VMware makes Fusion 12 Player for macOS free for personal use

VMware has announced Workstation 16 and Fusion 12. The Player version of Fusion 12 for macOS is free for personal use. In doing so, VMware is aligning its Fusion license plan with that of Workstation.

New to VMware Fusion 12 is support for macOS 11.0 Big Sur as host and guest. Support for DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1 and external GPUs has been added to both Fusion and Workstation. Both programs now also contain a dark mode.

VMware has also added support for ‘kind’, which allows local Kubernetes clusters to run, by deploying containers as nodes. Kubernetes is an open source system to distribute and manage containers of apps.

Finally, VMware adds support for VMware vSphere 7 and Workstation 16 can now handle virtual machines, containers and Kubernetes clusters on PCs running Windows 10 May 2020 Update with Hyper-V mode activated.

VMware is not reporting on Fusion’s support for upcoming ARM-based Macs. A commercial license for VMware Fusion Player 12 Player and Workstation 16 Player costs $ 149 and an upgrade is available for existing customers for $ 79, but it is free for consumers to use. The Pro versions will come for $ 199 and $ 99 for an upgrade later this quarter.

Fusion is VMware’s software that allows Mac users to run another operating system within macOS. With Workstation this can be done on a Windows or Linux PC and with the Pro versions you can run different OSes.