VMware Workstation Player

VMware Workstation Player is free for personal, non-commercial use, making it one of the most accessible virtual machine tools for home users. Commercial use requires a paid license, and VMware (now owned by Broadcom) distinguishes between personal and business use cases in its licensing terms.

Yes, VMware Workstation Player supports running a wide variety of Linux distributions as guest operating systems, including Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, and Arch Linux. Users can download pre-built Linux VM images or install from ISO files directly within the Player interface.

VMware Workstation Player is the more limited version, designed primarily to run a single VM at a time, while Workstation Pro supports advanced features like snapshots, cloning, and running multiple VMs simultaneously in a tabbed interface. In late 2024, Broadcom made Workstation Pro free for personal use, which significantly reduced the practical distinction between the two products for home users.

Running macOS as a guest in VMware Workstation Player on a Windows host is not officially supported due to Apple's end-user licensing agreement. Apple only permits macOS virtualization on Apple hardware, so VMware does not include official macOS guest support in its Windows-hosted virtualization products.