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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

(1-2 of 2)
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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.
Server Virtualization (5)
100%
10.0
Virtual machine automated provisioning
100%
10.0
Management console
100%
10.0
Live virtual machine backup
100%
10.0
Live virtual machine migration
100%
10.0
Hypervisor-level security
100%
10.0
  • It has provided great reliability.
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.
1
Systems Administration
1
System Admin
  • Hosting our on-prem infrastructure
  • To host our PBX. Wild!
  • To host on-prem servers
Yes
Hyper-V
  • Ease of Use
I wouldn't change.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes
Change management was minimal
  • Getting the cluster setup.
  • No Training
I learned it through reading and opening support tickets.
It seems completely customizable, particularly if you buy the higher end licenses.
VMWare has good best practices published.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
I have not done any additional customization.
They are usually very good.
No
Most of the time, their support is excellent and relatively fast.
It's pretty easy to navigate for most part.
  • I like how well it works and how stable it is.
  • The updates works well, but getting to the right screens is not super intuitive.
  • Nimble SAN
Read documentation.
They are changing pricing model, I've heard. It's for the worse.
Yes
Upgrades are relatively easy. I've done it twice.
  • New features
  • Went to web UI
No
Yes
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.
Server Virtualization (5)
78%
7.8
Virtual machine automated provisioning
60%
6.0
Management console
70%
7.0
Live virtual machine backup
80%
8.0
Live virtual machine migration
100%
10.0
Hypervisor-level security
80%
8.0
  • Fast ROI.
  • Manageability
  • Speed
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.
2
They represent the critical core functions of the companies product offering. We run everything in VM's and that has allowed us to run 20+ servers on 2 physical servers. This is not only large cost savings in hardware but also in power and cooling. We are very impressed with how efficient the servers run and how little overhead the host servers use allowing for more resources for the guest machines.
2
You have to understand networking to begin with, as for the setup if you are doing a basic setup there are lots of information and videos on the web to help you. If you are doing complex then I suggest training. You will also need a good understanding of the OS your guests are going ot be running. But most importantly is the understanding of networking, once you know that it is way easier to setup and manage.
  • Web Server
  • Email Server
  • High Availability
  • cost reduction
  • reduce physical footprint
  • improve availability
  • reduce environmental impact
  • on premise to cloud
  • virtual the Database Server
It is critical to our business, what started out as a way to do certain functions, it has now become core to ensuring our product is available to our customers and reducing our costs to operate and reduce our recovery time and provisioning servers. Their support is great and the costs to renew is reasonable.
No
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
I have used this product in other companies and it just works. It has a very light footprint for install and usage. The costs are reasonable and VMware is the standard for virtualization. MS Hyper-V is a good product but requires Windows to run onb the hosts for Hyper-V to work and so it has a bigger footprint which is not necessarily a bad thing, however you need to patch it monthly.
I would not change the selection as of right now. the evaluation I may be open to look at open source solutions, but it would be hard for us to remove VMware, from our solution.
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
The biggest lessons learned is you need to use the product and let business get some confidence in its capabilities. Once peopel realize they do not need a physical server for their solution and the benefits of going virtual, people are more likely to embrace the solution.
  • Setting up the iscsi
  • just learning the new interface in Vcenter Server
Jsut read and follow anything your storage provider may require to allow the integration of VMware with storage operations, outside of that VMware jsut works.
  • no training
Yes for basic solutions it is very simple to setup, and there are a lot of resources on the web to help. With largew complex solutions, then perhaps training would help, but only to reduce time as you can pretty well figure anything out.
You can configure as much as you want. Is it too much, for most people they would not need to touch any of the default settings, however if you do require to, the capability is available and documentation is available to help. But overall you do not need to configure or customize the solution to work.
Follow what your server manufacture, sotrage provider, network provider and vmware on best practices. We use Dell and they have great documentation on best practices for their solutions using VMware.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
We folllowed what was required for the switches and storage, along with using the custom imiages for ESXi for our Dell servers. However most Server Manufactures have custom images for their offering.
For the few times I had to contact support, they were quick to respond and immensely helpful. They are consistent in ensuring you have the support you require, and the solution is working even after the problem is resolved. They are willing to support over email, phone and will do video chats to ensure you are supported.
No we did not, as we are a small company and felt we did not need anything above the normal support.
No
Just recently they supported me with an issue, where the ticket was given to one person who spent quite sometime to resolve and then brought in another person who took over and I did not have to repeat the handoff was quick and seamless.
The beauty of ESXi is that you can do the basic configuration that allows a quick setup but still has a great deal of functionality that is very simple to setup. You can do big complex solutions that require much more experience and detail to get configured, and it all runs off the same code base.
  • install
  • basic setup
  • vcentre setup
  • DRS
  • VSAN
We started out with a two-server cluster and adding a third or fourth is very straightforward and simple with no issues. You just need to be aware of the size of your Vcenter Server to handle the workload, but still the resources needed is very minimal.
Without the need to patch the servers with bug fixes and enhancements we whave not experienced any downtime with VMware issues. Even the bug fixes and updates do not cause of downtime as we just migrate the servers to the opposite node and update the one and then move servers back. Very simple and painless.
We do not notice any difference between a physical and virtual server running the same workload. In fact we can scale quicker with the virtual server than we can with the physical.
  • Dell Compellent Storage
It was fairly straightforward to integrate, was it necessary for simple environments no it is not, for large, complex environments it would make certain operations like growing the datastore much easier and quicker.
  • none
With the storage it was straight forward and seemless. Is it necessary, it depends on your environment.
As with anything, ensure you understand why you are doing the integration and weigh the benefits of doing so. I am of the mindset simpler is better so integrations can make solutions complex with little benefit.
It was simple and easy to understand what we needed and the costs were reasonable.
We really did not need to work with the sales people after the sale.
We used the standard terms they offered.
it has been fair and easy to understand. I know VMware is looking at wanting to change from CPU to core pricing so we will see what that looks like when it happens.
Just be upfront with what you need and understand the different levels, we do not have the solution that allows movement of storage while the guest is on, but we have not really had a need for that.
Yes
It was pretty straightforward and is easy to do. Downtime for the one ESXi server was minimal, but transparent to the users as we moved the guest systems over to the other host.
  • security fixes
  • bug fixes
  • staying current with technology
  • fixes
  • performance improvements
No
No
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