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ESXi Free vs Paid – What are the differences?

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Fairly often new people discovering VMware asking these questions: ESXi free vs paid? What's the difference? While for many folks, VMware certified people, and others, this question (and especially the answer) is obvious, the new people who just discovered virtualization, might want to know exactly. That's why this post.  At first, you might want to read my post called ESXi Free – What's the Limitations?

The ESXi Free version is the same download as the full-blown ESXi but stays unlocked only for 60 days. It is the exact same ISO image. If you don't enter the serial number for the free version, the product works as full version during 60 days. When the trial period ends and the product locks out the advanced features and becomes ESXi free (you'll still have to apply a serial number, which is available with the free version when you download it. If you don't know how to do it just follow our tutorial on this!

ESXi Free Version – no more hard limit 32GB of RAM

ESXi Free Limitations

  • You can't Manage via vCenter Server
  • Maximum 2 physical CPUs in Hosts
  • Maximum 8 vCPU Virtual Machines (VMs)
  • No VMware Support

However:

  • No limit on physical memory
  • No limit on cores per CPU

How do I Download and Install the free version of ESXi?

Step 1: You can download the free version from VMware, directly from the product page here. It's an ISO image, which you can burn to a CD, and then boot the physical server by using the CD.

Step 2: Configure a static IP address directly from the console, set a new password, and connect from another machine via the IP address, by using a web browser. On the web page, you'll find a download link for VMware vSphere Client, which is a software to access the Vmware ESXi hypervisor.

Step 3: After installing the VMware vSphere client on a management station, you can access the hypervisor via the vSphere Client, start creating your VMs from scratch or do a P2V conversion by using VMware Converter Standalone – free tool.

ESXi Free – for Which usage?

For very small shops which want to try out virtualization is the best way to start. The free version of ESXi with some local disks in the server can be a good start to explore the VM operations, how to manipulate the VMs from the vSphere client, test the snapshot technology, etc.

But think twice before start running some production workloads. The VMs running on the ESXi Free version won't be able to back up with software like Veeam or others unless using in-guest software applications to back up the data and application configuration. It's because the ESXi has just a limited set of APIs which are not able to work with third-party backup software.

“Dr scenarios” – You can start to virtualize some production physical servers if you want to, and have some kind of DR scenarios (a VM running in an isolated test environment on the ESXi host). But it's like the poor man's DR scenario with using VMware Converter. Good enough for small shops without funds to invest

Good enough for small shops without funds to invest to a more reliable, more robust solution? But when the production environment becomes critical. Or critical enough that the boss says, ok, now we cannot afford to have 2hours of downtime. That's when you can step in and say, ok, we need to buy a licensed (paid) version of ESXi.

What's the lowest (cheapest) package of VMware ESXi?

The cheapest package is VMware vSphere Essentials and it offers unlocked APIs, so the external backup applications can leverage the hypervisor's snapshot technology to create backups of VMs running on ESXi host. With vSphere Essentials is possible to manage up to 3 ESXi hosts by using vCenter Server Foundation.

And as you can see on the image below, there is much less to play with when you don't have vCenter…

Wrap Up:

The usage of ESXi Free is obvious. Learning, testing workflows, small DR tests, validating architectural decisions. By using snapshots, you can also validate windows patches. For example, you might want to create an isolated clone of your production server by using VMware Converter and P2V technology, and you want to test a big Microsoft service pack before rolling it directly into the production environment, and possibly causing a downtime.

The next step would obviously be one of the entry-level VMware packages like vSphere Essentials or Essentials Plus, where the Essentials Plus offers not only vCenter Foundation but also many other products within the bundle, including backup solution vSphere Data Protection (VDP).

Shop for vSphere licenses at VMware Store:

Essentials Plus which has vSphere High Availability, is an obviously better choice. Because, if you have an unplanned hardware failure, vSphere HA can restart automatically those VMs which failed with the host. Those VMs are automatically restarted on other hosts which are part of VMware cluster.

