VMware vSphere Hypervisor™ (ESXi)

VMware vSphere Hypervisor is the new name for what was formerly known as VMware ESXi Single Server or free ESXi (often abbreviated to simply “VMware ESXi”). VMware vSphere Hypervisor is the free edition of the vSphere production line. It is licensed to only unlock the hypervisor functionality of vSphere, but it can be seamlessly upgraded to more advanced offerings of VMware vSphere. VMware vSphere is available in multiple editions, including several options specifically designed for small businesses.

VMware vSphere Hypervisor is available at no cost in order to help companies of all sizes experience the basic benefits of virtualization. Granting free access to vSphere’s basic hypervisor functionality enables IT professionals to become familiar with the technology and prove its value in their own companies. Unlike paid VMware vSphere Editions, the vSphere Hypervisor cannot be managed with vCenter or other management solutions. Management of vSphere Hypervisor hosts can only be done using the vSphere Client and connecting directly to the host.

VMware vSphere Hypervisor can be seamlessly upgraded to more advanced editions of vSphere. Simply upgrade the free license to the desired upgraded vSphere license to take advantage of advanced vSphere functionally including centralized management, live migration of virtual machines, automatic load balancing, business continuity, power management, and backup and restore capabilities for virtual machines. VMware vSphere is available in multiple editions, including two kits specifically designed for small businesses. A reason for moving to a paid kit or edition is that you can take advantage of the vSphere management server, called VMware vCenter Server, to enable centralized management.

VMware recommends using the free VMware vSphere Client to manage VMware vSphere Hypervisor. You can use the vSphere Client to log into each vSphere Hypervisor host individually to manage it via the graphical UI. You may also query the VMware vSphere Hypervisor host with the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vCLI). Note that the free VMware vSphere Hypervisor does not allow any configuration changes through the vCLI. You can also upgrade to more advanced editions of VMware vSphere to centrally manage your hosts with VMware vCenter Server.

There are several free and paid support options for customers who use VMware vSphere Hypervisor. Please visit support for more details.

Yes. You can use the free VMware vCenter Converter to import virtual machines that were created using VMware Server, Microsoft Virtual Server, or Microsoft Virtual PC Version 7 or higher. VMware vCenter Converter also supports conversions from sources such as physical machines and certain third-party disk image formats. View the VMware vCenter Converter FAQs for further details.

Both VMware vSphere Hypervisor and VMware Server are available for free. However, VMware vSphere Hypervisor is the recommended free solution for customers looking to get started with VMware virtualization. vSphere Hypervisor is an enterprise-class virtualization solution that offers the bare-metal architecture for near-native performance, features such as memory overcommit to increase consolidation ratios, and a cluster file system for managing virtual machine files on shared storage. VMware Server, on the other hand, installs as an application on Windows or Linux, relying on the operating system for resource management. This limits the performance and scalability. Virtual machines created using VMware Server can run on VMware vSphere Hypervisor; in some cases, they must first be converted using the free VMware Converter.

VMware vCenter Server provides centralized management for VMware vSphere Hypervisor hosts and their virtual machines. To manage a VMware vSphere Hypervisor host with vCenter Server, you must have a vCenter Server Agent license, which is included in all paid editions of VMware vSphere.

The hardware requirements for the VMware vSphere Hypervisor can be found in our hardware compatibility list and setup guide.

VMware offers the broadest operating system support as compared to any other virtualization vendor. Visit the guest operating system compatibility guide for a full list of supported guest operating systems.

vSphere Hypervisor license provides a vRAM entitlement of 32GB per server, regardless of the number of physical processors. vSphere Hypervisor can be used on servers with maximum physical RAM capacity of 32GB.