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Powerful Tool for Managing VMs: Users consistently praise VMware ESXi as a powerful tool for managing a large number of virtual machines, …
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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Popular Features
- Live virtual machine migration (115)9.393%
- Management console (127)8.888%
- Virtual machine automated provisioning (115)8.585%
- Hypervisor-level security (116)8.383%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Enterprise Data Management Supervisor
Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company (Insurance, 1001-5000 employees)
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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
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- 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.
Product Demos
VMware ESXi 5.1 Install & Configure In Oracle Virtual Box
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Product Details
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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:
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 Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
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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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!
- Pros
- Cons
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 111)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
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 capabilities but I see that in the next few years, at least Prox Mox will start taking market shares.
June 18, 2023
Great tool for productivity.
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 virtual machine selection.
June 17, 2023
Simply the best in business IT asset virtualization.
ESXi continues to lead the pack in compatibility, simplicity, reliability, support, everything.
June 14, 2023
VMware continues to work well
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.
June 13, 2023
ESXi helped us out a bunch!
May 02, 2022
Vmware Stability
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. In my experience, it has more functionality with Linux based appliance machines that come from vendors. Using Hyper-V was not as easy and streamlined as VMware ESXi.
April 26, 2022
VMware ESXi still the best
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 and uses fewer resources than what I tested.
April 07, 2022
VMware ESXI
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer), Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) (formerly RHEV) and 1E Windows Servicing Suite (WSS)
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 quick and simple even when you need to configure the server from scatch.
April 04, 2022
VMware ESXi - The Best for Virtualization
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
April 04, 2022
A class above the rest
April 04, 2022
VMware ESXi Best for Virtualization
March 31, 2022
ESXi is the go to for virtualization
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 ESXi.
oVirt's biggest advantage is its cost which makes it very tempting, but its less user friendly and at the time of our comparison was lacking some features that we liked in ESXi.
oVirt's biggest advantage is its cost which makes it very tempting, but its less user friendly and at the time of our comparison was lacking some features that we liked in ESXi.
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.
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 virtualization platform I examined.
VMware stacks up well to just about every product on the market and will keep your business running with high availability.
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.
March 24, 2022
VMware ESXI share hardware, save money
- Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Price: same (both free).
Management: VMware ESXi has a much better management interface.
Performance: Same.
Management: VMware ESXi has a much better management interface.
Performance: Same.
March 24, 2022
VMWare ESXi - King of the Hypervisors
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).
March 24, 2022
One of the best VMware Products, ESXi!
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 that VMware ESXi was housed in the VMware ecosystem. Also, we ended up going with VMware ESXi as they offer more versatility in which hardware they can be installed on. As we want to try new equipment we would like if we have the option to expand our virtual footprint to it.
March 24, 2022
Ease with Esxi..!!
March 24, 2022
Best virtualization solution
- Ubuntu OpenStack and Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer)
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.
March 24, 2022
One of the best hypervisors available in market!!
- Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer) and Hyper-V
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.
Cost-effective, Comes with special features like HA, DRS, FT.
March 24, 2022
The best hypervisor for private clouds.
- Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer) and Hyper-V
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.
March 23, 2022
VMWare ESXi Is Great For All Business Sizes!
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 investigate most new/different offerings from competitors - but we are absolutely happy with the products we are currently utilizing. We would also (some day) like to invest in the VMWare support portal - so that if any issues/downtime occurs, a VMWare specialist will jump in to help resolve the issue. Those costs have not been evaluated as of yet, but the appeal is there.