# VMware vSphere Reviews **Vendor:** Broadcom **Category:** [Server Virtualization Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/server-virtualization) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 761 ## About VMware vSphere VMware vSphere with VCF 9.0 is the enterprise workload engine that modernizes compute infrastructure with a future-ready, scalable infrastructure and simplified management that allows organizations to make the most of their current investments. vSphere provides a powerful foundation for modern workloads with easy self-service access to infrastructure services and a built-in Kubernetes runtime to run containers consistently alongside VMs, while enabling intrinsic security out-of-the-box. ## VMware vSphere Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users find VMware vSphere **extremely intuitive and easy to use** , enhancing daily operational efficiency in their virtual environments. (69 reviews) - Users appreciate the **intuitive setup and management** of VMware vSphere, making virtualization efficient and user-friendly. (57 reviews) - Users appreciate the **ease of use and robust functionality** of VMware vSphere, enhancing their daily administrative tasks. (30 reviews) - Users value the **unmatched efficiency and manageability** of VMware vSphere for server virtualization and resource optimization. (24 reviews) - Users praise the **high reliability** of VMware vSphere, highlighting its exceptional uptime and automated failover capabilities. (19 reviews) - Resource Management (18 reviews) - Stability (18 reviews) - Setup Ease (15 reviews) - User Interface (14 reviews) - Integrations (13 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **licensing costs excessively high** , particularly affecting small businesses trying to adopt vSphere. (56 reviews) - Users dislike the **licensing direction** of VMware vSphere, feeling pressured to adapt to recent changes or risk obsolescence. (31 reviews) - Users are concerned about the **high licensing costs** associated with VMware vSphere, leading to budget constraints. (29 reviews) - Users are frustrated with the **constant cost increases** of VMware vSphere, adversely affecting their investment and budgeting. (12 reviews) - Users express concerns about the **pricing issues** of VMware vSphere, especially following Broadcom's acquisition. (12 reviews) - Update Issues (12 reviews) - Upgrade Issues (11 reviews) - Pricing Complexity (10 reviews) - UX Improvement (10 reviews) - Users are frustrated with the **poor customer support** from VMware vSphere, impacting their experience and satisfaction. (9 reviews) ## VMware vSphere Reviews ### 1. Robust Virtualization with Centralized Management **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sanjeev S. | Cybersecurity Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 09, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I like VMware vSphere's stability and how it simplifies managing virtual infrastructure through a centralized console. I find features like live migration, resource allocation, and high availability very effective in daily operations. It makes provisioning and managing virtual machines much easier compared to dealing with physical servers individually. Once the environment is properly set up, it's generally reliable and doesn't require constant intervention. I also appreciate how the centralized console facilitates easier administration by allowing monitoring, provisioning, and managing multiple systems from one place, unlike managing individual physical servers. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** One area where VMware vSphere could improve is licensing and overall cost, especially for small environments. The centralized console is useful, but troubleshooting certain issues can sometimes feel complex and take time. Also, upgrades and compatibility checks between different VMware components need careful planning to avoid unexpected issues during maintenance. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use VMware vSphere for virtualization, consolidating workloads into VMs, improving resource utilization, simplifying server management, and facilitating faster system provisioning. It reduces dependency on physical hardware and enhances uptime with minimal disruption during upgrades. ### 2. Simplifies Virtualization, Minor Upgrade Downtime **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yannick K. | Infrastructure Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I like how simple VMware vSphere is to use, especially in the user interface. It offers a great interface for people to use, and it allows engineers to be a lot more hands-on compared to old KVM solutions. The initial setup was very easy, with support from some PSO teams and our own experience helping. We've used VMware vSphere for quite a while now. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** I think VMware vSphere's licensing system could be improved. There are a lot of bugs in the older versions, and you have to upgrade to the latest version for everything, which causes a lot of downtime during the upgrade procedures. If there's a way to improve the downtime aspect, that would be great. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use VMware vSphere for our platform virtualization, which solves the problem of relying on cloud resources. It allows us to scale with our own private infrastructure, saving on the significant costs that cloud solutions generate nowadays. ### 3. Reliable, Complete Virtualization with vMotion, HA/DRS, and Scalable vCenter Management **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nayan G. | Linux Administrator, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 31, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** What I like most about VMware vSphere is its reliability and overall completeness. It stays very stable even under heavy workloads, and vMotion makes it possible to migrate VMs with zero downtime. I also appreciate how HA and DRS automate failover and load balancing, which reduces manual effort. On top of that, vCenter keeps management straightforward, even when you’re operating at scale. