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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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Powerful Tool for Managing VMs: Users consistently praise VMware ESXi as a powerful tool for managing a large number of virtual machines, …
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VMware ESXI

8 out of 10
April 07, 2022
VMware Esxi is very good product. Which helps people to virtualize the environment or data center. I am using Exsi for last 5 years. …
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A class above the rest

10 out of 10
April 04, 2022
Incentivized
We use ESXi in our organization for our virtualized workloads. ESXi provides a solution for growing organizations that have way too much …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 5 features
  • Live virtual machine migration (115)
    9.3
    93%
  • Management console (127)
    8.8
    88%
  • Virtual machine automated provisioning (115)
    8.5
    85%
  • Hypervisor-level security (116)
    8.3
    83%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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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

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Alternatives Pricing

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.

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

8.7
Avg 8.3
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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 Live virtual machine migration highest, with a score of 9.3.

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 and Ratings

(806)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Powerful Tool for Managing VMs: Users consistently praise VMware ESXi as a powerful tool for managing a large number of virtual machines, with easy management of individual VM settings and configurations. Several reviewers have highlighted this aspect, emphasizing how it simplifies their virtualization workflows and enhances overall efficiency.

Cost Reduction Benefits: Many users appreciate the cost reduction benefits offered by VMware ESXi. It minimizes the need for physical servers and reduces storage footprint, resulting in electricity savings. This advantage has been mentioned by a significant number of reviewers, highlighting the financial value that VMware ESXi brings to their organizations.

Support for Various Operating Systems: The support for various operating systems, including Windows and Unix, is considered a significant advantage by users. This feature enables them to host a wide range of applications on VMware ESXi. Multiple reviewers have specifically mentioned this pro, appreciating the flexibility it provides in terms of application deployment and compatibility.

Confusing User Interface: Many users have expressed frustration with the confusing and non-intuitive user interface of VMware ESXi. This has made it challenging for them to perform tasks efficiently, causing unnecessary delays and difficulties in managing their virtual environments.

Stability Issues: Several users have encountered stability issues with VMware ESXi's hypervisor. These issues have resulted in instances of corruption, leading to the need for reinstallations. The instability not only disrupts operations but also poses potential risks to data integrity and system reliability.

