What users are saying about

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) vs VMware ESXi

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
298 Ratings
VMware ESXi
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Top Rated
739 Ratings

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

298 Ratings
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Score 8.3 out of 100

Based on 298 reviews and ratings

VMware ESXi

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Top Rated
739 Ratings
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Score 9.2 out of 100

Based on 739 reviews and ratings

Feature Set Ratings

    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

    8.9

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    89%

    VMware ESXi

    Feature Set Not Supported
    N/A
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) ranks higher in 9/9 features
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) ranks higher in 9/9 features

    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime

    9.0
    90%
    15 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Dynamic scaling

    8.7
    87%
    16 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Elastic load balancing

    9.0
    90%
    15 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Pre-configured templates

    8.9
    89%
    16 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Monitoring tools

    8.9
    89%
    16 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Pre-defined machine images

    8.8
    88%
    16 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Operating system support

    8.9
    89%
    16 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Security controls

    9.0
    90%
    16 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Automation

    9.0
    90%
    5 Ratings
    N/A
    0 Ratings

    Server Virtualization

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    Feature Set Not Supported
    N/A
    8.8

    VMware ESXi

    88%
    VMware ESXi ranks higher in 5/5 features
    VMware ESXi ranks higher in 5/5 features

    Virtual machine automated provisioning

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    8.7
    87%
    117 Ratings

    Management console

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    8.8
    88%
    129 Ratings

    Live virtual machine backup

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    8.4
    84%
    111 Ratings

    Live virtual machine migration

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    9.3
    93%
    117 Ratings

    Hypervisor-level security

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    8.6
    86%
    118 Ratings

    Attribute Ratings

    • VMware ESXi is rated higher in 3 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Usability, Support Rating

    Likelihood to Recommend

    8.5

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    85%
    65 Ratings
    9.3

    VMware ESXi

    93%
    130 Ratings

    Likelihood to Renew

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    10.0

    VMware ESXi

    100%
    5 Ratings

    Usability

    8.9

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    89%
    3 Ratings
    9.3

    VMware ESXi

    93%
    4 Ratings

    Availability

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    10.0

    VMware ESXi

    100%
    1 Rating

    Performance

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    10.0

    VMware ESXi

    100%
    1 Rating

    Support Rating

    8.9

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    89%
    22 Ratings
    9.2

    VMware ESXi

    92%
    114 Ratings

    Implementation Rating

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    10.0

    VMware ESXi

    100%
    2 Ratings

    Contract Terms and Pricing Model

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    10.0

    VMware ESXi

    100%
    1 Rating

    Product Scalability

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    N/A
    0 Ratings
    10.0

    VMware ESXi

    100%
    1 Rating

    Likelihood to Recommend

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    I think nowadays, Amazon EC2 is best-suited for most app development and deployment use cases, especially if your resource requirements are not fixed over a long period of time. The flexibility provided by the on-demand pricing and rescaling option makes Amazon EC2 a great service, especially if your tech stack already runs on AWS. On the other hand, I think Amazon EC2 is not the best option if your tech infrastructure runs on another public cloud.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 65 answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    I have seen and managed VMware environments of various sizes from a larger company down to small and medium businesses. I feel it is an excellent solution for all business sizes. For anyone looking for a virtual environment for their infrastructure, it works well and can scale easily as a business grows. The tools provided make management simple, and VMware support is one of the best experiences I have ever had out of all of the companies I have dealt with. They are a benchmark in that regard.

