Every major version of Windows comes in a few different editions. The same applies to Windows 11, which has many editions including Home, Pro, Enterprise, and the specialized Windows 11 SE, made for young students. While there are plenty of editions of Windows 11, technically, you're not really going to see most of them. If you're buying and using your own computer, the choices boil down to Windows 11 Home or Pro, which are the options you'll find preinstalled on most laptops.

Before anything else, the major difference between Windows 11 Home and Pro is pricing. If you want to buy a Windows 11 license, the Home edition will cost $139.99, while Pro will cost $199.99. However, most laptops will just come with either one preinstalled. If you have Windows 11 Home and you want to upgrade to Pro, that will cost you $99.99. It's also important to know that, for most people, Windows 11 Home will do pretty much anything you need it to do. As the name implies, the Pro edition is meant for professionals, usually people using their devices for work, and specifically within a company. There are some additional features on this front, but if you're just buying a PC for personal use, Windows 11 Home is fine.

Windows 11 Home vs Pro: Summary of differences

If you want to see the major feature differences at a glance, here's a quick rundown:

Setting up

Windows 11 Pro can (kind of) be used without a Microsoft account

With the initial release of Windows 11, the first major difference between the Home and Pro editions was that Windows 11 Home didn't let you set up the PC with a local account, while Windows 11 Pro did. However, Microsoft has since changed this so that a Microsoft account is still required when setting up a Windows 11 Pro device for home use. You can forgo a Microsoft account when setting the device up for work or school use, or you can use a workaround to bypass a Microsoft account on both Home and Pro editions.

Another difference that will be noticeable for business users is that Windows 11 Home PCs can't be joined to Active Directory. Active Directory solutions are necessary for managing business devices, such as configuring access to certain resources, deploying apps, etc. That also includes Windows 11 features like Group Policy. Those are all professional tools, so they don't make sense for most Windows 11 Home users.

Virtualization and remote desktop

Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Protocol aren't available on Windows 11 Home

The next major difference between Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 is support for virtualization features in Windows. Windows 11 Home doesn't support Hyper-V (officially, though you can enable it) or Windows Sandbox. Plus, while it can be used as a Remote Desktop client, it can't be a host, so you can't access a Windows 11 Home PC remotely using Microsoft Remote Desktop. However, you can use third-party tools like TeamViewer for similar purposes.

Meanwhile, Windows 11 Pro supports all of these features. Hyper-V is a virtualization tool built into Windows, which means you can create virtual machines with it. If you want to try a different operating system like Linux, or you need to use an older version of Windows, you can do it using Hyper-V. Virtual machines don't make changes to your host PC, so you can do it all risk-free. Again, there are third-party apps, such as VMware Workstation Player, that let you do this on Home editions.

Windows Sandbox is an extension of this idea, but instead of running other operating systems, it just creates a clean copy of the OS you're running. With Windows Sandbox, you can quickly install and try a potentially risky app and see if it's dangerous before actually installing it on your machine. Windows Sandbox resets every time you open it, so it's always a fresh start for testing.

Security

Both versions are secure, but Windows 11 Pro has some extra features

As business users often deal with especially sensitive information, there are also some extra security features in Windows 11 Pro. First, there's support for BitLocker encryption. This feature encrypts data stored on your hard drive so no one else can access it. Even if your computer is stolen, your files are protected from users other than yourself. While Windows 11 Home comes with generic device encryption powered by BitLocker technology, Windows 11 Pro lets you encrypt or decrypt specific drives, and it has more options when encrypting a drive.

Windows 11 Pro also comes with Windows Information Protection, or WIP. This is a data loss prevention tool, which can help prevent data from leaking from within a company. Using WIP policies, companies can prevent users from forwarding content outside of the company, for example. Since it's built right into Windows, WIP offers a more hassle-free experience compared to third-party solutions. WIP can also separate personal and business data on a device, so if the PC is lost or stolen, business data can be deleted remotely without affecting personal data on it.

Additionally, while both editions come with Microsoft Defender built-in, Windows 11 Pro also has a feature called Microsoft Defender Application Guard, which forces untrusted apps to run in a contained Hyper-V environment so they can't harm the rest of the system.