High Pricing and Complexity: The pricing of VMware products is often considered a barrier, particularly for smaller businesses. Many users find the deployment process complex and excessive for their needs, requiring significant time and resources to set up properly. This can be overwhelming, especially for organizations with limited IT expertise or budget constraints.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 43)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We were facing multiple issues related to security and privacy due to work from home environment, and VMware helped in this regard with its top-of-the-line flagship product ESXi. Our employees love the way virtual machine work with an added layer of security, along with the great performance provided by Vmware.
  • Great secure environment for our employees.
  • Virtual machines get ready in no time, making it a quick task.
  • The performance of virtual machines is great which increases productivity.
  • The integration with the Windows server can be made smoother.
  • Cost can be reduced as compared to competitors.
  • It should be made more user-friendly for Vmware administrators.
It has been a great tool that helps us maintain a secure environment to keep our valuable client information from getting into the wrong hands. It has also gained clients' trust, which also had a positive ROI on our investment. Clients believe in VMware, and we try to deliver what our clients demand.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
  • Reliability
  • Ease of use
  • Management
  • Support & updates
  • They are deprecating old hardware soon
  • Networking is difficult
It is great if you host a lot of virtual machines.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We virtualized all servers except for our DB servers. Virtualizing 25 servers saves us on hardware, heating, cooling costs. And allows us to have them be redundant without the extra expense of doubling the hardware and the complexity with that. Virtualizing allows us to add more capacity quickly without increasing our footprint.
  • Consolidation
  • Redundancy
  • Stability
  • Improve simplicity.
  • Improve documentation.
  • Improve updates.
Pretty much any scenario except maybe with heavy DB requirements. But VMware ESXi fits almost all scenarios and highly recommend using it everywhere possible for all sizes of environments. It is a small footprint and manages any size of the environment. I have used it for 5 servers up to hundreds of VM's.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using the VMware ESXi in our different projects for different clients to manage the more than 1000 servers (Linux & Window).
We address the our problems like resource scaling and physical server load balancing. VMware ESXi provide the easy way to create the VMs and easily migrate the from one physical server to another physical online.
  • Cluster Failover
  • VMs Migration online
  • Resource allocation like Disk, CPU & Memory
  • Does not support for all Unix system like AIX
  • Better and more descriptive error logging in Vcenter
VMware ESXi is well suited for all type organization like large, medium and small setup. It can be prove really cost effective as it eliminates additional hardware every time we want new machines. VMware ESXi can be an ideal solution for large scale virtual environments.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I implemented VMware ESXi host with 2 x 6 core CPUs, 72GB RAM and 500GB local storage. To run three Windows virtual machines with different configurations such as 1) 4 vCPU, 12GB RAM and 80GB storage 2) 3 vCPU, 8GB RAM and 60GB storage 3) 2 vCPU 4GB RAM and 50GB storage. As VMware ESXi is the type 1 hypervisor, we can reduce data centre space, power and IT administrative requirements. In our use case, it was better for IT administrative requirements.
  • High-speed performance.
  • Memory occupation is less than 150 MB.
  • Itself allows for the basic creation and management of virtual machine.
  • Remove API limitations in the free version.
  • Allows more than 8 vCPUs per VM.
  • Support from VMware and documentation.
Extended page table support comes in handy if you're trying to attach a GPU to a virtual machine or if you're trying to do some sort of nested virtualization which is a good way to test Hyper-V. If you require a single virtual machine or similar needs for the machine, it is not recommended to use. But when you have fewer hardware facilities, it is highly recommended to use them.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi with vCenter Server is how my entire server rack runs. 99% of my servers are all virtual, all running on VMware ESXi. Those 20 servers are running on 3 hosts in a cluster to maximize their fault tolerance and high availability in the event of a host failure. Over the years, I have added a myriad of Linux servers on the fly. Some Linux servers are testbeds for new systems or research into different open source systems our organization could benefit from. Others are things like intranet web servers for internal communications, database servers, or instant messaging systems. It truly gives me the flexibility to add new services as needed in my environment. My servers also run better as I move to newer hosts as I can increase memory, number of processors, and storage when needed (and when physically available on the hosts.)
  • Scalability
  • Fault tolerance resilience.
  • Centralized management.
  • Host network hardware configuration.
  • Physical-to-Virtual conversion can be tricky.
  • Some of the back-end configurations are exceptionally tricky to learn.
If you're looking for basic virtual servers that you can buy one larger server to run 5+ smaller servers on, the basic VMware ESXi license is free to use. Also good if you're testing how to create virtual servers or test a new environment. On the negative side, to use features like clustering and fault tolerance, you need a higher level license above their base "free" VMware ESXi license and the need for their vCenter Server to maintain it. That can carry a hefty annual software/support maintenance bill every year.

