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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. VMware ESXi vs. VMware vSphere

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/ARed Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A

    VMware ESXi

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AA 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.N/A

    VMware vSphere

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AAn enterprise workload platform, vSphere is used to improve the performance for a data center. It is used to boost operational efficiency, supercharge workload performance, and accelerate innovation.

    $995

    per year

    Pricing
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Standard
    $995.00
    per year
    Enterprise
    $3,995.00
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Considered Multiple Products
    Red Hat
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    RHEL is the most reliable and what our organization prefers
    Incentivized
    VMware by Broadcom
    Chose VMware ESXi
    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.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    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.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    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.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    Universally accepted by all the OEM's like Avaya Cisco and many others, and is available from servers like OEM Dell and HP along with their server if required.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    While all of the above hypervisors have their pros and cons, ESXi has the advantages of being free, well supported by the community, easy to setup, easy to use, and good hardware support.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    Vendor tested and recommended for Unified Communications infrastructure
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    VMware is known to be the market leader for server virtualization for a reason. The other products are always trying to catch up and mimic the same features as ESXi.
    And now, with vSAN and NSX, vSphere is light years ahead of the competition.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    After trying Hyper-V, Xen, Proxmox VE and more we ended up choosing to go with VMware ESXi due to the ease of use and administration for our consultants. This in turn keeps our clients happy by reducing costs and support times when needed. While Hyper-V came in close the extra …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    To me, VMware ESXi is the ONLY solution. No others have held up as of yet.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    VMware ESXi is a purpose-built hypervisor. It has less operational overhead than Hyper-V. Additionally, ESXi is a much more stable and mature product than Hyper-V.
    Incentivized
    VMware by Broadcom
    Chose VMware vSphere
    Hyperv is great for limited vm build out, low cost companies, and limited in size organizations. Microsoft has a great product but its just not a robust and scalable as vsphere is. Citrix's platform is great for simple virtualization needs and for special 3D graphics …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSphere
    We have tried a few other virtualization platforms, and even though you do pay for the support, it's worth it for the extra you get. Datastore migration, host migration affinity rules are all tools we use that others don't seem to have. And if they do, they don't work as well.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSphere
    There's no comparison, VMWare is the market leader. It's pricey, but its feature set is years ahead of the competition. In particular, the ability to manage a large fleet of servers across multiple sites through a single pane of glass is great!
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSphere
    We started testing our virtual infrastructure back 9 years ago we test XenServer but it was too complicated for us. When we tested vSphere from Vmware, It just worked, all we had to do was click. At the time, we were looking to have a virtualized video security server and …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware vSphere
    1) VMware emulates virtual hardware and must account for all the underlying system requirements— subsequently, virtual machine images are
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    295 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    93 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    30 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    253 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    86 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    289 Answers
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    94 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    188 Answers
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    25 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    253 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    91 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    Features
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Operating System
    Comparison of Operating System features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and VMware ESXi and VMware vSphere
    Feature
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    8.4
    78 Ratings
    4% below category average
    VMware ESXi
    -
    Ratings
    VMware vSphere
    -
    Ratings
    File Management8.073 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Software Application Management8.075 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    System Update Frequency8.276 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating System Security9.378 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and VMware ESXi and VMware vSphere
    Feature
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    -
    Ratings
    VMware ESXi
    8.2
    128 Ratings
    2% above category average
    VMware vSphere
    7.2
    67 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings7.062 Ratings
    Management console00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings7.067 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings8.0112 Ratings6.060 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings8.065 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings8.062 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Small Businesses
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Ubuntu
    Score8.2 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (302 ratings)
    9.0
    (129 ratings)
    7.0
    (70 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    Usability
    8.5
    (194 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    8.0
    (11 ratings)
    Availability
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.2
    (9 ratings)
    10.0
    (55 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (2 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware ESXiVMware vSphere
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Red Hat
    There's a lot of things that can and can't be discussed. But as I mentioned earlier, cloud computing and on-prem, and very much like in the cloud, having a standard image ISO, deploying that, the configurations with Ansible or packages installed via Ansible, instead of just a Kickstart script, you have a set of scripts that run in a pipeline that deploy Red Hat. So I'd say the environments, every time I've used Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a computing solution has been, like I mentioned, reusable, scalable, positive. And I don't think I've ever found any situations where I wish I were using something other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, because the support is not there for anything else as much as it is for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    vSphere is well suited for multiple VMWare hosts and can be very useful in larger enterprises where vMotion is used to load balance and failover running virtual machines. In smaller businesses with one or two hosts then the features can be overkill. The addition of virtual TPM support is a very nice addition to provide vm security in a more Microsoft supported methodology.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Red Hat