CPU and RAM support

Windows 11 Pro can handle more power

Windows 11 Home and Pro share the same minimum system requirements, so they will mostly work on the same PCs. However, Windows 11 Home actually has different upper limits compared to Windows 11 Pro. For example, Windows 11 Home PCs can only have one CPU socket, and thus only one CPU, while the Pro edition supports two. Similarly, Windows 11 Home only supports up to 64 CPU cores, while Windows 11 Pro can have up to 128.

Windows 11 Home is also limited to "just" 128GB of RAM. Of course, that's going to be enough for just about any regular user — even the most advanced gaming PCs don't need this much RAM. However, Windows 11 Pro takes that up to 2TB, and that's mostly going to be useful if you want to create lots of virtual machines with plenty of RAM assigned to them.

There's also Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, which supports even more powerful PCs, but only a very small subset of users will ever consider buying this option.

Enterprise management features

The big reasons for Windows 11 Pro to exist

Of course, the bulk of the differences between Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 are for businesses. Most device management capabilities aren't available in Windows 11 Home at all. Windows 11 Pro, however, supports things like the Group Policy Editor, which lets IT admins configure certain policies for groups of devices in one go. Even if you're not in a managed environment, this tool can be really useful for disabling features you might not be able to configure in Home editions. There's also Windows Update for Business, which lets companies control how updates are rolled out to their users to avoid unexpected issues.

Features exclusive to Windows 11 Pro include:

• Mobile device management
• Group Policy Editor
• Enterprise State Roaming
• Assigned Access
• Dynamic Provisioning
• Windows Update for Business
• Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
• Kiosk mode
• Active Directory/Azure AD

In Windows 10, there was also the Microsoft Store for Business, but Windows 11 no longer uses it, and instead relies on a new Microsoft Store experience with Microsoft Intune policies for specific management. All of these tools are made for IT administrators inside companies to be able to control company-owned devices to ensure they're secure and functional.

Windows 11 Pro for Workstations

For super-powerful PCs

While we've covered all the differences between Windows 11 Home and Pro, there is one additional SKU that you might see pop up, called Windows 11 Pro for Workstations. This takes the capabilities of Windows 11 Pro even further, and it's made for a much smaller subset of users.

Windows 11 Pro for Workstations has some additional benefits, starting with support for more CPUs (up to four) and RAM (up to 6TB), so it goes even further in terms of performance compared to the Pro edition. On top of that, this edition also includes the ReFS file system, offering additional resilience against data loss.

Another benefit is support for Remote Direct Memory Access, allowing you to access the memory on one computer from another without having to go through the CPU. This gives you even faster access to files to speed up your workloads.

Windows 11 Pro for Workstations can come preinstalled on some computers, but only very specific machines that have incredibly high specs. You won't find this edition on a regular laptop, nor should you upgrade to it unless you have a very powerful PC that really needs this kind of power. This will mostly be made for desktop workstations, and even then, only the most top-tier machines can really make use of it.

Windows 11 Home vs Pro: Which one should you get?

These are the core differences in Windows 11 Home vs Pro editions. As we've mentioned, most of them revolve around features meant for business users. Some are designed to protect especially sensitive information, while others have to do with quickly setting up devices for users and managing them remotely. For the average person walking into a store, you're probably going to be just fine with Windows 11 Home. The odds are if you need Windows 11 Pro, you already know you need it and why.

If you have a PC with Windows 11 Home and you need Pro though, you can always upgrade. Check out our guide on upgrading to Windows 11 Pro if you need any help. If you're curious about what's new in Windows 11, check out our update tracker to know all about the latest updates.

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  Windows 11 Home

  The base edition of Windows 11 contains all the features most users are likely to need, but it misses out on some advanced management features for businesses.

  $140 at Best Buy

• 

  Windows 11 Pro

  Windows 11 Pro packs everything the Home edition has, but it has additional capabilities like the Group Policy Editor, Hyper-V, Windows Sandbox, and more.

  $200 at Best Buy