Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VMware Workstation VS Google Kubernetes Engine

Compare VMware Workstation VS Google Kubernetes Engine and see what are their differences

VMware Workstation logo VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation is a multiple operating system handler to easily evaluate the any other type of new operating systems.

Google Kubernetes Engine logo Google Kubernetes Engine

Google Kubernetes Engine is a powerful cluster manager and orchestration system for running your Docker containers. Set up a cluster in minutes.
  • VMware Workstation Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-22
  • Google Kubernetes Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-05

VMware Workstation features and specs

  • Cross-platform Compatibility
    VMware Workstation supports a wide range of operating systems, allowing users to run multiple OS environments on a single physical machine.
  • Snapshot and Cloning Features
    Users can take snapshots of virtual machines for easy backups, experimentation, or rolling back changes. Cloning allows for easy duplication of VMs.
  • Advanced Networking
    Offers robust networking capabilities including support for virtual networks, NAT, and bridged configurations, giving users significant flexibility in setting up network environments.
  • High Performance
    VMware Workstation is optimized for performance, offering high-speed processing and efficient use of hardware resources.
  • Seamless Integration
    Integrates well with other VMware products, easing the migration of virtual machines between systems and cloud environments.

Possible disadvantages of VMware Workstation

  • High Cost
    The software can be expensive, especially for the Pro version, which may not be cost-effective for individual users or small businesses.
  • Resource Intensive
    Requires substantial hardware resources, including significant CPU and memory usage, which can be a limitation for users with older or less powerful systems.
  • Learning Curve
    The advanced features and capabilities may demand a steep learning curve for new users, requiring time and effort to master.
  • Limited Mac OS Support
    While VMware has Fusion for Mac, VMware Workstation is primarily designed for Windows and Linux, which may not be ideal for Mac users.
  • Dependency on Physical Hardware
    Performance and capabilities are dependent on the underlying physical hardware, making it necessary to have high-spec machines for optimal performance.

Google Kubernetes Engine features and specs

  • Managed Service
    GKE is a fully managed service, which means Google takes care of tasks like provisioning, maintenance, and updates of the cluster, reducing the operational burden on users.
  • Scalability
    GKE offers robust scalability options, allowing you to easily scale your applications up or down based on demand. This is facilitated through auto-scaling features for both nodes and pods.
  • Integration with Google Cloud Services
    GKE integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services such as Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and more, providing a streamlined experience for leveraging multiple cloud tools.
  • Security
    GKE offers advanced security features like private clusters, and integrates with Google Cloud IAM, which allows for fine-grained access control, helping to secure your Kubernetes environment.
  • Ease of Use
    GKE's comprehensive dashboard, command-line interface, and supporting documentation make it easy to deploy, manage, and monitor Kubernetes clusters.
  • Global Reach
    With GKE, you can deploy clusters across multiple regions and zones, giving you the ability to build highly available, geographically dispersed applications.

Possible disadvantages of Google Kubernetes Engine

  • Cost
    While GKE offers extensive features, it can be more expensive compared to other Kubernetes solutions, especially when additional services and high-availability features are utilized.
  • Limited Customization
    As a managed service, GKE has some limitations in terms of customization and control over the underlying infrastructure compared to self-managed Kubernetes environments.
  • Complexity
    Despite its ease of use features, GKE still requires a certain level of expertise to efficiently manage Kubernetes clusters, which can be a steep learning curve for beginners.
  • Dependence on Google Cloud
    Using GKE ties you to the Google Cloud ecosystem, which may limit flexibility if you decide to migrate to a different cloud provider or adopt a multi-cloud strategy.
  • Resource Constraints
    Like all cloud services, GKE nodes can be subject to resource limits and quotas imposed by Google Cloud, which can impact performance if not properly managed.
  • SLA and Downtime
    While Google Cloud offers Service Level Agreements (SLAs), there is still a risk of downtime which could affect your applications. Additionally, relying on a third-party provider means issues may take time to resolve.

VMware Workstation videos

VMware Workstation 10 Program Review

More videos:

  • Review - Intro VMware Workstation Player
  • Review - VirtualBox vs VMware Player - In-Depth Comparison on Ubuntu 18.04
  • Review - Parallels Desktop vs VMware Fusion Review | Best Mac Apps
  • Review - VMWare Fusion 11 Performance
  • Review - Is VMware Workstation Player for Linux a Virtualbox Replacement?
  • Review - Vmware Player VS Vmware Pro VS Virtualbox
  • Review - Parallels Desktop vs VMWare Fusion - PERFORMANCE Comparison! Who WON?