On the professional end, racks of individual servers reduced to a few physical hosts save space, power consumption, and financial resources. The hosts may need to be a bit more powerful than the individual servers, so one host will cost more, but a single host will cost less than replacing 5 single servers. Even if you plan a cluster, which will cost physical raw hard drive storage space like a RAID will, the cost over replacing 5 individual physical servers still comes out cheaper. If you can justify the lower cost for the physical hardware and plan to use the money unspent there to help pay for the upper level license costs, you are good to go.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi as our primary hypervisor platform for two separate environments with a combined total of approx 300 virtual machines split over two datacentres. For our main production environment, we have an HA cluster spread over both DC's with replicated storage supported the VMs. This works perfectly for us as we have the ability for full failover if needed and VMware takes a lot of the issues away by handling all the failover of virtual machines to other hosts etc.
  • HA Failover
  • SAN Management
  • Cluster Resource Management
  • iSCSI Storage connectivity
  • Update Management
  • Host Management
Using vCenter, the management of multiple hosts is very straightforward. We have an environment with about 30 ESXi hosts so management of these without vCenter would be extremely difficult. However, due to having a web interface for all hosts and vCenter etc, securing everything with web certificates can be frustrating. Using plugins in vCenter, management of third party equipment such as SAN arrays does make life a lot easier being able to manage everything from the one place - single pane of glass etc.
Backups are also made easy and straightforward using systems such as Veeam which plugs in directly to vCenter.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi on various HPE hosts for our server and client virtualization in combination with GPU cards. ESXi is a powerful piece of software that is capable of hosting a large amount of VM's with a very small management footprint. Is is very stable, consumes few resources, and [is] easy, or let's better say, very easy to install. For most of the big vendors, you can find predefined custom images with all necessary drivers etc. for the appropriate HW usage.
  • Very small resource footprint.
  • Easy to manage.
  • Very easy to install.
  • Capable of hosting large environments.
  • Manage large amount of networks (VLAN's, etc.).
  • There is nothing really to add.
  • With some releases there were some minor issues.
Like said before, VMware ESXI is clearly only usable for hosting large environments but can for sure also handle small environments and as it is easy to install and easy to manage. It [is tough] to say where it should be less appropriate. It is OS open, you can use it for Windows, Linux but for sure also for other operation systems. For me it's the host virtualization Swiss Army knife
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware [ESXi] is being used to host critical customer facing applications. It is being used by multiple departments across the enterprise. It is the hypervisor of choice for many business units and provides extensive redundancy and high availability features. ESXi has many 3rd party integrations which allow us to leverage our existing tool sets for monitoring and automation workflows.
  • High availability
  • Resource pooling
  • Alerting
  • Live resource monitoring
  • HTML5 client can be buggy at times
  • Better documentation for hidden features
  • Support team response time is slow
[VMware ESXi is] well suited to host business critical applications that require 5 9’s uptime. Not so well suited for a business that does not have a large buying power as it’s expensive. Lots of documentation and scripts widely available on the internet. Powershell and python native tools available make this a developers dream.
January 23, 2020

Highly recommended

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is currently used by most of my organization, and I manage two separate sites that have it implemented. It provides a stable and reliable base for our virtual infrastructure. It has been easy to maintain and control, and expansion has also been quite straightforward when we've had the requirement.
  • Allows control of VM's on the host, which is helpful if vSphere is unavailable.
  • As you would expect, it integrates perfectly with vSphere.
  • A better interface to monitor the logs in VMware Esxi would be helpful.
I would say VMware ESXi suited to most environments, really, depending on the available budget. It has proven very reliable in my experience, which is very valuable to us, as we are a 24/7 company.
January 18, 2020

We recommend VMware ESXi

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is being used by our organization to host virtual machines, specifically Windows servers. It is just used in our department, however, IT does serve the entire organization. It does exactly what it was designed to do: spread underused physical IT resources across a virtual environment resulting in significant savings.
  • Allows a single set of hardware to service many virtual servers.
  • Great management interface.
  • I haven't used it in a while, but the web client is not that great.
  • I don't really have any complaints, the product just works.
VMware ESXi is well suited for pretty much any IT environment that plans on having multiple servers. I suppose if you are small, have zero IT people, and have zero desire to learn the product, it would be best to skip it.

