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.
VMWare ESXi is not longer the king of the mountain due to poor service and support
Great tool for productivity.
Simply the best in business IT asset virtualization.
VMware continues to work well
ESXi helped us out a bunch!
Vmware Stability
VMware ESXi still the best
VMware ESXI
VMware ESXi is a Great, Solid Choice for Virtualization!
VMware ESXi - The Best for Virtualization
A class above the rest
VMware ESXi Best for Virtualization
We …
ESXi is the go to for virtualization
faster, scalable, overall perform better
A Second to None Virtual Hosting Platform for Businesses of All Sizes
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
- 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
Pricing
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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248 people also want pricing
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
Features
Server Virtualization
Server virtualization allows multiple operating systems to be run completely independently on a single server
- 8.5Virtual machine automated provisioning(115) Ratings
Automation of virtual machine provisioning through use of vm templates
- 8.8Management console(127) Ratings
Management console for central administration of vm environment
- 8.4Live virtual machine backup(111) Ratings
Ability to backup vms without interrupting service
- 9.3Live virtual machine migration(115) Ratings
Downtime minimization by migrating live vms between hosts and across clusters
- 8.3Hypervisor-level security(116) Ratings
Hypervisor-level security including antivirus and anti-malware
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is VMware ESXi?
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
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(806)Community Insights
- 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
- 10Likelihood to Renew6 ratings
- 10Availability2 ratings
- 9.1Performance2 ratings
- 9.1Usability5 ratings
- 9.8Support Rating55 ratings
- 10Implementation Rating3 ratings
- 9.9Configurability2 ratings
- 10Product Scalability2 ratings
- 9.9Ease of integration2 ratings
- 10Vendor pre-sale2 ratings
- 10Vendor post-sale2 ratings
- 5.7Contract Terms and Pricing Model2 ratings
Reviews
(26-50 of 127)Ease with Esxi..!!
- COnfiguration is easy the self explanatory in ESXi.
- ESXi supports various operating systems as well.
- ESXi is reliable and gives great performance.
- ESXi makes functionality seamless.
- Unable to integrate with 3rd party backup applications.
- Integration with 3rd party applications could help simplify tasks and reduce multiple applications.
- Performance tracking should be available in data analytics format.
VMware ESXi - The Gold Standard in Hypervisors
- An extremely reliable platform with greater than 99% of uptime.
- Very secure platform.
- Number of tools that enable management of the platform.
- Very stable VMware product.
- The upgrade/patch process is in need of a complete overhaul.
Best virtualization solution
- Virtualization
- Orchestration
- Security
- Networking
- Price
- Hybrid between on-premise and cloud services.
- vSAN
VMware ESXi the only real choice
- Ease of Access to all of my Virtual servers.
- Great performance visibility.
- Easy to Grow at a moment's notice.
- Complexity - if you're not familiar with the product there is a learning curve.
- VMware ESXi could find a way to boot faster.
One of the best hypervisors available in market!!
- Hardware Virtualization.
- Supports multiple OEMs.
- Can be aligned with other important infrastructure tools.
- Single host management should be improved.
- One-click SSL certificate renewal from custom location cannot be done.
- Host isolation management can be improved.
The best hypervisor for private clouds.
- Performance
- Reliability
- Security
- Maintenance
- interoperability
- licensing
- pricing
VMWare ESXi Is Great For All Business Sizes!
- Incredibly quick to deploy. Total installation time of less than five minutes
- Able to easily mount ISCSI storage devices to VMWare ESXi hosts within the GUI
- Allows you to run the product for free - if you stay under the physical core count (and with some reduced features)
- Incredibly stable software - we have not run into any issues that were a direct result of VMWare ESXi being at fault
- Very low hardware resources utilized to run this product
- It would be nice if it was easier to upgrade between versions/releases
- Trying to find some of their software downloads can be difficult, as their website is not the greatest - also requires you to be logged in to view any of their software downloads (which is difficult if you're working with a reseller)
- When you click on "Virtual Network Cards" as a hotlink - it generally breaks your session. So that small bug could also be patched.
