DigitalOcean Droplets vs. VMware Workstation Pro

There are some other platforms that compete with DigitalOcean Droplets that have more performant servers for a very minimal price decrease. However, DigitalOcean's servers still have great performance, and the experience is better when you consider the developer console, managed options, and uptime that DigitalOcean offers. DigitalOcean is the better all-around package.

Incentivized

Some scenarios where VMware Workstation pro is best suited are: 1. Utilization for testing software - can install a virtual machine to simulate software requirements and testing it on your network. 2. Testing operating systems upgrades and installation on specific hardware requirements. 3. Virtualizing a physical server 4. Being able to backup a whole server and restore from it in the event of any issue occurring.

Incentivized

• Simplicity to scale services--the interface is very quick and effective to use
• Reliability--this is key for us, as any downtime effects our reputation
• Keeps the costs down--hosting our own equivalent infrastructure would cost a lot more

Incentivized

• Not HTML based - Web applications are not always the best method to access VM's
• Isolation - VM's can be pulled off production networks for testing in a safe environment
• Operability - The interface mirrors the HTML format giving the user all of the features necessary to modify, access and manage VM's

Incentivized

• In terms of an availability zone, they have limitations not available in most of the geographical locations.
• No live support is available which can cause problem if you have outage.
• Number of service is quite limited.

Incentivized

• Making it easy to export VMS is something that Workstation struggles with; exporting to OVA which is the primary type of VM we export to is cumbersome and can be difficult without proper knowledge on how to do this.
• Management of VMS could be a little bit more in depth.
• I think the networking portion of Workstation could use some slight improvements, more in-depth segmentation to support containers, however, this is a small issue and not something many people will miss or need.

Incentivized

It's a solid product, and if they make it compatible with HyperVM (WSL, Docker, etc.) it would be great

Incentivized

Other platforms dashboard console is more difficult to use. DigitalOcean's dashboard is clean, simple, and straightforward

Incentivized

It is well documented since it is a long actor in the virtualization scene. Easy to use for most user cases. Pretty much not maintenance on the software besides the occasional software updates and/or compatibility issues from time to time.

Incentivized

I haven't had to call VMware Workstation support. The majority of the time, whenever I have a problem, I can perform an online search and find the answers I need. Online forums and users with similar situations are generally sufficient to answer any questions I have had, though, from previous experience at another company, their support is outstanding and responsive to circumstances. However, that is generally for a paid support contract and should be expected when you are paying for that support.

Incentivized

DigitalOcean Droplets has more advanced options and the devs at our team are extremely geeky and they prefer to have full control on the server via SSH rather than cPanel.

Incentivized

VMware Workstation does have a price unlike VirtualBox, that is free. But, Workstation Pro makes up for it by how many features comes with it. We are also able to take VM's in our vSphere Production environment and spin it up on and isolated laptop for sandbox testing within Workstation Pro. I'm not sure that VirtualBox is able to do that

Incentivized

• Digital Ocean has been great helping us move web apps to the cloud
• Digital Ocean has been really helpful when hiring contractors
• The interface could use some work, but overall its not terrible

Incentivized

• The ROI on Workstation would be hard for us to compute. It makes things easier to do and to get access to, but there are other applications and methods to do much the same thing.
• Where there has to be a some form of ROI is in the fact that you will actually do things that you might not otherwise do simply because Workstation makes them easier. Sandbox testing is a good example of this idea.

Incentivized