    • Virtualization, like the operating system level task. I see this product is very good and it blends very well with the middleware components like all the JBoss and other things. And other than that, either you install it or a virtual machine or physical servers, it works seamlessly anywhere. And if you want to go further, like Red Hat OpenShift or those things also work very nice with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.
    • Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.
    • VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • vMotion that provides seamless movement of Virtual Machines between physical hosts and datastores.
    • Ease of Manage: vCenter provides very good management experience to the users.
    • It provides hassle free upgrade of versions, which requires good planning.
    • Easy to manage datastore, networks, CPU and memory resources.
    • It also allows to convert the physical machine and bring it to vSphere Environment with minimum effort.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Red Hat
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) needs better built-in developer-centric tooling.
    • The desktop experience is too barebones, which makes it less attractive for developer workstations.
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) needs to be integrated and available in GItHub Actions as a supported platform so code developed on GitHub can be tested and qualified there.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.
    • I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Allow enable EVC without requiring host shutdown
    • More detail in recent tasks. Instead of just showing a task called "Reconfigure virtual machine" also have a link to more detailed information as to what was reconfigured, changed or removed.
    • Allow searching tasks or events
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Red Hat
    We find RHEL to be a superior OS with stable operations and long life. It is also easier to use and fix then most other OS's.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    We are constantly looking for change that will benefit our company. We are not ones to stick with a product simply because it is what we know, but rather looking for what fits us best. We can't imagine another product on the market today doing a better job of handling our infrastructure than vSphere.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Red Hat
    It's pretty intuitive and easy to use. Everything is adjustable; everything is customizable through a set of yaml's and everything can be undone and re-done. Doing items such a modification and restarting the single app doesnt take down the whole operating system like one of the more popular GUI based operating systems. We can work on live production systems without breaking into a sweat.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Very useful for environments where space and energy consumption are issues and management is not very keen on upfront spending on hardware every time whenever requirement comes from any dept for provisioning a machine for their occasional use, easily can be done in case of VMware vSphere in few clicks. Backup, security, monitoring and management everything is covered but at additional cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Red Hat
    Product support and regular patches.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Red Hat
    As with any OS enhanced testing will need to be done prior to application integration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Red Hat
    Red Hat support has really come a long way in the last 10 years, The general support is great, and the specialized product support teams are extremely knowledgeable about their specific products. Response time is good and you never need to escalate.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    I rarely ever have to contact support and when I do need to resolve an issue, there is always an abundance of kb articles and research information available that can help quickly resolve the issue. Depending on the type of support contract you have, you may get support from some offshore group in another country and this could be a little challenging because of the language barrier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Red Hat
    Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Just make sure that when you implement, that the person implementing truly knows what they are doing and has a plan of action coming in. Since our initial implementation using a consulting service, I have implemented a few vSphere just from what I learned at the initial implementation and use over time, and the person implementing really needs to know what they are doing or you will miss out on features that may help you down the line
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Red Hat
    Windows Server can take a long time to patch, waiting for the patch to install, then waiting to apply, after the OS is rebooted it can also take additional time to apply the update. Often times Windows Server patches can fail, leading to long troubleshooting times and application outages. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Patching is extremely quick, I've honestly not seen a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) update fail to install in many years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) patching.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    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).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    vSphere has a lot more feature sets than Hyper-V but at a much higher cost of entry versus MS Hyper-V. I have not been able to play with Hyper-V as much as I would have liked, but the setup and ongoing maintenance seems to be easier in vSphere than with Hyper-V
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Red Hat
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    The contract terms are very clear and can be updated as per the project requirement. Customer support is also included in the contract which help us to troubleshoot critical issues very easily. Training included in contract will really help the client team to empower and hands-on on the latest updates and enhancements
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Red Hat
    Operational ease of use backed by support
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    Red Hat
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    As I said earlier, they're always ready to understand our issues and propose the best and most appropriate solution for issues all the time. The security patches solution is accordingly to the business needs. Another scenario is their Knowledge Base where
    they're many articles that help you in order to solve something which
    is wrong.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Red Hat
    • It has done wonders for my career because I come from a Linux background, HPUX, Solaris and AIX. So made this transition to Linux 20 years ago. So it has really put my career at the forefront of what we do in the company. We're still primarily a window shop, but with Red Hat and what they're doing with the Kubernetes integration with OpenShift, with the East Satellite Management, the Ansible stuff, all based on Red Hat. It's taken off at my company and we're very happy about it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMWare ESXi licensing is affordable for our business - and the licensing model is simplistic. Not like that of Microsoft with having to keep track of server licenses and CAL licenses for users.
    • VMWare ESXi also has hardware-monitoring built-in, so that further saves us money from having to be spent with another vendor.
    • As much as I hate the saying "a single pane of glass" does fit for this product. You can manage your servers, monitor hardware status, create and export backup snapshots, manage virtual NICs, connect to various storage devices. We're very happy with this product.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • Having vSphere helped my business quickly recover from a ransomware attack which would have crippled us for weeks if we were not virtualized. I think the ROI on something like that is immeasurable.
    • vSphere has allowed my company to purchase bigger server hardware to host 3 or 4 virtual servers, which was at a cost much lower than buying 3 or 4 server hardware boxes, saving us thousands each time we need to upgrade hardware.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots