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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
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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.
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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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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.
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VMware ESXi 5.1 Install & Configure In Oracle Virtual Box
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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
(51-75 of 127)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
January 19, 2020
VMware ESXi Tops All Hypervisors
- Migrate machines between hosts for high availability.
- Highly flexible network segmentation.
- Networking could be simplified.
- Stay more up to date with OS selection type.
January 19, 2020
ESXi is the best in class hypervisor and VM platform
- vMotion: the ability to move a VM from one place to another, even on disparate storage, works flawlessly and allows us to be agile and maintain performance.
- PowerCli includes a robust set of PowerShell commands to be able to automate just about anything.
- Integration with other products and vendors is sometimes complex.
- Getting the right permissions configurations to allow certain actions is difficult.
January 18, 2020
We recommend VMware ESXi
- 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.
January 17, 2020
VMware ESXi for K12 Schools
- 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.
January 17, 2020
VMware ESXi - Beyond Virtualization
- Consolidate hardware for higher capacity utilization.
- Streamline IT administration.
- Browser based independence with new Flash based UI.
- Visibility and less information providing for errors.
January 17, 2020
ESXi is the gold standard for business virtualization
- 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).
January 17, 2020
Well worth the investment
- VMware is not buggy. In IT we have to work around so many things for products to work the way we expect, or the way we want. I have not had to work around things with ESXi. It works as advertised.
- Sever uptime. Even with hardware failures, and system bugs, VMware keeps our systems up. ESXi has been reliable. I never even think about the OS failing or having issues. That is one less thing to worry about.
- Server deployment. We can deploy a new server in minutes. Some servers come preconfigured with OVF files where we just tell VMWare to set up a new server and point to the config file and tada there is a new server. We can create templates, where the OS and updates are already installed and we just create a new server from the template in minutes. I actually prefer creating one from scratch, and it only takes a few minutes to choose the hardware and start the OS installation. The longest part is installing the OS. It takes forever at my company to approve spending any money. With VMWare, I can set up new servers without any cost so there is no delay. When I want a server, I set it up. I don't have to wait over a month to design, get approval to order, wait for delivery, then set up the hardware, etc. It is fantastic, and such a time saver.
- VMWare's Compatibility Guide on-line is excellent. It is very detailed and easy to discover if there will be any hardware issues. When adding or replacing hosts, this is a must-visit site. It has answered every question I've had without having to call support or talk to anyone to analyze if this hardware will match that one. It is a user-friendly site that gives you all the information you need. It has given me a starting point for buying new servers when my company changed its standard on server hardware. I would not have known where to start in configuring a new host, but this site told me what was compatible with what I had and it became an easy task.
- The new interface for accessing the hosts directly doesn't work well with all browsers. We have restrictions at my company. We use Edge or IE. I had a lot of trouble uploading a file to the datastore because Edge and IE wouldn't play nice. The problem is probably mostly on MS's side, but it would be nice if it could work better with all browsers.
January 17, 2020
ESXi will save your employees time
- It manages physical systems and resources.
- It has a minimal footprint on hosts -- hundreds of megabytes, and very efficient code.
- I have been using ESX since version 3.5 -- they have regular improvements, so while there has been "missing functionality," I have used it when it was very basic, and they keep adding features that have improved it.
January 16, 2020
VMware ESXi is a must for every IT department
- When combining Citrix with ESXi, we are able to create multiple Citrix servers from one master image.
- Combined with Veeam, backing up and restoration of virtual machines running on ESXi is painless.
- I would love to see the licensing cost come down.
January 15, 2020
ESXi is even for small business
- Resource scheduling
- Storage efficiency
- Cost
- Configuration complexity
- 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.
January 14, 2020
VMware ESXi is the top virtualization solution available
- Server availability.
- Hardware support.
- Phone/technical support.
- Licensing cost.
January 14, 2020
ESXi, a great product in the right environments!
- Implementation of ESXi is extremely straightforward given the correct experience
- The HA capabilities of ESXi are extremely hard to beat when compared to other Hypervisor options
- As much as the upgrade path for newer versions of ESXi has improved, there is still room for improvement in the process
- A better/easier way of handling some network features would be ideal
- 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.
January 12, 2020
VMware ESXi for everyone!
- 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.
January 10, 2020
VMware is the bomb
- Hardware config changes on the fly
- High availability
- Updates on hosts
- Network configuration
January 10, 2020
Good solution for every level.
- Virtualization
- Snapshots
- Management via GUI vs CLI
- Technical Support
January 10, 2020
VMware gives you flexibility and stability
- 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.
- Lets you run multiple virtual servers on one piece of server hardware.
- Saves you money but minimizing the amount of server hardware you need to buy.
- VMware ESXi can be hard to update to the newest versions.
- Hardware compatibility with VMware ESXi can be confusing.
January 10, 2020
Ready to serve your enterprise needs
- 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.
January 10, 2020
ESXi: Great for small and large businesses. Medium businesses, don't rush your decision.
- ESXi is probably more diverse in the operating systems it supports than other offerings.
- ESXi has a wide range of third party integrations to focus in on your businesses needs.
- ESXi is very rigid in its manageability.
- The management interface is not as simplistic as it could be.
January 10, 2020
ESXi is still the best virtual host platform among 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.
January 10, 2020
Truely the Market Leader in HCI and Virtualization
- Merge multiple LUNs in the Data Store. The Scalability feature is great for storage.
- Conversion from Other Hyper-Visor.
- Ease in solution cost.
January 10, 2020
VMware ESXi is a Solid Product for the Enterprise Infrastructure
- 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.
January 10, 2020
VMware ESXi is a rock solid choice for your hypervisor
- Just works. VMware ESXi is a proven solution with a lot of additional components that provide more value.
- VMware ESXi is a great platform for new users to learn. Having both GUI and CLI components to manage the host server and subsequent virtual machines allow for click-based admins to get work done, while also providing the avenues for streamlining with automation within CLI based connections.
- I would love for some of the features only available within the upper tiers of ESXi licensing to be available for Standard licensing purchases. There is a vast difference between free, standard, enterprise plus licensing.
- The learning curve might be an issue for some users, but can be overcome with the vast amount of resources available. You might have to train to find all of the resources as well.