- ESXi is able to minimize the physical server footprint.
- ESXi is also very easy to get up and running.
- I would like to see better performance analytics built in to ESXi.
- ESXi could find a way to boot faster.
VMware ESXi to the rescue!
- HA Failover
- SAN Management
- Cluster Resource Management
- iSCSI Storage connectivity
- Update Management
- Host Management
VMware ESXi (Elastic Sky X Integrated)!
- It partitions applications from underlying hardware to cut costs.
- It abstracts the CPU, RAM, Storage, etc from physical hardware into multiple virtual machines.
- You can host multiple applications with different OS, different nature of applications on each virtual machine hosted on the server.
- It provides live migration and automatic load balancing through features like VMotion, HA, etc.
- No official VMware technical support
- Does not support all operating systems like UNIX, AIX
- Permission structure can get confusing sometimes
Highly recommended, you know what you're getting with VMware
- Quick deployment of VMs.
- Small footprint.
- Easy install.
- Backup integration.
- Secure.
- Premium Price
VMware ESXi for the win, again and again
- Deploys virtual server very well
- Deploys .ova very well
- Great details, notes, and alerts
- Very scalable
- It can be cost prohibitive for some small to medium-sized businesses
- With its integration with EMC VxRail, getting the right support for the issue can sometimes prove difficult
- Based in VmKernal cli, so if you ever need to ssh, it can get hair pretty quick if you're not in there regularly
Simple to use virtulization
- Low cost
- High end features included for the cost
- Easy to setup
- Great support
- Support can be complicated to understand at times
- obviously not designed for novices
- Mac osx support for management isnt the best
Great Product!
- HA protection
- Workload Balancing
- Elastic resource allocation
- We are looking for more flexibility with vvol usage
- Better and more descriptive error logging in vcenter
- Permission structure can occasionally get confusing
VMware ESXi to the rescue!
- Utilizes the underlying hardware effectively.
- Clean and easy to setup.
- Very stable.
- Upgrades can sometimes be difficult
Server Virtualization Swiss Army Knife
- 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.
VMware ESxi for the small business
- I like how easily it integrates with windows
- Snapshotting is very easy to setup
- There are also many integrations to extend ESXi functionality
- Pricing is a barrier for most companies
- A deployment can get quite complex and overkill for a small company
- I would like to see more options for setting it up in a hyperconverged manner
VMware delivers critical business features
- 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
ESXi Industry Standard
- Network segmenting.
- Quick and easy management of resources.
- Backup and restore capabilities.
- Moving resources from one cluster to another seamlessly.
- Pricing and Licensing.
- DSwitches.
- Vmotions & SAN.
VMware ESXi--the best option for small and mid-size data centers
- Quick rollout of new VMs through templates
- Advanced networking capabilities
- Easy migration of virtual machines to new compute and storage
- Easier upgrade process
- Less expensive options for mid-tier organizations (Essentials is too small)
VMWare ESXi is still the king of Hypervisors
- Virtualization - it allows you to take full advantage of your hardware investments
- Flexibility - it allows you to run services across disparate hardware types
- Scalability - it allows you to expand and deploy new services rapidly
- Complexity - if you're not familiar with the product there is a learning curve.
- It does require other licensed VMWare products (vCenter Server, etc.) for full functionality.
ESXi is great.
- Monitoring and reporting of virtual machines in environment.
- In-depth configuration and management of hypervisor and virtual machines.
- Uptime 900+ days.
- Some of the events could be more informative.
Behold The Power Of VMware ESXi
- High availability.
- Easy migration.
- Some of the more advanced features might take additional training.
- Free version limitations.
De facto Virtualization Standard
- High availability/vMotion for hosted VMs is a must-have in any business. No one wants their systems to fail, knowing that the hosted systems are protected and always available is a great stress reliever.
- Load and resource balancing (with proper licensing) keeps busy servers from consuming all available resources on a given host. DRS and StorageDRS make short work of balancing workloads, I find this a must-have feature.
- 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.
Highly recommended
- 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.