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware for almost all of our entire server infrastructure. The only servers we don't have virtualized are backup and video servers. It would be difficult to manage the number of physical servers it would take to server the school district at this point. It saves us a lot of time and money by keeping our physical server infrastructure small and easily manageable.
  • Hugely reduces our need for physical hardware. Our four hosts handle over 130 virtual servers without any problems.
  • It is stable. I have not had an ESXi server crash in years, nor do I really ever have to reboot them for problems. They just run smoothly.
  • The HTML5 web interface has taken a while to be brought to parity with the old thick client, and a few features are sometimes tricky to find.
If you have the proper hardware, and desire stability and support, then ESXi is about at the top of the list. It has a proven reputation, and you can't really be blamed for buying the best.

If your budget is low, and/or you might not have the latest hardware, some of the open source virtualization products might be a better fit.
Ashley Davis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
vSphere ESXi is a hypervisor similar to HyperV or Xen, essentially a platform for running many virtual servers on one hardware server or cluster. Primarily it allows you to build out one hardware server on which you virtualize your application and/or role servers. It provides a layer of abstraction between the hardware itself and the application layer that gives you the ability to allocate and reallocate hardware resources and perform actions like cold reboots without having access to a power button or cable.
  • Easy to install.
  • Very powerful.
  • Very picky about what hardware it will install on.
  • Many features locked behind advanced licenses and/or additional products (like vCenter).
All in all, vSphere ESXi is almost always the best solution for virtualization. Hobbyists and homelabbers will appreciate the ability to learn core features at no cost. Small businesses will benefit from consolidating hardware into one server where their domain controller, SQL server, file server, etc. can all still run independently. Medium to large businesses will find a lot of security in scalability and clustering.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
ESXi is currently being used as an integral part of our server farm for hosting Windows and Linux server virtual machines. These servers host applications and services across our organization. We also use it for hosting our virtual desktop environment. This has improved our scalability, server provisioning issues, real estate, and heating/cooling challenges. We are also now able to utilize thin client hardware, saving CAPEX.
  • Resource scheduling
  • Storage efficiency
  • Cost
  • Configuration complexity
VMware excels at virtualizing hardware and allowing you to run multiple applications and network services on minimal hardware platforms. We used it for running servers for just about any purpose, service or application. The only time where we don't is for explicit vendor requirements, proprietary systems and when there is a heavy reliance to consume large amounts of data.
Stefan Semo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization makes extensive use of a datacenter and has virtualized hundreds of Windows servers on bare metal hardware. These servers work to process logins, provide access to our student information and registration data, hold and manage email, provide shared drives for file exchanges, websites for access by our schools and parents, etc.
  • Very efficient on bare hardware
  • Installs a very small hypervisor footprint
  • The web management interface utilizing HTML 5 is still not fully mature.
  • Could use the ability to clone a host configuration in case the bootable media fails.
VMware ESXi is an excellent product to get the most out of your bare metal hardware. Lots of server manufacturers provide pre-built install images that are optimized for their servers, so that one can take full advantage of the hardware features and interface with the built-in sensors. However, VMware ESXi is a costly product and for small organizations going the Microsoft Hyper-V route will be a big cost savings even tho it is not as robust and efficient.
Brian Munn | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have implemented VMware ESXi at our primary data center and all of our remote office locations. It is being used across our whole organization and provides a quick and easy way to provision servers as needed. VMware ESXi has consolidated our server footprint from racks of physical servers to only a few VMware ESXi hosts that can support hundreds of virtual servers. Servers can now be provisioned in a matter of minutes rather than days.
  • Quick and accessible to provision servers as needed. Templates can be configured in VMware ESXi.
  • VMware ESXi host software efficiently manages hardware resources so that a single-host server can support multiple virtual servers without causing resource contention.
  • Understanding Resource groups and resource reservations can be difficult and cause issues if not fully understood.
  • I would like to see better performance monitoring capabilities from the web GUI. The current options can be cumbersome, and many still need to be monitored from the command line.
