--- title: VMware ESXi Reviews meta_title: 'VMware ESXi Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 22 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how VMware ESXi works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 22 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-07' parent_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # VMware ESXi Reviews **Vendor:** Broadcom **Category:** [Server Virtualization Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/server-virtualization) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 22 ## About VMware ESXi VMware ESXi is a robust, enterprise-class, type-1 hypervisor developed by VMware, designed to deploy and manage virtual machines directly on physical servers without the need for an underlying operating system. As a bare-metal hypervisor, ESXi provides a secure and efficient virtualization platform, enabling organizations to consolidate their IT infrastructure, optimize resource utilization, and reduce operational costs. Key Features and Functionality: - Virtual Machine Management: ESXi supports the creation and operation of multiple virtual machines running various operating systems, including Windows and Linux, each capable of independently running applications. - Resource Allocation and Optimization: It offers flexible allocation of CPU, memory, storage, and network resources, allowing dynamic adjustment of resource quotas for virtual machines. ESXi also supports resource pooling and load balancing to enhance performance. - High Availability and Fault Tolerance: The hypervisor includes features like High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT) to ensure business continuity by automatically restarting virtual machines in case of hardware failure and providing real-time redundancy for critical applications. - vMotion: ESXi supports vMotion, enabling live migration of virtual machines between hosts without service interruption, facilitating load balancing and maintenance activities. - Storage and Network Virtualization: It integrates with VMware vSAN for pooled storage resources and supports Distributed Switches to enhance network flexibility and performance. - Snapshots and Backup: ESXi provides snapshot capabilities for creating restore points and offers APIs for third-party backup solutions to ensure data protection. - Security and Isolation: The platform includes built-in virtual machine encryption, fine-grained access control, and supports hardware-based Secure Boot to maintain a secure virtualization environment. - Centralized Management Support: ESXi can be centrally managed through VMware vCenter Server, supporting automated tasks, monitoring, and resource scheduling to simplify virtualization management. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: VMware ESXi delivers a high-performance, secure, and scalable virtualization platform that enables organizations to maximize hardware utilization, reduce physical infrastructure costs, and enhance operational efficiency. By supporting advanced features like live migration, high availability, and centralized management, ESXi addresses critical business needs for reliability, flexibility, and simplified IT operations. ## VMware ESXi Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **easy management and implementation** of VMware ESXi for a streamlined virtualization experience. (6 reviews) - Users find VMware ESXi **easy to use** , making it a preferred choice for virtualization in enterprise environments. (4 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use and extensive features** of VMware ESXi for efficient server management in enterprises. (3 reviews) - Users value the **management ease** of VMware ESXi, finding it simple to implement and maintain for virtualization. (2 reviews) - Users value the **ease of snapshot creation** with VMware ESXi, streamlining server management and migrations efficiently. (2 reviews) - Users value the **stability** of VMware ESXi, noting its reliability and compatibility in enterprise environments. (2 reviews) - Automation (1 reviews) - Cost-Effective (1 reviews) - Cost Efficiency (1 reviews) - Users praise the **helpful customer support** of VMware ESXi, ensuring reliable assistance whenever needed. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **renewal costs to be exorbitant** , with minimal value received from updates and innovations. (2 reviews) - Users experience **limited features** in VMware ESXi's standalone mode, lacking essential functions like HA and vMotion. (1 reviews) - Users report that **migration issues** with VMware ESXi often lead to excessive time consumption during transfers. (1 reviews) - Users express dissatisfaction with the **poor customer support** of VMware ESXi, complicating implementation and maintenance efforts. (1 reviews) - Users criticize the **high renewal costs** of VMware ESXi, feeling limited by lack of innovation for smaller customers. (1 reviews) - Steep Learning Curve (1 reviews) - UX Improvement (1 reviews) - VM Management Issues (1 reviews) ## VMware ESXi Reviews ### 1. Easy-to-Use VM Virtualization with Strong vSphere Integration **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jose S. | IT Sysadmin Mid, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware ESXi?** - Easy to use solution for VMs virtualization - Complete virtualization on Standalone node - vSPhere integration capability - Easy to implement and Manage **What do you dislike about VMware ESXi?** - Not Clonning Features on Standalone mode - Limited on Standalone mode, No HA, vMotion, etc **What problems is VMware ESXi solving and how is that benefiting you?** - Baremetal Hypervisor capable of Clusterization on combination with vSphere/vCenter. - All in one Virtualization features needed ### 2. Great Product that is now way overpriced by Broadcom **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ronny S. | Senior Manager, Infrastructure, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 25, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware ESXi?