A bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.
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XenServer
Score 8.2 out of 10
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XenServer (formerly Citrix Hypervisor) is a virtualization management platform optimized for application, desktop and server virtualization infrastructures.
Neither of these two products have really been a 100% replacement for VMware ESXi but they are getting closer and closer and with the new licensing agreements that VMware is trying to push out, could start eating at the lower hanging fruit. VMware ESXi still has some nicer …
VMware stacks really well compared to competitors as it has a good reputation in the markets, and clients trust the virtual machines in regard to their data. It also provides better reliability and performance as compared to the competitors, which makes it a clear choice for …
I think it is better than Hyper-V. The gap has possibly narrowed, but it is a more robust product. Time will tell if that stays the same after being acquired.
While running through a proof of concept with Hyper-V and VMware ESXi, I found VMware ESXi to be much easier to deploy, administer, and work with overall. Both products are good but I personally found ESXi to be more intuitive to use and the deployment options were also more …
VMware ESXI is straight forward dependable hypervisor, with some users experience consistent server uptime even during hardware failure and other setbacks. It requires few hardware resources, making a minimal impact on its host machine. Deploying new servers with VMware ESXI is …
At the time we did our comparison we found that VMware scaled much better than Hyper-V, lighter weight, and much more reliable. My recommendation if Hyper-V is needed for anything such as Windows containers, is to use nested virtualization and installing Windows Hyper-V within …
VMware ESXi excels in comparison to Microsoft's offering due to integration with Linux, its bare metal approach and its ability to function off of a thinner hypervisor. It allows for better integration with application appliances in my opinion due to its non-Microsoft nature. …
While Hyper-V also can work very well and can have licensing benefits, it does rely on Windows in order to run. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can add another layer of potential failure and might not be running on as low of a level as ESXi does. The footprint for …
It's hard to beat Hyper-V when it comes to ESXi. Although Hyper-V costs nothing to use, it does require a Windows license that permits you to operate at least two virtual machines (VMs) on the Hyper-V server. I found that VMware ESXi consumes fewer resources than any other …
VMware ESXi is a lot more robust and resilient than MS Hyper-V. However, Hyper-V is more convenient and economical because it comes with Windows Server.
The vSphere management interface is going to be web-based and you access that through a web browser by browsing to the IO address of the VMware ESXi host itself and then from there you'll be prompted for a login screen.
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 …
Compared to VirtualBox, VMware ESXi feels a lot more enterprise-grade when comparing the two. As ESXi is a VMware product we knew the level of quality and support we would receive from the vendor. VirtualBox is an open-source platform for virtualization and we liked the fact …
VMware ESXi stacks up nicely against Hyper-v. VMware ESXi is a smaller footprint, the one thing Hyper-v has is cost it is free with the purchase of a windows license that allows you to run at least two windows VM's within the Hyper-v server. But VMware ESXi is still the leader …
Hyper-V utilizes more resources compared to ESXi and it gets affected when it is used to scale up and installation on Microsoft windows is easy however it does not stand to the ease of access of ESXi, a user of ESXi would find it difficult to migrate to another application.
VMware has been the #1 vendor for virtualization for 10 years, is used in top incorporations, supports almost every software around there, and runs smoothly with every hardware vendor. The con is the price, it's the most expensive solution.
Easy to manage, standard licenses and bundle licenses are customizable, provides a much more stable infrastructure. Cost-effective, Comes with special features like HA, DRS, FT.
Much more reliable and well-integrated than competitors, with a solid central management console. Citrix is having good performance but requires a specific kernel to leverage, HyperV is good only for windows OS.
We moved to VMWare ESXi from an all-physical environment. I know that VMWare VSphere is an even more advanced solution for managing numerous VMHosts under a single GUI - but we have not invested any time into VShere as of yet. We have too few employees at the moment to …
In the scheme of the real world, Citrix Hypervisor is used much less than the other two main competing products; MS Hyper-V and VMWare VSphere. So, choosing Citrix Hypervisor for your organization comes down to whether you are comfortable going with a lesser-used product. All …
VMware seems to be the standard and is more widely accepted. However, Citrix Hypervisor, is easily learned and cheaper. We have also used VirtualBox to offer up ideas for other free products. VirtualBox seems to be easier for end users who just want simple VMs and not …
The price is very good. Also, the support from the vendor in the process of implementation and maintenance is very important. Citrix offers this support. The implementation was easy, and gave us the ability to manage a large virtual infrastructure while reducing costs. The …
Because we utilize Citrix for our VDI this solution made the most sense moving forward. Citrix Hypervisor was designed to work with Citrix VDI solutions out of the box.
Feature for feature they are neck and neck. I have used Hyper-V 2012 and 2016, VMWare ESXi and XenServer evenly. XenServer is a fast install, good documentation, with enterprise features out the box that compare or exceed what VMWare offered with a higher cost of entry.
There are other hypervisors that are more eficient than Xenserver, but it is necessary to spend some money to buy them. If your demand is to compute processing, Xenserver permits you to create good environments to do this. If you need to integrate the hypervisor with other …
XenServer is easier to use and cheaper than VMWare, but there is a bit less industry support. If your aren't afraid to use products from someone besides the market leader, XenServer is a great alternative to VMWare.
I used vSphere (and vCenter server), Hyper-V, and XenServer to teach a virtualization class. vSphere is certainly the leader among these three, and Hyper-V is second (but not far behind). XenServer is third, which lacks many advanced features provided by vSphere and Hyper-V.
XenServer like the similar product I've used in the hypervisor market stacks up well in regards to compatibility with virtual machine [operating systems]. It is also capable of allowing for large, powerful VMs to be run upon it. The main selection of XenServer in environments …
If you're looking for the industry standard in server virtualization, I would recommend ESXi. After decades of expertise in the field, VMware continues to provide a strong product, production-ready, with an easy-to-learn interface that allows for quick management along with less costly upfront onboarding and training. Grab the free personal-use license and install in your homelab to start!