There is small downtime during which the system figures out which host has failed and which are the hosts that are able to start the failed VMs. Once this automatic decision is taken, the VM boots up. The whole process is completely automatic and acts without the admin’s intervention.

Requirements of vSphere HA?

  • A shared SAN/NAS storage
  • Pingable Gateway
  • VMware vCenter Server (part of Essentials and Essentials Plus bundles)

Also recommended:

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About Vladan SEGET

This website is maintained by Vladan SEGET. Vladan is as an Independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert x16, Veeam Vanguard x9, VCAP-DCA/DCD, ESX Virtualization site has started as a simple bookmarking site, but quickly found a large following of readers and subscribers.

Connect on: Facebook. Feel free to network via Twitter @vladan.

Comments

  1. vigremrajesh says

    If I install full version with 60days and after if it turns in free version what are the settings will be disabled… please give me options available in free version.. in vmware esxi 5.0 & 5.1

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Yes after 60 days full it will become free version where you have unlimited RAM, but the APIs will become locked so for example backup products won’t be able to create incremental backups.

  2. Bruce Peterson says

    Hello Vladan,

    I hope you can clarify something for me. I currently have 3 physical machines running esxi 5.5 free edition. I am trying to get my company to upgrade to a paid edition. Our needs are very minimal and my desire to upgrade is primarily to be able to hook into the API’s for backups, probably with the free version of Veeam. Is VMware vSphere Essentials the correct product? If so, is it an in place upgrade?

    Thank you very much for your help

  3. Mihai Boeru says

    Hi Vladan,

    Clone feature is available for free ESXi?

    I understood it is possible, but not from the vSphere client. It is true?

    Regards and thank you.

  4. MarekT says

    I try to prepare my VM Backup server with iSCSI datastore. Datastore size is 32TB and is connected into ESXi 6.0 trial. I can create only 2TB max. size of VMDK on this datastore. Is possible, that it is limited of trial version of ESXi 6.0?

    • Vladan SEGET says

      No, trial versions are not limited in any way. After 60 days trial the product “locks-in” and only some features are present in the free edition. Consider purchasing the least cost effective version – vSphere Essentials allowing you to manage up to 3 ESXi hosts via vCenter (bundled).

  6. Lazlo says

    How can I tell if I am demo’ing the ESXi 6 Enterprise version? .

    I have installed ESXi 6 and I have it up and running. I see a message that says my evaluation will expire in 57 days. Can I use the Enterprise features for the next 57 days without installing any license at all…or must I install a demo license to see the Enterprise features?

    I don’t have enough experience ESXi to know if the features that I am seeing are included in the free version or the Enterprise version. What’s an Enterprise feature that I can try to verify if it’s working?

    Thanks.

    • Vladan SEGET says

      All enterprise features will work during next 57 days. Then, if you want to purchase the product the starter license is vSphere Essentials edition. This edition gives you an option to manage up to 3 physical servers with ESXi installed each. Plus each server can have up to 2 physical CPU and unlimited RAM.

  7. Emma says

    i have esxi 5.1 for free and want to update to 6.0, but i cannot find what it will be block after evaluation period. I dont want to loose resources i have in there today and cannot purchase. is there info anywhere that shows me what i wont do after evaluation period expires?

    Thanks!!!

  8. BrianD says

    We have installed ESXi 6.0. We have a 48 core box (4 procs, 12 cores per proc). We had one VM with 24 cores allocated under trial. Put free license on a month ago after trial expired. Today, the 24 core VM gets shut and wont restart unless we drop it to 8 cores. Are cores per VM supposed to be limited to 8 with a ESXi free license??

    • Vladan SEGET says

      True. 8 cores only for VMs on Free ESXi. That’s a fact….

      Considering the 4pCPU box you can’t even allocate vSphere Essentials or vSphere Essentials Plus license because those are limited to 2 pCPU per server. The only option, if you want still maintain your 24 core VM is to license this box, is to go with vSphere standard, but this will be costly as you’d have to buy 4 licenses of vSphere standard (it’s per-pCPU licensing, 1483.56 USD per CPU).