I believe VMware ESXi is an excellent solution for all medium to enterprise-level companies. VMware ESXi does provide options for small business, but depending on features needed, this can be costly. VMware ESXi is the industry standard for virtualized data centers and continues to improve and innovate in the virtualized server space.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We leverage VMware ESXi as our main hypervisor, spread across multiple hosts. It is used to support a large amount of VM's that we use for day to day business operations, as well as a separate network for our lab. It is utilized by our entire organization because each department is tied to at least a handful of VM's. Our Engineering team manages the environment, and it solves a lot of problems for us. We consistently perform P2V conversions of other equipment and then place it on our virtual infrastructure for easier management and backups. We continue to use it because of the outstanding reliability that we see within the environment, and the ease of patch management that is becoming more and more necessary as technology becomes more readily available.
  • It has more virtual operating system support in real life applications, not just in paper.
  • Migration from previous versions is a breeze. With vCenter, it can even be automated.
  • During the upgrade procedures, problem VIB's are sometimes a pain to find - This was remedied with the release of full HTML though, so this particular problem is only applicable to management via flash.
  • Automatic cleaning of Zombie VDK files would be an incredibly nice feature to have.
ESXi is well suited for every business model out there, that requires flexible management options of multiple servers. It is reliable, saves resources, time and money by allowing you to have one powerful box wearing many hats, instead of multiple cheaper boxes wearing individual hats. This is perfect for allocating resources appropriately as business needs are constantly changing and scaling and usually unpredictable rates. Conversely, ESXi is not suitable for environments that need to maintain computers without a domain, or need for server infrastructure. This is almost non-existent in the current climate, however.
Dan Lepinski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi across our global organization. It's managed by our System Administrators and leveraged by our DevOps teams to help automate business processes. It gives us flexibility and stability for testing. We have multi-ESXi host clusters for high availability. VMware ESXi has allowed us to virtualize most of our physical server infrastructure which has allowed us to work remotely from our data centers. It removes the need to lifecycle 100's of physical servers in favor of a simple lifecycle of a few VMware ESXi hosts.
  • High availability. Clustered VMware ESXi hosts make it easy to take a host out of production.
  • Storage DRS helps balance virtual disks across the cluster.
  • The Flash and HTML5 web interfaces are missing simple sorting features for some lists.
  • Errors messages can be vague at times, which requires searching the community for answers.
VMware ESXi is well suited where you don't have the physical space needed for the number servers you require. If you have applications that require little to no downtime, VMware ESXi can help provide that when clustered with other hosts. VMware ESXi will allow you to snapshot servers prior to major upgrades and changes. This provides a relatively safe fallback option if the upgrade doesn't go well. You can also leverage this to quickly go back to a clean state when testing new software or code.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have been a VMware ESXi shop for well over a decade. We use it across the whole enterprise to run 99% of our environment. There are exceptions where we do run physical servers and/or appliances outside of our virtual environment. By using ESXi, we have been able to stretch the resource requirements for applications across fewer physical hardware points. We have also been able to leverage features and functions like High-Availability and Replication due to using ESXi. It has also made the administration of our environment much easier and centralized.
  • The ability to use a single server and run multiple virtual machines on it has allowed our enterprise to grow it's technology footprint while keeping cost low and administration functionality more simplified.
  • With features like High Availability in ESXi, we have been able to build out a resilient environment that, when issues occur at a hardware level, we can respond and be up and running more quickly than if a single application server failed.
  • ESXi seems to be written very well, and with years of experience behind them, they tend to be leaders and innovators also. With that, there are still areas that they fall short or could improve upon. One of those is the user interface. Having recently moved to a full HTML5 GUI, some of the interactions are not intuitive or lack in the way that the Flash GUI client would handle the request.
  • The Task area needs work. Being able to filter and configure what Task is running or completed should be more user-configurable. The lack of user control does make it hard when you are troubleshooting.
I believe that ESXi is well suited for any and all scenarios. Except those where cost is a major factor. ESXi is not cheap, and with most companies that have a Microsoft EA for Windows Server that also grants them Hyper-V, sometimes the cost isn't justifiable. With that said, ESXi has functions and features that most enterprises need to stay resilient and function at a high level. Where critical services are needed, ESXi is tried and true and can handle everything you throw at it. Even for smaller IT shops, ESXi will provide flexibility and performance that will allow the organization to focus on more important areas, like their customers.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My company uses ESXi as the go-to host hypervisor platform of choice when deploying virtual hosts at all of the plants and offices in our network. We use at least one ESXi host at every plant/office and at some sites, we have several.

