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 13, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** I love all of the features that Fusion has. I really like the ease of setting up new VMs or making quick changes to a VM settings. I also enjoy the Fusion library where I can quickly view my VMs that are in Fusion and edit/delete/run them quickly. Fusion has been rock solid also with no software crashes ever in my experience on my iMac. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** There is not much to dislike at all in my opinion. I guess I would say that the upgrade reminders are a bit annoying, and the cost can be a bit high even for upgrades. Outside of that, nothing else bad to report. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** I think I have realized the ease of use and setup with using Fusion to spin up multiple VMs to test with or run legacy apps on my machine. I waste no time now with Fusion helping me be creative or try new operating systems. ### 12. One computer, multiple operating systems **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joey Y. | Web Developer, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 21, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** The ability to run multiple sandboxed operating systems simultaneously which makes cross platform/cross-browser testing a breeze. Also like the ability to define specific resources to allocate to each instance. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Some general UX improvements within the app would be useful, but as they are now it certainly isn't bad. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cost: It is considerably cheaper to buy VMware Fusion and some Operating Systems than it is to buy and maintain whole machines. Convenience, and speed: Having everything available on one machine makes testing simple and quick. ### 13. Powerful and pleasant **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John M. | Senior Web Developer, Marketing and Advertising, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 18, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** VMWare makes my VMs feel as if they were part of my Mac. The apps run parallel without issue, and my productivity is increased by the simplicity. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** USB drives sometimes won't format correctly, so you need to be careful with that. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Plan your install ahead of time, and use a Pro version of Windows. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am able to develop .Net apps in Visual Studio without having a proprietary setup. My installation is as if it was an actual PC. ### 14. An OK hypervisor **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Entertainment | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 20, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Simple to set up and use, useful for running VM images that aren't compatible with VirtualBox. Integration with OSX is convenient at times, if a little confusing at first. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Hard to navigate settings, not as easy to find a specific setting as VirtualBox. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Running prebuilt or other self build VM images on the mac. ### 15. Review of VMware Fusion 8 **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Wireless | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 17, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** - Support for Windows 10 and El Capitan ( newest Operating Systems ) - Support for apps that use DirectX which also means enhanced graphics support - Easier learning curve to use the software - Better hardware support **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** - Improved performance may not be worth the additional upgrade price - Less stable as compared to Parallels **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Consider an upgrade to VMware 8 only if you need to support Windows 10 or El Capitan. If this is not the case, I don't think it's worth an upgrade. Although it's definitely faster and better. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** - Virtualization of resources - Handling scale of networking requests - Test driving nascent projects - Easy handling and administration ### 16. VMware Fusion is a tough sell **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Katrina W. | Instructional Designer, Higher Education, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 16, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** It's nice that I can use my Mac for regular work and still have access to a Windows box for troubleshooting purposes, but that's about it. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Every instance of VMware Fusion I've ever used has always slowed down my machine and made it buggy. It takes forever to load, the key commands don't always work properly (especially if you're using a tradition Mac keyboard, and even more so if you're using a magic mouse) and I always get frustrated when I have to use it. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Only get this if you have no other option. While I'm not familiar with other virtual machine products (and so this may be the case with them all) VMware Fusion just doesn't play nicely with Macs. Installing it on a Mac makes the computer buggy, and transitioning between the Mac and Windows platforms is just difficult and frustrating. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a person whose career involves a level of IT support, it's important to have access to both Windows and Mac platforms for troubleshooting. Using VMware Fusion is more cost effective than providing two computers for every employee. ### 17. Trusted and very helpful tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sergey T. | Back-End Developer, Internet, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 02, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Very good performance, easy to setup and maintain virtual machines. Possibility to make VM snapshots is very useful. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** It is impossible to start VM in headless mode using GUI. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Using VM as development environment. It's easy to experiment with environment using snapshots: if anything goes wrong just rollback your changes. Also it's nice to have different VMs with different environments for different projects. ### 18. Great product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rod M. | Senior Digital Delivery Analyst, End User Device Management, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Ease of use, easy to customize VMs and snapshot. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Became unsupported on Mac OS X after only two years so had to purchase another version of the product. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** This product solves the overhead and complex manageability of buying separate hardware by allowing all of the same feature set as VMware's own vSphere, all while running standalone on your desktop. ### 19. best virtualization for mac **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dino L. | Solutions Manager, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 13, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** This is the fastest and reliable virtualization product for the mac **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** new major versions are not compatible with older osx **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** best of all virtualization products **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** using visio for windows on my mac or vsphere client is now possible. ### 20. Great tool **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rickard v. | Continuous Delivery and Cloud Engineer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 23, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Good support for many different guest virtual machine os'es. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Complicated command line tool. Lack of coherence mode. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** Running Linux and BSD os'es for development. ### 21. Not Worth It **Rating:** 2.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** It's very helpful to have a virtual machine, especially as a developer. Being able to test code on multiple instances while staying on the same machine is a great benefit. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** VMWare Fusion is buggy, slow, and overall not worth the time. Every time I started up VMWare, it would completely eat up my CPU, causing my machine to be extremely slow. This defeated the purpose of the software, because coding and developing on a slow machine is almost unbearable. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Find a different product to use as a virtual machine. I was working with a brand new Mac and still had horrible lagging and bug issues, and it ate a massive amount of my CPU. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** I was testing web code on multiple machines, making sure that it looked the same on all browsers on both Mac and PC. ### 22. VMware Fusion review **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 11, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Fusion is quite good in terms of performance comparing to VirtualBox for example, especially to run Windows on Mac **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** It's relatively high priced as for me cause my usage of it is not critical for my day-to-day work **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** If you're OK with price and would like to have min overhead in terms of performance of your VMs use it **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** To run VMs with dev env built-in ### 23. A bridge between OSes **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** William L. S. | Senior Systems Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 01, 2015 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** The ability to run and test out multiple Operating Systems and tools from one workstation **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Resourse limitations to run some multiple Operating Systems can be too intense for a basic workstation. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Just be wary when deploying this to a group, administration of this software in on a user by user basis. There is no centra managment as in VDI or VCenter which makes administration more tedious. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** The development team being supported needed ways to test out different version of java, browsers, etc before they deployed their builds. Fusion allowed the Mac users to test on thier workstation also. ### 24. The best solution to run Windows along side your MacOS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Human Resources | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2014 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** I've been using both VMWare Fusion and Parallels for 5+ years now. VMWare Fusion is very stable and does a great job of running Windows as an application on my Mac. They have improved the product greatly over the years and it's to the point where integration is fairly seamless (assuming you have enough (RAM). **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** You need as much RAM as possible so that your machine does not slow down. I'm much more mobile nowadays and Fusion tend to really take it's toll on smaller laptops like the Mac Book Air. So it's not ideal to run them simultaneously for longer periods as you would at home/office on a desktop. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** It's a tough call between Parallels and Fusion but in my experience Fusion is a tad more stable and easier to use but both products are excellent. Checkout the list of features and there are some unique features for each product. **What problems is VMware Fusion solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have numerous business apps that must run on Windows and this has allowed me to continue using my Mac and still run Windows applications. ### 25. Good option for virtualizing Windows inside your Mac **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Greg M. | Senior Consultant, Internet, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2013 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Allows you to run your Windows programs within OS X. Solid integration between the two operating systems, including conveniences one would expect like clipboard sharing, drag-and-drop, the ability to launch Windows programs from the dock, etc. Easy to share files between the two. Handy wizard lets you migrate your existing PC over to a virtual machine for use inside of VMware Fusion, which can be great for new Mac converts who are still nervous about leaving Windows behind. Pricing is also cheaper than Parallels, and for personal (non-commercial) users, the license extends to however many Macs you own. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Performance is solid, but still somewhat reduced by the virtualization of the guest OS. Requires plenty of RAM, and since newer Macs cannot be upgraded, make sure you plan ahead in this department when buying hardware. Also, you will need a Windows operating system license, which will raise the cost of this solution. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** Very similar to Parallels Desktop. Your preference for one or the other will probably come down to little differences; for me it's Parallels. ### 26. Great VR for your Mac **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2013 **What do you like best about VMware Fusion?** Extremely fast and reported the highest benchmark ranking from PC Mags testing. More of a technical interface rather than the attractive looks of Parallels. I didn't notice any performance difference between Fusion and Parallels while running a VM of Windows 8. **What do you dislike about VMware Fusion?** Doesn't look nearly as good as Parallels. **Recommendations to others considering VMware Fusion:** If you are a light user just looking to virtualize Windows, get Parallels. ## VMware Fusion Discussions - [What is VMware Fusion used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-vmware-fusion-used-for) - 1 comment - [View VMware Fusion pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-fusion/reviews?page=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-04+10%3A14%3A28+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=33ee9b16-d0ca-4f82-914d-14ba35446f13&secure%5Btoken%5D=60267cac3a733068a4479ea578372e14c05040c5649de0397023d10f38326678&format=llm_user) ## VMware Fusion Features **Performance** - Scalability - Portability - Data Recovery **Functionality** - OS Integration - Resource Saving - Performance Management - Security **Agentic AI - Server Virtualization** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making ## Top VMware Fusion Alternatives - [VirtualBox](https://www.g2.com/products/virtualbox/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (292 reviews) - [Red Hat OpenShift](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-red-hat-openshift/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (290 reviews) - [Azure Virtual Machines](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-virtual-machines/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (377 reviews)