VMware ESXi vs. Windows Server

VMware ESXi

810 Reviews and Ratings

Windows Server

839 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
VMware ESXi	Score7.6 out of 10	N/A	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.	N/A
Windows Server	Score8.2 out of 10	N/A	N/A	N/A

Pricing

VMware ESXi

Windows Server

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Pricing Offerings
VMware ESXi	Windows Server
Free Trial
No	No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

No setup fee

No setup fee

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Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	VMware ESXi	Windows Server
Considered Both Products	VMware by Broadcom Benjamin Hale Information Technology Consultant in Information Technology at Orbis Education (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees) Chose VMware ESXi VMware ESXi, along with being free, was easy to setup and get started with. Compared to the Windows Server environment, I found VMware tools more intuitive. Also, we were able to use VMware ESXi on lower powered servers with little overhead cost compared to the Microsoft … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose VMware ESXi I haven't had confidence in Hyper-V since they had issues with hosts losing access to storage in a cluster. I understand that issue is resolved now but it's difficult to build trust in a product when you have been impacted by downtime in the past. Incentivized Helpful? Toby Wenzel Infrastructure Team Lead in Information Technology at California Public Utilities Commission (Government Administration, 1001-5000 employees) Chose VMware ESXi VMware ESXi is by far easier to use and the feature set is generations ahead of competitors. Incentivized Helpful? Christopher Mills Manager of IT Infrastructure Services in Information Technology at St. Charles Health System, Inc. (Hospital & Health Care, 5001-10,000 employees) Chose VMware ESXi VMware ESXi offers more features and functions then Microsoft Hyper-V does, especially for an enterprise customer. The two biggest features that Hyper-V has are cost and integration of the OS. Other than that, ESXi offers more enterprise-grade features like HA, DRS, vSphere … Incentivized Helpful? Ivan Sytchev Supervisor, Information Technology in Information Technology at Real Estate Council of Ontario (Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees) Chose VMware ESXi VMware has been in the business a long time, and makes a very reliable virtualization platform. Hyper-V had matured exponentially, since it's been released and is a viable alternative to ESXi. However, it is not as reliable as ESXi at least at this time. ESXi also accommodates … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose VMware ESXi Microsoft licensing is a mess and management tools for Hyper-V aren't as good as VMware ESXi. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose VMware ESXi I actually used Hyper-V at my previous company, and am now using it at my current company so I'm actually much more familiar and comfortable with it. In fact, it's what I use at home as well. It's just really easy to use. Incentivized Helpful? Giovanni Myles Senior Systems Engineer in Information Technology at IFCO SYSTEMS (Logistics and Supply Chain, 1001-5000 employees) Chose VMware ESXi I've used the VMware competitor Hyper-V and VMware is by far the superior product at this point. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose VMware ESXi The decision on which hypervisor to use was made above my head. I personally prefer VMware due to the length of time that I have been using it. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose VMware ESXi We moved to VMWare ESXi from an all-physical environment. I know that VMWare VSphere is an even more advanced solution for managing numerous VMHosts under a single GUI - but we have not invested any time into VShere as of yet. We have too few employees at the moment to … Incentivized Helpful?	Microsoft Verified User Chose Windows Server We've utilized docker and debian for very specific applications and they have been useful - overall Windows Server provides a better package. I would choose VMware ESXi over Windows Server for virtualization as it's far more reliable in our experience. I can't imagine using a … Incentivized Helpful? Geoff Johnson Network System Administrator in Information Technology at Merrimack School District (Education Management, 501-1000 employees) Chose Windows Server We were comparing Windows Server with Hyper-V to VMware ESXi, and decided on Windows Server as we are primarily a Windows server/workstation shop, and the familiarity allowed us to spin up new Hyper-V servers quickly without much additional training required. We also have a … Incentivized Helpful? Zakarieya Abderoef Solutions Architect in Information Technology at Baraka Technology Group (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees) Chose Windows Server Windows Server is more cost-effective and skills are easier to find to support the products. The deployment and management of the product can be automated with Microsoft SCCM. In my opinion, Linux seems to be more secured but takes more time and effort to learn than Windows … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Windows Server Windows Server is by far the easiest server option to get started with because they offer the same kind of interface with windows that most users are already familiar with. Plus, it's the most graphically friendly option, so it is easy to navigate. Lastly, it is the most … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Windows Server We have used various flavors of Linux as it is the only other real competitor in the small to large business world. In most cases it is harder to find technical expertise in the Linux server world verse Windows Server. For this reason Windows has remained our go to operating … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Windows Server The only other server level OS I've ever used was OS/2, and there's really no point in trying to compare against it anymore. Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

Features

VMware ESXi

Windows Server

Comparison of Server Virtualization features of VMware ESXi and Windows Server
Feature	VMware ESXi 8.2 128 Ratings	Windows Server - Ratings
Virtual machine automated provisioning	8.0116 Ratings	00 Ratings
Management console	9.0128 Ratings	00 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup	8.0112 Ratings	00 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration	8.0116 Ratings	00 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security	8.0117 Ratings	00 Ratings

User Ratings
	VMware ESXi	Windows Server
Likelihood to Recommend	9.0 (129 ratings)	8.2 (63 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (6 ratings)	9.1 (6 ratings)
Usability	9.0 (6 ratings)	8.2 (7 ratings)
Availability	10.0 (2 ratings)	7.3 (1 ratings)
Performance	9.0 (2 ratings)	5.5 (1 ratings)
Support Rating	10.0 (55 ratings)	6.4 (19 ratings)
Implementation Rating	10.0 (3 ratings)	9.1 (4 ratings)
Configurability	10.0 (2 ratings)	9.1 (2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model	5.1 (2 ratings)	4.5 (1 ratings)
Ease of integration	10.0 (2 ratings)	9.1 (1 ratings)
Product Scalability	10.0 (2 ratings)	9.1 (1 ratings)
Professional Services	- (0 ratings)	6.4 (1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale	10.0 (2 ratings)	7.3 (1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale	10.0 (2 ratings)	8.2 (1 ratings)