ESXi's purpose is to act as a host platform for creating, running and managing virtual machines of various types, i.e. servers, user endpoints, appliances, web servers, SQL servers, etc. It's similar to Hyper-V (the Microsoft-branded competition for ESXi) but in my opinion, it has more and better features, overall, although the learning curve for ESXi is both steeper and longer for system admins than most other hypervisors.

Why do we use it? ESXi enables us to host many virtual servers and other endpoints on one physical host machine. This saves on electricity, space, heating, and cooling and improves ease of management of the hosted devices for everything from rebooting them to backing them up to restoring them.

Short answer? For small, medium or large enterprises, ESXi is (still) the best choice for hosting virtual machines. It really doesn't have much legitimate, serious competition in the world of hypervisors.
  • ESXi makes management of hosted machines easy. Everything is in one place. If you have a vCenter (which costs extra) to manage all your ESXi hosts, then everything is truly in one place and there is no need to hop around from management tool to management tool. Al the virtual machines' hardware settings, OS information, storage volume information, backup information, even a remote console just like a KVM ... all of it is in one place.
  • ESXi balances workloads well when using vCenter. Behind the scenes, the vCenter allows an ESXi host to "talk to" other ESXi hosts and when one VM has resources usage that gets past a certain threshold, it can move virtual machines around to balance workloads, even while the machines are running and service users. It's completely invisible to the users, who don't experience latency or any kind of interruptions when their VM is being moved.
  • The vSphere / vCenter GUI is complex. This is because there is just a crap-top of stuff that ESXi manages, so there is frankly a crap-top of necessary stuff that you have been able to manage in the user interfaces. The learning curve is a little steep. Just because it does a lot of things.
  • Live (powered on) ESXi snapshots of VMs still don't act as SQL backups very well. Snapshots can't backup SQL reliably because of the architecture of SQL and how it interacts with the live resources running on the VM. This is one of the many reasons why taking a snapshot works better when the VM is powered off. This is also why we don't rely only on snapshots to backup our VMs. We also use Veeam and for critical SQL databases we use native SQL backups and in one case, another backup solution (Veritas) that can do SQL better.
ESXi is the right host OS if you want all the features a host OS would normally need to provide AND if you ware willing to pay for the license. It's not cheap. You will also want to pay for VMWare support unless you have an on-staff VMWare admin who really knows their way around ESXi and vSphere / vCenter functions.

