You will get the most subjective opinions (if anybody bothers at all) It is like asking what car is the best... sebus
I use VMware on a daily basics for my test systems and only use VirtualBox when i'm using GNS3 as its integrated into it.
Let me analyse this. VMWare Player is just a lite and weak version of VMWare Workstation. So it is totally out. Everybody knows that in comparison with VirtualBox and VMWare Workstation, Virtual PC SUCKS! So it is out too. Both VMWare Workstation and VirtualBox are great in desktop virtualization and I haven't seen a significant difference in speed. However, VMWare has better guest tools which makes it more convenient to share files among guest and host, set guest resolution automatically and having Aero Glass in Windows 7 guests. On the other hand, VirtualBox offers some technical advantages which may please professional geeks, like supporting UEFI, multiple screens, separate video memory and so on. Having in mind that VirtualBox is free and cross-platform makes it ultimately the best in non-windows host OSes and a great competitor to VMWare in windows hosts. In summary, if VirtualBox develops it's guest tools it will definitely beat VMWare Workstation. Hyper-V is not for desktop virtualization. It is used in servers and it cannot be compared in this context.
VMWare Player does pretty much everything you'd want it to and it's free. In my opinion it's on par with VirtualBox and is in many ways superior as it's much easier to transfer files via. However, VirtualBox in some cases can run things that VMWare (player or workstation) can't. It's more of a personal preference than "x is better than y". Each has there advantages and disadvantages.
vmware allows very easy customization in the UI itself and also modifying the files directly.... it also is much faster running software emulation than virtualbox or virtualpc, this is important if you're trying to run this in an old computer that doesn't have CPU virtualization... the vmware files are also more flexible and portable because you can import into ESX/ESXi without much changes virtualbox is better at legacy OS support though... trying to install Win9x in vmware have weird issues at times... virtualbox also has REAL SB16 emulation, which is great if you're trying to run some old app that *requires* a sound blaster... other than that, there's no advantage to virtualbox and everything else about it I don't like... hard to config, hard to customize... shields too much from the user.... it also has the problem of disappearing mouse cursor when you are trying to use it through remote desktop (non-issue with vmware or virtualpc), so due to that problem I don't use virtualbox as I remote in all the time virtualpc (and maybe hyperv) is the ONLY virtualization software that supports OS/2 because it fully emulates all BIOS calls and weird 386 registers so in general, vmware is the best all around... but if you're trying to do weird things, then the competing products might work out better for you
If cost wasn't an issue then VMWare vSphere 5.0 running on ESXi 5.0 or Hyper-V 3.0 (not 2.0 the one in 2008 R2, 3.0 the one in 2012).
But one can not assume that everybody will jump on the Win8 train (just because you plan to do so) sebus
the capabilities of VMware Player and Workstation are the same, except for lack of snapshots, *direct* screen capturing ability, not as nice guest management, and no toolbar... everything else is the same... same guest tools, same guest/host integration relationships, etc saying VMware Player is "out" is just plain wrong as VMware Workstation is higher calibre than either VirtualBox or VMware Player, so it's obvious that VMware Workstation beats out all of them based on features alone
This topic gets more interesting now that Virtualbox gets SLIC support, VMware releases Workstation 9 and VMware Player 5!
Sorry if this is the wrong thread, but as suggested, this thread may be too subjective. It all might depend on user requirements. Every-so-often, I need XP and/or a 32Bit OS that Win7Pro won't satisfy. Used for updating firmware on old devices, or run old crappy software. I'd also love to have a spotless copy of Win7 x64 as a sandpit. I'm sick of trialling everything in my real one. For testing suspect utils, running once-off keygens, or deciding on one program (from a hanful) to keep. Test for a week, test for a month... But at any point, I can press a button, and it's all flushed back to spotless in seconds. Also, my wife bounces between a Mac, and a PC, for her design work. To have her PC do both, live, would be priceless. Thanks for any/all advice.