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    Adam Friedli | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Adam Friedli
    View all 130 answers on this topic

    Pros

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    • A great variety of choices in Amazon Machine Image (AMI) types. Users can select a more basic type to run generic workloads, but also have the choice to pick an AMI pre-installed with specific services in the AWS Marketplace.
    • The range of instance types can support the usage from a student's exploration (inexpensive general-purpose nano instances) to an enterprise's most intense workloads (memory or storage-optimized instances with terabytes of memory and ultra-fast network connection).
    • The pricing options, from regular instances, reserved instances to spot instances allow users to get the job done and make smart choices about how much they want to pay and when they want to pay.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
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    VMware ESXi

    • VMware ESXi provides a wizard for the hypervisor to be installed making it very easy to configure on almost any bare metal box.
    • It provides an easy interface to see information about the Virtual Machines you have set on the VMware ESXi hypervisor.
    • VMware ESXi is also very easily upgradable. The hypervisor takes care of all the necessary tasks prior to a hypervisor upgrade, allowing for peace of mind when upgrading and no effect on the virtual machines you have running.

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    Michael Sen | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Michael Sen
    View all 130 answers on this topic

    Cons

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    • This service is a bit difficult to consume. New users need a big learning curve to use this service effectively.
    • UI for EC2 service is a little complex and at many places, it misses detailed explanation.
    • Sometimes it takes too long to create images of EC2 instances. This keeps your EC2 up for that extra time. When instances are heavy, it penalizes a lot of money.

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    Apurv Doshi | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Apurv Doshi
    View all 65 answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    • It would be nice if it was easier to upgrade between versions/releases
    • Trying to find some of their software downloads can be difficult, as their website is not the greatest - also requires you to be logged in to view any of their software downloads (which is difficult if you're working with a reseller)
    • When you click on "Virtual Network Cards" as a hotlink - it generally breaks your session. So that small bug could also be patched.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 130 answers on this topic

    Pricing Details

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    General

    Free Trial
    —
    Free/Freemium Version
    —
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    —
    Entry-level set up fee?
    No

    Starting Price

    $0 per Hour

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Editions & Modules

    Edition
    On-Demand$0.0042 - $6.5281
    Data Transfer$0.00 - $0.092
    EBS-Optimized Instances$0.0053
    Carrier IP Addresses$0.005 - $0.10
    T2, T3 Instances$0.05 ($0.096)5
    T4g Instances$0.046
    1. per Hour
    2. per GB
    3. per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
    4. none
    5. per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES (Windows)
    6. per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES
    Additional Pricing Details
    —

    VMware ESXi

    General

    Free Trial
    —
    Free/Freemium Version
    Yes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    —
    Entry-level set up fee?
    No

    Starting Price

    —

    VMware ESXi Editions & Modules

    —
    Additional Pricing Details
    —

    Likelihood to Renew

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 10.0
    Based on 5 answers
    It is critical to our business, what started out as a way to do certain functions, it has now become core to ensuring our product is available to our customers and reducing our costs to operate and reduce our recovery time and provisioning servers. Their support is great and the costs to renew is reasonable.

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    Terry Schultz | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Terry Schultz
    View all 5 answers on this topic

    Usability

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) 8.9
    Based on 3 answers
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) allows various ways of gaining incidents, such as slow growth, money, and the reserved ones, mostly depend entirely on the necessity, because it makes highly intelligent choices possible at these times, which enable considerable cost savings whilst addressing the situation as best I like.

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    Ana Baker | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Ana Baker
    View all 3 answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 9.3
    Based on 4 answers
    The interface is fairly intuitive for most things, and the areas that are a little less obvious usually have fantastic documentation in the online knowledgebase. In 3-4 years of managing our ESXi hosts, I think that I have only opened 4-5 support cases for things that I could not figure out myself or find answers to on the website.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 4 answers on this topic

    Reliability and Availability

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 10.0
    Based on 1 answer
    Without the need to patch the servers with bug fixes and enhancements we whave not experienced any downtime with VMware issues. Even the bug fixes and updates do not cause of downtime as we just migrate the servers to the opposite node and update the one and then move servers back. Very simple and painless.

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    Terry Schultz | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Terry Schultz
    View all 1 answers on this topic

    Performance

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 10.0
    Based on 1 answer
    We do not notice any difference between a physical and virtual server running the same workload. In fact we can scale quicker with the virtual server than we can with the physical.

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    Terry Schultz | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Terry Schultz
    View all 1 answers on this topic

    Support Rating

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) 8.9
    Based on 22 answers
    AWS's support is good overall. Not outstanding, but better than average. We have had very little reason to engage with AWS support but in our limited experience, the staff has been knowledgeable, timely and helpful. The only negative is actually initiating a service request can be a bit of a pain.

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    Patrick Plaisance | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Patrick Plaisance
    View all 22 answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 9.2
    Based on 114 answers
    I can't say enough good about VMware's support team. To an individual they take ownership of the case, provide thorough answers, and follow up regularly. On one occasion, a problem we experienced with NSX Endpoint was escalated to development for a permanent resolution after a workaround was found. In my experience, most companies would have tried to find a way to close a case like that instead of taking it all the way. Most importantly, when production is down and every second counts, they VMware teams understand that urgency and treat your issue as if it were the only one they had to deal with. You can't ask for better.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 114 answers on this topic

    Implementation Rating

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 10.0
    Based on 2 answers
    Jsut read and follow anything your storage provider may require to allow the integration of VMware with storage operations, outside of that VMware jsut works.

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    Terry Schultz | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Terry Schultz
    View all 2 answers on this topic

    Alternatives Considered

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    AWS EC2 is the mainstay of several AWS tools, with CodeBuild that includes AWS Cloud9, and CodePipeline, which allow us to work quickly, efficiently, for all the work team, regardless of whether it is remotely or locally, always keeping the progress saved in the cloud. With Lambda it can be compiled at any time in a fast way, with AWS WAF we protect the different connections, since it provides a high level of security, without having to configure too much, in general all the tools work perfectly with EC2, speeding up the development time of the different projects

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    Winston Mendes | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Winston Mendes
    View all 65 answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    As long as you're using Nutanix AOS on Nutanix hardware and are paying their software support fees, AOS is a valid competitor to VMware and can save money due to not needing a license and having their server management system built into the base host management system. If you aren't using Nutanix hardware, however, VMWare is in most cases the best way to go. I cannot comment on HyperV, but most IT people I know either use it because they have to (most) or they like it better (not many).

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    Chris Funk | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Chris Funk
    View all 130 answers on this topic

    Contract Terms and Pricing Model

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 10.0
    Based on 1 answer
    it has been fair and easy to understand. I know VMware is looking at wanting to change from CPU to core pricing so we will see what that looks like when it happens.

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    Terry Schultz | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Terry Schultz
    View all 1 answers on this topic

    Scalability

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    No score
    No answers yet
    No answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    VMware ESXi 10.0
    Based on 1 answer
    We started out with a two-server cluster and adding a third or fourth is very straightforward and simple with no issues. You just need to be aware of the size of your Vcenter Server to handle the workload, but still the resources needed is very minimal

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    Terry Schultz | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Terry Schultz
    View all 1 answers on this topic

    Return on Investment

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    • Instance procurement time has become negligible with EC2. Any developer can provision an instance very quickly and companies can move towards automation of CI/CD pipelines and auto provisioning of EC2s.
    • Companies do not have to spend money in managing infrastructures, data centers, staff to manage these, networking, connectivity etc. All this will be taken care by AWS and EC2 can be used to run your enterprise softwares and custom applications.
    • If not correctly monitored EC2 prices can run up very quickly. So proper monitoring has to be in place in your organization. Non-prod and dev EC2 servers should be brought down in evening and night.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 65 answers on this topic

    VMware ESXi

    • Positive for management and support of IT infrastructure.
    • Maximising available computing power -IE, Microsoft's hypervisor run's on top of Windows which uses a lot of computing power.
    • With vCenter being able to manage everything in one place, less trained users are needed to manage large numbers of ESXi hosts and SAN's etc.

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    Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Verified User
    View all 130 answers on this topic

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