If you want a free hypervisor? Then you need to try Hyper-V first to see if it can do everything you think it should be able to do. Hyper-V comes with Windows (both the server and PC flavors) as a role. It can do some basic functions of a host. But it doesn't have all the full capabilities and management features that ESXi hosts do when managed with vSphere / vCenter.
Rodney Barnhardt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is the product that hosts the majority of our virtual server environment. There are several environments set up at several different locations. Managing the environments is easy through the use of vCenter. Having the ability to quickly adjust the needed resources of each virtual machine, provides us the ability to address performance problems as they arise. It does not matter if the system needs an increase in memory, CPU, or disk space, the changes or new resources can be added in a matter of minutes.
  • Allows quick and easy cloning and customization of new systems.
  • Provides the ability to move or transfer virtual machines between environments.
  • Upgrades could be made easier or more automated.
  • Prefer a thick client back. The web one still seems buggy at times.
Having used or worked with the major hypervisors, my preference is still VMware ESXi over the other products. One of the key features it has that make the management of virtual machine so easy is the ability to right-click on a system to perform numerous tasks on it. Also, the ability to structure the environment all in one view, not only simplifies moving around between environments, but providing role-based access control as needed is very beneficial from a security standpoint.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use VMware ESXi in our local data center to run all the on-premise virtual machines with ease. We can deploy or clone machines in a second, manage them perfectly as well as maintain backups and all our hyper-converged infrastructure through the VMware plugin, hence it has become the heart of our data center.
  • Best on-premise data center hypervisor.
  • Stability of the platform.
  • Security in all the needed aspects.
  • Web interface is sometimes laggy.
  • Licenses are not very cheap.
  • Automation can be improved.
Great for "old fashioned" companies like us that mostly still use on-premise infrastructure. But on the good side once we decide to move to the cloud, it will also be great to manage cloud infra as well with the hybrid cloud and multi cloud focus nowadays. Really cannot think of data center scenario where VMware would not fit in.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware ESXi is being utilized to bring virtualization into the current environment. ESXi is the backbone of the virtual infrastructure within the organization. It was brought in originally to assist with some virtual systems for remote users who needed to utilize software that does not behave well through VPN. By bringing in this product we allowed out user base to take advantage of virtual systems that can be accessed from any location that has internet access.
  • Manage resources for virtual machines
  • Allows ease of access to maintain and upkeep VDI
  • Gives a high level overview of current resources that are being used
  • The various add-on features can make things a bit complicated
  • It is an expensive solution v.s other options
  • Web interface is not the easiest to navigate
This software is fantastic when it comes to providing visibility for multiple virtual systems that have been implemented within the infrastructure. The ability to have eyes on multiple virtual servers and their current workload is fantastic, with VMWare ESXi you can verify which server is experiencing a high amount of use and allocate resources from a system that is not being utilized as much to alleviate pressure.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our entire environment is running on ESXi, including a DR site. Having all the servers be virtual allows for flexibility in resource allocation and overall ease of management. This also reduces maintenance downtime, as VMs can be migrated using vMotion without any downtime. Because everything is virtual, DR scenarios are also very easy to perform.
  • Resource management.
  • It's simple, yet offers loads of advanced features and settings if there is a need.
  • vCenter is great to manage multiple ESXi hosts.
  • GPU accelerated graphics are not the easiest to set up.
  • The UI is a bit on the slow side even with the new HTML5 client.
  • Licencing can get very expensive if you're using multi-processor servers and vCenter.
ESXi has been on the market for a long time, and thus has an advantage over its competitors. Even though as of late others have greatly improved their virtualization technologies, VMware is still ahead of others. ESXi is well suited for any size organization, as it can scale very easily and there are lots of compatibility options to make everything work regardless of platform.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We host probably 95% of our servers on a 9 host VMWare server cluster containing over 200 virtual machines. We also have a colocation and remote office that we run a couple VMWare hosts at with a handful of machines at each location as well. Running our business on VMWare has been incredibly amazing over the years, it allows so much flexibility and scalability as well as cost and data center footprint reduction.
  • Ability to stand up a new virtual server within a few minutes.
  • Cost reduction due to fewer hardware purchases throughout the year and saves on electricity due to fewer physical servers running in the data center.
  • Ability to make virtual hardware changes on the fly such as adding more CPU or RAM or increasing hard drive space within minutes.
  • The new web UI that was forced upon us with version 6 isn't bad now but still preferred the old thick client as it was faster and familiar.
  • I wish they maintained support for older hardware for longer, usually, we find after a couple of big revisions the old servers aren't totally compatible and we like to use our hardware for many years more than most people probably do
  • Licensing can be a bit confusing.
Luckily since VMWare ESXi itself is free, a small company could definitely take advantage of it, so it works for small to large enterprises. Any company could also stand it up just to do testing if they don't want to set up a production environment, then easily take it to production if they find it suitable.
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