Google Kubernetes Engine videos

Getting Started with Containers and Google Kubernetes Engine (Cloud Next '18)

More videos:

  • Review - Optimize cost to performance on Google Kubernetes Engine
  • Tutorial - Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) | Coupon: UDEMYSEP20 - Kubernetes Made Easy | Kubernetes Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VMware Workstation and Google Kubernetes Engine)
Cloud Computing
58 58%
42% 42
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Virtualization
100 100%
0% 0
Virtual Machine Management

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VMware Workstation and Google Kubernetes Engine

VMware Workstation Reviews

Best Alternatives of VirtualBox for Windows
Workstation Player is also capable of running restricted virtual machines, that is, machines created with VMware Workstation Pro. This makes it the ideal solution to deploy in an educational environment without incurring exorbitant hardware and software expenses. Workstation Player virtual machines are portable too, so you can transfer the entire VM file to a flash drive or...
10 Best VMware Alternatives and Similar Software
VMware’s services include virtualization, networking and security management tools, and storage, to name a few. VMware vSphere is a server virtualization tool for deploying and managing large-scale virtual machine infrastructures. VMware vSphere, often known as a virtualized data center system, allows IT departments to deploy workloads on the most cost-effective...
Best Free Virtual Machine Software in 2022 – Start Your New Career
Both these applications have similar features and user-friendliness, but the configurations are developed for their respective Operating Systems. VMware player is a free product if you are looking to use this program personally. But it lacks some of the important features to use as a complete virtual machine software compared to VirtualBox or VMware workstation. If you are...
12 Best FREE Virtual Machine (VM) Software in 2020
VMware Fusion for Mac is Virtual Machine software. This tool is known for cloud computing and virtualization software. It allows you to use multiple applications on different OS at the same time.
Source: www.guru99.com
7 VirtualBox Alternatives You Can Consider
This virtualization software gives tough competition to big names like VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation pro when it comes to simultaneously running two OS. It is advertised for running Windows on Mac because for years it was only available for Mac users. But now a Windows version is also available with support for Linux and Chrome OS as a guest operating system. It works...

Google Kubernetes Engine Reviews

Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a prominent choice for a Kubernetes alternative. It is provided and managed by Google Cloud, which offers fully managed Kubernetes services.
Source: humalect.com
11 Best Rancher Alternatives Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform
Google Kubernetes Engine is a CaaS (container as a service) platform that lets you easily create, resize, manage, update, upgrade, and debug container clusters. Google Kubernetes Engine, aka GKE, was the first managed Kubernetes service, and therefore, it is highly regarded in the industry.
Top 10 Best Container Software in 2022
If you need a speedy creation of developer environments, working on micro services-based architecture and if you want to deploy production grade clusters then Docker and Google Kubernetes Engine would be the most suitable tools. They are very well suited for DevOps team.
7 Best Containerization Software Solutions of 2022
If you’re looking for a managed solution to help you deploy and scale containerized apps on your virtual machines quickly, Google Kubernetes Engine is a great choice.
Source: techgumb.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google Kubernetes Engine seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 49 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

VMware Workstation mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of VMware Workstation yet. Tracking of VMware Workstation recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Google Kubernetes Engine mentions (49)

  • Google Cloud Unveils A4 VMs with NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for AI
    Integration with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), which supports up to 65,000 nodes per cluster, facilitating robust AI infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Deploy Gemini-powered LangChain applications on GKE
    In my previous post, we explored how LangChain simplifies the development of AI-powered applications. We saw how its modularity, flexibility, and extensibility make it a powerful tool for working with large language models (LLMs) like Gemini. Now, let's take it a step further and see how we can deploy and scale our LangChain applications using the robust infrastructure of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and the... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Securing Applications Using Keycloak's Helm Chart
    Kubernetes cluster: You need a running Kubernetes cluster that supports persistent volumes. You can use a local cluster, like kind or Minikube, or a cloud-based solution, like GKE%20orEKS or EKS. The cluster should expose ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) for external access. Persistent storage should be configured to retain Keycloak data (e.g., user credentials, sessions) across restarts. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Simplify development of AI-powered applications with LangChain
    In a later post, I will take a look at how you can use LangChain to connect to a local Gemma instance, all running in a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • 26 Top Kubernetes Tools
    Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is another managed Kubernetes service that lets you spin up new cloud clusters on demand. It's specifically designed to help you run Kubernetes workloads without specialist Kubernetes expertise, and it includes a range of optional features that provide more automation for admin tasks. These include powerful capabilities around governance, compliance, security, and configuration... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing VMware Workstation and Google Kubernetes Engine, you can also consider the following products

VirtualBox - VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as...

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

QEMU - QEMU (short for "Quick EMUlator") is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor that...

Amazon ECS - Amazon EC2 Container Service is a highly scalable, high-performance​ container management service that supports Docker containers.

Proxmox VE - Proxmox is an open-source server virtualization management solution that offers the ability to manage virtual server technology with the Linux OpenVZ and KVM technology.

Docker - Docker is an open platform that enables developers and system administrators to create distributed applications.