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VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi

Overview

What is VMware ESXi?

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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Learn from top reviewers

VMware ESXi is a great hypervisor for those who can afford it

Rating: 9 out of 10
December 31, 2024
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We have dozens of virtual servers in the office and use VMware ESXi as a hypervisor to consolidate them in a few physical servers, getting performance and reliability while us...
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Carlos Coque
Analyst - Information Technology
System Administrator
IBEX Payroll Services
VMware ESXi9 years of experience

VMWare ESXi is not longer the king of the mountain due to poor service and support

Rating: 6 out of 10
August 10, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
VMware ESXi is used for all of our Production and Test/Development environments in our organization.
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David Riberdy
Supervisor - Information Technology
Enterprise Data Management Supervisor
Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company
VMware ESXi20 years of experience

Simply the best in business IT asset virtualization.

Rating: 10 out of 10
June 17, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
ESXI allows us to run multiple and separate headless services on different platforms all on the same hardware, while also allowing for quick spin-up of user stations for tempo...
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Brendon Brown
Director - Information Technology
eComerce Director
Island City Media
VMware ESXi8 years of experience

VMware continues to work well

Rating: 10 out of 10
June 14, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use VMware ESXi to host all of our VMs. It houses 95% of our on-prem infrastructure. We have a cluster of hosts that do this work with a SAN on the backend.
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Chris Hein
Administrator - Information Technology
Systems Engineer
CIH
VMware ESXi8 years of experience

ESXi helped us out a bunch!

Rating: 9 out of 10
June 13, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use ESXi within all of our Production, Development, & Testing environments to manage and run critical workloads that the company leverages for revenue generating applic...
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Richard Potts
Administrator - Information Technology
Network & Systems Administrator
College Foundation, Inc.
VMware ESXi10 years of experience
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Pricing

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VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi

N/A
Unavailable

What is VMware ESXi?

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

359 people also want pricing

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What is VMware vSphere?

An 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.

Hyper-V

Hyper-V

$24.95
per month

Sorry, this product's description is unavailable

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Product Demos

VMware ESXi 5.1 Install & Configure In Oracle Virtual Box

YouTube
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Features

Server Virtualization

Server virtualization allows multiple operating systems to be run completely independently on a single server

8.3
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

What is VMware ESXi?

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.

ESXi is used to:

  • Consolidate hardware for higher capacity utilization.
  • Increase performance for a competitive edge.
  • Streamline IT administration through centralized management.
  • Reduce CapEx and OpEx.
  • Minimize hardware resources needed to run the hypervisor, boosting efficiency.

VMware ESXi Integrations

VMware ESXi Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Reviewers rate Management console highest, with a score of 8.8.

The most common users of VMware ESXi are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

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(1-5 of 15)

VMware Review

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
August 09, 2018
Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
VMware ESXi
6 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
It's used to manage guest OS/virtual machines within our organizations Unified Communications infrastructure. ESXi is being used by multiple groups within our organization. ESXi helps reduce our hardware footprint while improving availability of services.
Pros
  • Allows system administrators to manage multiple hosts via one interface.
  • Perform multiple management tasks
  • Provides excellent memory management
Cons
  • Learning curve for support staff
  • live migration of hosts supporting realtime protocols
  • some maintenance requires downtime
Likelihood to Recommend
Supports a high amount of guest host

VMware ESXi the only real choice

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
March 24, 2022
WR
Wayne Ragusa
Management Information System Supervisor
UCP of Suffolk (Non-profit Organization Management, 501-1000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
VMware ESXi
8 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use VMWare ESXi as the virtualization platform for our entire production environment. It allows us to design and rapidly deploy environments that are flexible, redundant, and efficient. We have used VMware ESXi for two years and are quite happy with the product. It is essential to everything that we do.
Pros
  • Ease of Access to all of my Virtual servers.
  • Great performance visibility.
  • Easy to Grow at a moment's notice.
Cons
  • Complexity - if you're not familiar with the product there is a learning curve.
  • VMware ESXi could find a way to boot faster.
Likelihood to Recommend
We were able to shrink our server footprint while growing our company.

Small environments of less than 3 or 4 servers might not need VMware ESXi. This is due to its higher ROI for them.

ESXi helped us out a bunch!

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
June 13, 2023
RP
Richard Potts
Network & Systems Administrator
College Foundation, Inc. (Education Management, 51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
VMware ESXi
10 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use ESXi within all of our Production, Development, & Testing environments to manage and run critical workloads that the company leverages for revenue generating applications as well as day to day IT infrastructure systems. ESXi is our management center for all of these systems and allows us to modify our virtual environment as needed.
Pros
  • Ease of use
  • Extremely intuitive
  • Easy to manage
Cons
  • Upgrade procedures could be outlined a bit better
  • Documentation could be improved to show specific images of tasks
  • Network integration and interfacing could be easier to navigate
Likelihood to Recommend
ESXi is very well suited for managing and running small to enterprise sized workloads and allows for detailed visibility and management of your workloads within a single view. ESXi has a very low learning curve and allows administrators to ramp up quickly on how to properly and safely manage and deploy virtual environments.

ESXi, hypervisor extraordinaire!

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
November 15, 2019
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 201-500 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
VMware ESXi
13 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We utilize ESXi to help get more bang for our buck for our compute workloads. We run primarily Windows and Linux workloads. We use ESXi across our whole organization. ESXi allows us to perform maintenance without downtime. We can also automate provisioning and maintenance with tools to allow for more efficient use of our time.
Pros
  • Stable software.
  • Supports many guest OS'es.
  • Allows for automation.
  • Allows for more uptime.
Cons
  • Quality support can be hard to receive.
  • Licensing for features can be expensive.
  • The learning curve for new users can be steep.
Likelihood to Recommend
ESXi is great when you want your hardware to have more than one purpose. It allows for easy management and helps alleviate repetitive mundane tasks. Sometimes licensing can be a problem depending on the type of licensing model. We have had great luck with VMware and the way it works.

VMware ROCKS

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
October 14, 2015
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
VMware ESXi
9 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Our test/lab environment currently runs on a VMware backend to maximize physical hardware. We currently have 8 VMs running on a ESXi system.
Pros
  • Hardware utilization for virtual machines
  • Low hypervisor requirements
  • Free product (ESXI)
  • Easy to administer
Cons
  • Move back away from web administration
  • Make ESXi easier to patch without the patch management add in in vCenter.
  • Implement a mid point between ESXi (free) and ESXi with vCenter server.
Likelihood to Recommend
From lab/test environments to full Production systems, just use it, and you'll see why the bulk of the market uses VMware.
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