It can be really helpful & useful if we are using Citrix Hypervisor with other provisioning tools. Here are some specific scenarios where Citrix Hypervisor (formerly Citrix XenServer) is well-suited: Server Consolidation, Virtual Desktops, Disaster Recovery, Development & Testing Environments. On the other hand, there are some scenarios where Citrix Hypervisor may be less appropriate: Small-scale Deployments, Highly Heterogeneous Environments, and Limited Virtualization Requirements.
There are some odd issues with VMware's virtualized network drive (VMXNET3). On occasion, after a reboot of a Windows-based VM the NIC will fail to bind properly and network access is unavailable until an admin intervenes by disabling/re-enabling the adapter. While it's possible that our environment is a contributing factor, this never happens on VMs using Intel E1000 emulation, only the paravirtual NICs.
Logging is extensive but difficult to work with. VMware's solution is a product called Log Insight, which comes at additional cost. Fortunately this is somewhat mitigated by the extensive support documentation and robust user community, but in the heat of the moment obtaining the required detail can be a trying experience.
Although part of this is free the free solution has limitations that make the purchase of the paid version a requirement for most medium and large enterprises.
Support for USB devices is lacking vs. its competitors.
Technical support is somewhat limited especially the free "Google browsing" type since the product is used much less vs. Hyper-V or VMWARE.
In a related issue to tech support, finding local IT support who have used the product is also challenging.
Networking/virtual networks are less stable than they should be.
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.
With the knowledge and usage of solutions from VMware and Microsoft offering more compelling cloud integrated options it makes it more compelling in many environments which I consult. XenServer is a good product and fits the bill in many smaller environments but as clients look to the cloud or a hybrid cloud it can in some cases make it a bit more difficult.
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.
XenServer is a good product in its use and probably free if you have the right Citrix licenses already. However, it does require specific knowledge to manage, which makes it harder to manage if you don't have that knowledge in house.
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.
It's been a little problematic in the past at larger VDI deployments requiring a bit more care and feeding than other vendors. But the latest releases (6.5.x) have brought about huge improvements in the stability and availability.
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.
I rarely ever need support for anything VMWare makes, but when I do, the documentation available just in the free community is generally enough. It's extensive and the community is truly robust and active. And if you have a myvmware account, you can get support for your owned products from VMWare support by the conventional case/ticket method
The staff I've worked with are very knowledgeable or able to get a very well articulated and capable support team member on the phone or helping them if necessary and they always want to ensure the best experience possible for you on the platform. The ability for the support team to reach out to hardware vendors for assistance is a nice plus too.
Part of a training for certification to become a trainer for Citrix included an in-person training with a Master CCI. The XenServer training at this time was pretty simplified due to the product primarily being installed however you did have to work with it and mildly configure the system.
Haven't given it a real go with any online training however there are some options out there. I have taught a course following Citrix material for XenDesktop which leverages XenServer and it is pre-built so not the best for XenServer specifically for installation but configuration is mildly touched on
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.
Ensure you review the HCL (hardware compatibility list) and reach out to the hardware vendors to ensure they support the platform and in case they have documentation that can be followed for the implementation. Also ensure the prerequisites are completed prior to implementation so that as few unexpected delays occur as you can control.
While Hyper-V also can work very well and can have licensing benefits, it does rely on Windows in order to run. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can add another layer of potential failure and might not be running on as low of a level as ESXi does. The footprint for Hyper-V can be smaller if the Desktop Experience isn't used for the hosts, but this is the default fashion that ESXi has been running for many years. VMware's support has always been stellar, and its documentation is phenomenal. Hyper-V can work as a virtual environment option, but ESXi has never let me down in any environment I have managed. I will continue standing by this product and prefer it over other options. It has proven itself time and time again over time as the defacto virtual environment hosting platform.
In the scheme of the real world, Citrix Hypervisor is used much less than the other two main competing products; MS Hyper-V and VMWare vSphere. So, choosing Citrix Hypervisor for your organization comes down to whether you are comfortable going with a lesser-used product. All 3 products offer hardware layered hypervisor installation which means no OS overhead headaches. That is usually positive but in some cases, with very small shops, the OS layer is needed to host other workloads so Hyper-V running on Windows is the better choice. We run both MS Hyper-V and Citrix Hypervisor and we chose the Citrix product for our testbed environment since any risk of running the less public supported product was lessened by not being in full production.
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
The servers latest versions have made massive improvements to scalability. But from past experience there have been issues when running workloads for extended periods of time without reboot on the hosts. I would need to run similar workloads on the 6.5 release which has changed much of the bottlenecks or issues so I'd imagine its far more capable now, Perhaps able to stand near the best in the market.
Positively, it has saved us time in spinning up new servers for the different departments in our company. It is easy for us to spin up virtual machines with VMware ESXi and deploy applications at the drop of a hat.
Positively we are able to save space in our data closets as we no longer need to keep room for physical servers and workstations, allowing us to expand in other areas like networking equipment and physical backup solutions.
It has moved our business forward as we are able to migrate old servers and static workstations in the virtual environment allowing us to easily keep an eye on older applications and update/backup easily through VMware ESXi management console.
Xenserver is easy to learn. We paid for support only for installation and deployment in the first three years, and now our team has the knowledge to solve most problems.
Low CAPEX if you have a team that uses open source software day by day.
But paid support is necessary to solve critical problems. The open source community is not enough. Actually, we have difficulty solving some bugs without paying for support.
Medium OPEX if you have a team that uses open source software day by day.