** ESXi is a great virtualization platform. It's stable, compatible with a wide range of hardware, and easy to manage. I've been using it since version 3/3.5 and have watched it grow. Even the 'free' version can help you do a lot. Once you add on VCenter and upgrade you license it's whole new world of reliability and functionality. **What do you dislike about VMware ESXi?** Broadcom is quickly killing VMWare ESXi. The costs for renewals are ridiculous. The features in the newer versions are geared towards much larger customers, so you end up paying the renewal to stay on the platform, but you aren't getting a lot of new and innovated changes. **What problems is VMware ESXi solving and how is that benefiting you?** ESXi helped us solve infrastructure challends by consolidating workloads, reducing hardware costs, and improving resource utilization. Instead of managing a number of underutilized physical servers, we're able to right size our VMs. This has reduced our spend on hardware, power, and space at the data centers. It also allows us to quickly spin up new servers to test and deploy products, helping us to stay on top of opportunities that come our way. ESXi has improved our uptime and DR strategies over the years. Features like vMotion and HA are priceless ### 3. Powerful Virtualization with VMWare ESXi **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fernando F. | CEO / Consultant, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 10, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware ESXi?** VMWare ESXi is the best and preferred IT industry virtualization platform. It has a lot of features and can be expanded to meet the needs of even the most demanding enterprise. It is easy to use. **What do you dislike about VMware ESXi?** It is not an easy platform to implement and maintain. Unfortunately, ever since VMWare was purchased by Broadcom the future of the product line and the platform as well as its different product versions has been unstable. At the time of this review, its customer support is not the greatest. **What problems is VMware ESXi solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMWare ESXi allows us to expand the use of infrastructure by virtualizing the systems and services on it and make more effecient use of hardware resources. ### 4. VMWARE BEST HYPERVISOR EVER-HONEST REVIEW **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** ayush s. | technical support head, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware ESXi?** we are using Vmware from very long and we are used it for cloud computing and the best part is there to take snapshot of vm before done any changes and we have got 24/7 support and its ui is very simple **What do you dislike about VMware ESXi?** migration between one physical machine to another took too much time **What problems is VMware ESXi solving and how is that benefiting you?** taking snapshot of whole VM and compatibilty with mostly machine and 24/7 supprt response ### 5. Wrok experience with VMWARE ESXI **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** sandeep m. | support HEAD, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 04, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware ESXi?** i am using it since 2020 to manage my all virtual machine easily and its best to take snapshot of very big server in very less time and we can migrate server in very easy way **What do you dislike about VMware ESXi?** according to me its Ui is littlebit tough to uderstand **What problems is VMware ESXi solving and how is that benefiting you?** its took snapshot of server before doing any R&D on server whoich is very usefull for me ### 6. VMware Administrator with extensive experience in managing and maintaining virtualized environment. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** ANSHUMAN R. | Project Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 28, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware ESXi?** It is simplified platform for virtualized environment. **What do you dislike about VMware ESXi?** It has little less automation than Nutanix HCI. **What problems is VMware ESXi solving and how is that benefiting you?** Managing virtualized environment. - [View VMware ESXi pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-esxi/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1879986&qs=pros-and-cons§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-14+17%3A31%3A12+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=826eafaa-ded2-4e6f-aade-93726ee93398&secure%5Btoken%5D=0bb987eb18a7da66070fcd037c65ccd2e40ade42d29cd660d2569304ee0acda4&format=llm_user) ## VMware ESXi Integrations - [Acronis Cyber Protect](https://www.g2.com/products/acronis-acronis-cyber-protect/reviews) - [Datto SIRIS](https://www.g2.com/products/kaseya-datto-siris/reviews) - [Unitrends Backup and Recovery](https://www.g2.com/products/unitrends-backup-and-recovery/reviews) - [VMware vSphere](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-vsphere/reviews) - [Zabbix](https://www.g2.com/products/zabbix/reviews) ## VMware ESXi Features **Performance** - Scalability - Portability - Data Recovery - Disaster Recovery **Functionality** - OS Integration - Resource Saving - Performance Management - Security - Third-Party Integrations - User Management - Compliance Management - Task Management **Agentic AI - Server Virtualization** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making - File Transfer **Additional Functionality** - Cloud Computing - Archiving & Retention - Issue Tracking - Virtual Machine Migration - Server Monitoring - Status Tracking - Secure Login - Activity Dashboard - API - Graphical User Interface - Secure Data Storage - Alerts/Escalation - Generative AI - Virtual Server - Remote Update/Installation - Data Verification - AI Copilot - Reporting & Statistics - VDI - Database Support - Data Synchronization - Data Replication - Virtual Machine Monitoring ## Top VMware ESXi Alternatives - [Proxmox VE](https://www.g2.com/products/proxmox-ve/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (36 reviews) - [Xen Project](https://www.g2.com/products/xen-project/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (5 reviews) - [XenServer](https://www.g2.com/products/xenserver/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (48 reviews)