      Curent Pricing …

  9. EwelaL says

    i just got a windows laptop and I want to install VMware vsphere and client on the same drive I have the windows 7 OS. how is this possible?

    Please I need some hint on how to achieve this.

    • Vladan SEGET says

      You can install VMware Workstation, or Player. Then you can create a ESXi Virtual Machine…. I have a Free E-book which details the steps. On the front page of the blog > down right there is a form you can subscribe to our email list in order to receive the download.

  10. Cybex says

    I am about to buy a Mac Pro, 64GB ram, 1 TB SSD for home use. What is the better solution; Fusion or ESXi Free? I current have VM Fusion 6.0.6 and usually have 15-20 VM’s but with my current system I can only run 3-4 at a time. What would you suggest for a home/soho novice power user?

    • Leander says

      Fusion probably. It is quite a mission to run OS/X under ESXi and updates to OSX could very well render the box unstable.

      I run OSX with Fusion or Parallels and am very happy with it

  11. Alex says

    Hello Vladan,

    ist the vSwitch function available in the cheapest Essentials Kit or just in the Essentials Plus Kit?

    Thanks!

  12. Chirag says

    hello – great discussions

    I have a question – with the Essentials version (lowest paid cost license),

    Ques 1: Can I setup a live redundant VM on another machine or would that be a backup? I want to setup redundancy for minimal downtime in case of any failure…

    Ques 2: Can I move a VM from 1 server to another while its running (is that called vMotion?)? If not whats the best way to do it on the cheap?

    Ques 3: Can I setup incremental backups and be able to recover back say 1 hour ago?

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Hi,

      1, Not really. Essentials does not provide that option.
      2, Not possible within Essentials. You’ll need Essentials Plus.
      3, Yes of course. You just need to configure your backup software with this option (Backup job every 1h). Then, if your solution uses VMware VDDK and Changed Block Tracking (CBT) then only changed blocks are backed up after the first Full backup.

      Hope it will help.
      Vladan

  13. jkx says

    Hi Vladan

    Can you help me in this.

    My physical server (W2K3 SP2) is on city1 and my EXSI 6.5 server is on city2. with not link with each other. how can I copy my physical server from city1, put it on usb and then paste as VM on ESXI 6.5 in city2

    • michal says

      Hi jkx,

      with vmware converter you can virtualized physical server to usb disk and than you can copy it to esxi 6.5 and run it

      M

  14. Jeffro says

    In regards to CPU, the free version only limits physical socket count and the number of cores which may be assigned to any given VM, correct? So if I’ve got a box with 2 CPUs x 6 cores each = 12 cores, I can still run the free version?

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Well, you may or may not have problems with drivers on unsupported systems. Drivers for NICs or Storage adapters. So it’s kind of difficult to predict if it will works or not. Better get some Add-on NICs on eBay which works.

  16. V_ISM says

    Hi,

    With regards to thrid party “external backup solution”, (API access [veeam|altaro|freenas vm snapshot backup).

    is there a limitations with “the number of esxi host” these solutions can access to the vsphere?.

    with ESSENTIALS and ESSENTIALS PLUS.

    1. external API access to “unlimited ESXI host in vsphere”

    2. external API access to “limited # of esxi host in vsphere ” only.

    VCenter is completely out of the equation here.

    $560 Essential Kit is a real deal to try, that’s why I am asking these questions.

    • Vladan SEGET says

      That’s a good question. Once ESXi host is licensed with paid license, those APIs are unlocked. There is not another limit, as far as I know. You’ll have the “features” limit which is tightened to the licensing level. Example of vSphere distributed switch to a certain level of license, etc.

  17. Jack says

    >ESXi Free vs Paid – What are the differences?ProductionBackupsEssentialsEssentials Plus<
    This cost 10x what Essentials does. I don't know why they call it Essentials Plus because it provides 10x the capabilities, and functionally provides way more than essentials.

