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)8.484%
- 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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290 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
- 8.4Virtual 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
- 8.5Live 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
(803)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
- 9.9Support Rating55 ratings
- 10Implementation Rating3 ratings
- 9.9Configurability2 ratings
- 10Product Scalability2 ratings
- 9.9Ease of integration2 ratings
- 10Vendor pre-sale2 ratings
- 10Vendor post-sale2 ratings
- 5.3Contract Terms and Pricing Model2 ratings
Reviews
(1-5 of 5)VMware continues to work well
- Reliability
- Ease of use
- Management
- Support & updates
- They are deprecating old hardware soon
- Networking is difficult
- 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.
- Hosting our on-prem infrastructure
- To host our PBX. Wild!
- To host on-prem servers
- Ease of Use
- Implemented in-house
- Getting the cluster setup.
- No Training
- 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
- New features
- Went to web UI
VMware ESXi still the best
- Consolidation
- Redundancy
- Stability
- Improve simplicity.
- Improve documentation.
- Improve updates.
- 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
- Web Server
- Email Server
- High Availability
- cost reduction
- reduce physical footprint
- improve availability
- reduce environmental impact
- on premise to cloud
- virtual the Database Server
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Implemented in-house
- Setting up the iscsi
- just learning the new interface in Vcenter Server
- no training
- install
- basic setup
- vcentre setup
- DRS
- VSAN
- Dell Compellent Storage
- none
- security fixes
- bug fixes
- staying current with technology
- fixes
- performance improvements
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.
- 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
- VMware ESXi platform was the technology that allowed our organization to pivot from onsite to work-from-home in a matter of days during the pandemic. The college was physically closed with short notice, but operations and classes continued due to the VMware ESXi infrastructure and configuration already in place.
- Remote access to internal systems.
- Ability to offer any computer configuration for any class without having to purchase new hardware.
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Spinning up new VMs.
- Backing up VMs.
- Shutting down/Restarting VMs.
- Moving VMs between host.
- Upgrades/Patching
- 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.
If you only need to run one OS for all applications, ESXi may not be for you.
- 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
- One positive impact is the amount of power we have saved.
- We get better utilization out of our physical servers.
- We use ESXi to host virtual servers
- It allows us to consolidate servers onto one platform
- ESXi makes it easy to manage server infrastructure
- Can really think of anything at this time.
- Moving on-premise infrastucture to the cloud
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Implemented in-house
- Configuring the switch port access.
- Setting up trunking on the switch ports
- Creating a virtual server is very easy and intuitive
- Updating the host is very easy.
- Granting access is a very easy process
- Adding some types of shared storage can be challenging
Good, solid product that saves time and budget.
- Snapshots! These are the ultimate way to cover yourself. I create one before installing or updating almost everything because then if something errors out and starts to cause issues you are back to normal working order in seconds rather than hours/days.
- Distributed Switches are quite nice, so long as all of your hosts in a cluster have the same ports, you can set up the virtual switches one time and it propagates out to all of the hosts for that group.
- VMotion/balancing the load in general. Whether you do it manually or use DRS to move your virtual servers around it is incredibly simple to adjust the computing resource for your virtual server to make sure that you are sharing the load evenly across all of your hosts.
- Updates are pretty much a complete reinstall. This has gotten better over the years, but is still a cumbersome process.
- Sometimes features release before they are fully baked. ESXi 6.5 released and HTML 5 GUI for VCenter that only included "partial functionality."
- Virtual machine automated provisioning
- 100%10.0
- Management console
- 80%8.0
- Live virtual machine backup
- 80%8.0
- Live virtual machine migration
- 90%9.0
- Hypervisor-level security
- 80%8.0
- It's saved me countless hours of rebuilding servers because of the snapshots.
- We've saved thousands on our annual budget by allowing us to buy a handful of hosts rather than dozens of physical servers.
- One person is able to keep and manage dozens of servers (among other job duties, again, public education) without the management tasks becoming all-consuming and soul-crushing.