  18. Jack says

    The above is not what I posted. I’m guessing it doesn’t like the forward and back arrows. I’ll try one more time here:
    “ESXi Free vs Paid – What are the differences?”
    No place in this article nor its links does it spell out the differences between 6.5 free and paid.
    ESXi Free:
    – 2 physical CPUs
    – Unlimited cores per CPU
    – Unlimited physical Memory
    – max. 8 vCPU per VM
    *6.5 comes with a nice HTML5 interface that mimics the Windows client. No dangerous Java required.
    ESXi Essentials:
    – Enables you to unlock the API for 3 ESXi Free servers

    “Production”
    There are no instabilities or performance limitations under load with the free version. There are many production servers using the free version.

    “Backups”
    You most certainly can backup the free version while it is running live using snapshots and free scripts such as GhettoVCB. People have been using that in production environments at least since version 3.x of ESXi. It works no different than a full backup, so it is not space efficient, nor fast, but it totally reliable and automatic and works just fine if the VMs are not large. The VM can be backed up to the local VMFS file system or a remote NFS share that can even even be a VM on another ESXi server. If the native host chokes for any reason, the backup can be simply fired up on the other ESXi host. You can schedule the execute everything from a guest Windows VM.

    “Essentials”
    It simply unlocks the API for up to 3 hosts. The unlocked API opens up not only VMware specific backup solutions, but also industry-respected backup solutions such as StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect. At $560 for 3 hosts, Essentials provides a worthwhile reason for people using the free version to bite.

    “Essentials Plus”
    Costs 10x what Essentials, and by the name you would think it would be Essentials plus a little, but it is entirely different, and provides way more than essentials.

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Thanks for your long comment Jack and the precision on the limits for physical CPU or vCPUs for VMs.

      Backing up VMs running on “free” ESXi with the ghetto script can be painful as far as I know, only full backups are possible. If you’re looking for more advanced backup capabilities such as incremental backups, you’ll want to take a look at some of the commercial backup/recovery solutions out there including VMware. I use free ESXi only for dev/test environments.

  20. Leonid says

    Hi Vladan,

    Is free license of ESXi ok for commercial use (I know about technical limitations)?
    Or only for private/educational use?

    I have seen some forum posts saying it’s ok to run ESXi free in for-profit organizations, but I have never come across official VMware statement on that. Have you?

    • Vladan SEGET says

      If you’re fine with the fact that you won’t get a VMware support in case you have a problem …. I don’t think that they’ll ever bother you about that.

  21. Ahmad ZA says

    Hi Vladan

    1. MY SERVER
    I have a server with the following specification.
    DELL POWEREDGE R630 SERVER
    Intel Xeon E5-2620 v3 (15M Cache, 2.40 GHz) (6 Core)
    8GB RDIMM
    2.5″ Chassis with up to 8 Hard Drives
    iDRAG8 Enterprise
    PERC H730 Integrated RAID Controller, 1GB Cache
    DVD SATA Internal
    Ready-Rails
    Dual, Hot-plug, Redundant Power Supply (1+1) 750W
    Broadcom 5720 QP 1Gb Network Card (4 Ports)
    Windows Server OS
    Diskless Configuration
    400-AHLZ 2TB 7.2K RPM SATA 6Gbps 512e 2.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive,CusKit
    Kit-MS2012R2 Foundation Edition ROK (Maximum of 15 users)

    2. I WANT TO
    I would like to install vsphere 6.5 Free version and want the possibility to virtualize up to 10 (will add RAM when necessary)

    3. MY QUESTION
    – Will the free vSphere 6.5 able to support this without expiry?
    – My expectation of the free vSphere Version
    – No expiry
    – Unlimited Core
    – Unlimited RAM
    – Of course Free version without support 🙂

    Thanks in advance

    • Vladan SEGET says

      You know the limitation of free version. 8vCPUs per VM maxi, read access only to vStorage API (no incremental backup via backup software). I cannot guarantee that your NICs or HBA are on VMware HCL for ESXi 6.5U1 so they’ll be seen by the ESXi or assure optimal performance. You should either do a test installation, or check VMware HCL (and/or seek drivers). And yes, you’ll need more RAM. Good luck -:)

  22. Luke says

    Hi Vladan,
    Thanks a lot for the information, it’s very useful. I also have a couple of questions:

    1) Is the free version of ESXi that you mention in this article the same as the “vSphere Hypervisor” (https://www.vmware.com/br/products/vsphere-hypervisor.html)? The names are different so I wanted to be sure.

    2) Does the free version supports PCI passthrough? I would like to passthrough my GPU to the guest machine.

    • Vladan SEGET says

      1) Yes, it’s the same. when the post was written, they did not call it vSphere Hypervisor just yet.. -:)
      2) Yes, but it depends on your hardware. But generally, PCI passthrough is supported.

      Thanks for your comment.
      Best

  23. S.Balaji says

    Hi Vladan,
    We install ESX 6.0 free version , creating first vm with 4 gb ram win server 2012, issue is there is no network adaptor shows in vm os windows server 2012 , also in ESX shows “host does not support passthrough configuration” now ESX in direct path io
    what is the difference between these two , for office environment which one we use pls update me

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Make sure you select vmxnet3 as network adapter type. As for passthrough, it depends on the hardware you’re installing. If it’s a “whitebox” host, then not always you can passthrough config, so, for example the Graphics card cannot sometimes be enabled for passthrough.

  25. golferpro says

    Free vs Paid.
    Hmm you list some of the free limitations but nothing for the paid. Did you get distracted?

    Should we assume free as in ‘you can buy her a drink but her boyfriend is the bartender” and paid “if you have an apartment she’ll move in” ?

    This is not a comparison if you don’t compare BOTH products. Duh

    You must have been stoned when you wrote this. haha

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Thanks for your comment. I thought that exposing the limits everyone understands. Sure, I could do a side by side comparison, but those limits disappear after integrating the host into the vSphere cluster with other licensing than “free”. You might then want to check which feature you really need in the paid release such as fault tolerance (FT), Host profiles, distributed switches).

      It’s pretty obvious for everyone working with VMware technology, that the free edition is good for some lab scenarios. For production environments is much more wise to go with a paid release, including support. And the paid releases do have a lot to compare. You might want to check another post which details further, and also provides explanations for vCenter, ESXi etc… https://www.vladan.fr/what-is-the-difference-between-vmware-vsphere-esxi-and-vcenter/

  26. Emerson says

    Greetings.

    How many virtual machines can I create in the ESXi 6.0U3 (free)? I chose this version since it is the only one compatible with my HP Proliant ML350 G8 server.

    I have enough RAM and HHD, but I need to create 5VM, is that possible?

  27. Stephane says

    Hi,
    Another limitation I found, you can’t administrate ESXi free via PowerCLI.
    You can run Get-… commands but no New-… commands. I didn’t try any Set-…

  28. benamar says

    Actually I use the free hpervisor esxI6.0 and Iw want to do a backup for VM installed
    on ESXI with Microsoft Azure backup server MABS

    My question is : which licence vmware that I need to configure this backup

    Essentail , essentail plus , standard ….

    Thanks

  29. Dejan T says

    Hi,
    We have installed ESXi 6.7., have 2 procs, 12 cores per proc (total 24vCPU) and would like to allocate more than 8 after trial expiration.
    Since cores per VM is limited to 8 with a ESXi free license, what licence should we buy?
    Many thanks!

  30. Star Lord says

    if you use the free version for 30 computers is it illegal?
    to setup the server and use the data.

    • Vladan SEGET says

      Hi, do you mean that you plan to run 30 VMs on your ESXi FREE, right? Yes you can. The only limitations are with the number of vCPU you’ll be able to allocate to each VM …. and of course the hardware limitations to 2 CPU per host.

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