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The licensing cost is high. I also worry about vendor lock-in, and the setup can feel complex—especially when trying to understand and choose between the different licensing tiers. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere helps solve several key infrastructure problems. It reduces server sprawl by consolidating multiple VMs onto fewer hosts. It also minimizes downtime, since HA and vMotion help keep services running. For day-to-day operations, it cuts down on manual management through centralized control via vCenter. Finally, it addresses resource imbalance by using DRS to automatically balance workloads across the environment. ### 4. VMware vSphere: A Comprehensive Enterprise Virtualization Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** amit s. | I am working as Cloud operation admin for Nutanix, VMware and other public clouds., Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 13, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I have over 13 years of hands-on experience working with VMware vSphere technologies, including vCenter, ESXi, and vRealize Operations (vROps), and this review reflects real-world production use. VMware vSphere is an enterprise-class server virtualization platform that provides a strong foundation for software-defined data centers (SDDC). It remains one of the most mature and feature-rich virtualization solutions available. vSphere is well suited for organizations that require high performance, scalability, strong availability, and advanced automation. Its stability and broad feature set make it a solid choice for running mission-critical workloads. Overall, the platform supports efficient workload consolidation, high availability, and advanced resource management across both on-premises and hybrid cloud environments. VMware provides very efficient service support for their customers. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** vSphere licensing and support costs can be expensive, especially for small and medium-sized organizations. Many of the more advanced features are tied to higher-tier licenses, which can make it harder to justify the overall spend. Because of its extensive feature set, vSphere also tends to require skilled administrators. Initial deployment, tuning, and ongoing troubleshooting can be complex for teams without prior VMware experience, and the learning curve may be steep at the beginning. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere solves a wide range of problems that IT teams and enterprises face when managing server infrastructure, workloads, and data centers. Features like vMotion, High Availability (HA), and Fault Tolerance (FT) ensure workloads can move seamlessly between hosts, maintain uptime, and continue running even if hardware fails. ### 5. vSphere is the most comprehensive and easiest to use management for hyper-visors. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ben S. | Senior Systems Engineer / Infrastructure Architect, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 20, 2019 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** The interface is 100% web based so it is easy accessible from anywhere. Integrates directly into Active Directory for easy role based access and authentication. All management was moved from the client to the web interface. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The management interface can be slow to load and takes a while to find some of the settings. Overall they did a good job making it self explanatory. **Recommendations to others considering VMware vSphere:** In comparing hyper-V to vSphere look at the total cost of management, support, licensing, as well as downtime and the complexity of management. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are now able to add and manage all hyper-visors in a single management interface. We have now gained the ability to vMotion and storage vMotion all of our virtual machines. ### 6. Easy and Stable, but Licensing Costs Are Pushing Us to Migrate **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kiel U. | IT Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I used to enjoy the ease of use, the stability, the upgradability, and the cost. Now the cost of licensing has forced us to strategize migrating off the platform. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The exorbitant costs of licensing that increased when they were acquired. I understand it, but I do not like it. It's terrible for SMBs **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is our primary platform for our virtual hosts and guests, housing DCs, SQL servers, File Servers, etc ### 7. Rock-Solid VMware vSphere: Stable, Scalable, and Built for Critical Workloads **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** HARIOM S. | Storage admin, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 22, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** What I like best about VMware vSphere is its stability and maturity. It’s rock-solid for running critical workloads, and features like vMotion, High Availability (HA), and DRS make managing virtual machines smooth and reliable. On top of that, it scales really well and has a huge ecosystem, so it fits everything from small setups to large enterprise environments. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** What I dislike most about VMware vSphere is the cost and licensing complexity, especially after recent pricing changes—it can get expensive fast. It also has a steeper learning curve for new admins, and upgrades or version compatibility can sometimes feel more complicated than necessary. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere solves the problem of inefficient, hard-to-manage physical servers by virtualizing compute resources into a single, manageable platform. It simplifies server consolidation, workload isolation, high availability, and disaster recovery, which reduces downtime and hardware sprawl. The benefit to me is greater reliability and flexibility—I can deploy, move, and scale workloads quickly, keep systems running during failures, and manage infrastructure more efficiently with less manual effort. ### 8. Reliable Virtualization, High Cost Barrier **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jasvinder S. | Sr. Technical Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I use VMware vSphere to run and manage all our virtual machines, and it makes virtualization easy to handle. The platform is very stable and reliable, allowing us to adjust VM configurations whenever we need without any hassle. I appreciate how vSphere lets us manage our entire virtual environment, including virtual networks, VMs, and physical hosts, all from a single console. This makes day-to-day operations much easier and more efficient. The initial setup was straightforward, and following the documentation made installing, connecting the ESXi hosts, setting up vCenter, and starting VM management easy. Managing our environment has been smooth, and I didn't face major challenges during the setup. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere is great, but it can still improve in a few areas. The licensing and pricing are on the higher side, which makes upgrades expensive. Some advanced features also feel a bit complex for new users. In some cases, updates and compatibility checks take time, so simplifying that experience would make it even better. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use VMware vSphere to manage our virtual machines, solving hardware dependency issues, reducing server downtime and physical load. It simplifies virtualization, allowing easy resource scaling and system maintenance from a single console, making operations efficient and reliable. ### 9. Cost-Effective Server Virtualization with Central Management **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yitagessu H. | Senior Hardware Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 19, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I find VMware vSphere cost-effective and appreciate its central management capabilities. I like the resource management it offers, which helps in managing server virtualization efficiently. The feature I value the most is vSAN, as it effectively utilizes storage resources by virtualizing all local storage contributing to the vSAN environment. Even though the initial setup may not be very easy, it has good features that are easy to understand. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** I think it is better to use a small bandwidth for backup and replication. It may not be very easy, but it has a good feature to understand easily. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere offers central management and is cost-effective for resource management, helping me use storage resources effectively with vSAN. ### 10. Stable, Full-Featured Virtualization with Strong Management and HA/DRS **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 vSphere?** - VMWare Hosts Management - Full Virtualization Solution - Replication Features - Networking Features - DRS - FT - HA Features - Stable Solution - Everything needed for Virtualization - Easy to Use. You do not need Virtualization background to get use to it - Everyday Solution - You do not need certifications or something to implement - Integration Features with other Platforms via API, agent, etc **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** - Licensing Model And pricing after Broadcome Adquisition **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** - Virtualization of VMs - HA Setup - 2 VMware ESXi Cluster - Replication - Acronis integration for Backups and Replication - Zabbix Integration via API Its easy to use so any person can administrate it. ### 11. Reliable Infrastructure Management with VMware vSphere **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Julian B. | Architect, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 14, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** What I like most about VMware vSphere is its stability and centralized management. It makes it easy to manage multiple virtual machines from a single interface, automate tasks, and optimize resource usage. Features like vMotion and High Availability are especially valuable because they minimize downtime and allow seamless workload migration, which is critical for business continuity. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** One of the main drawbacks of VMware vSphere is its cost, especially for smaller organizations, as licensing and advanced features can become expensive. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere helps optimize hardware usage and reduces downtime through virtualization and high availability features. This benefits me by lowering costs, improving reliability, and simplifying infrastructure management. ### 12. The best virtualisation in the world **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Peter D. | CIO and System engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Its very easy, all has integrated, or is possible to integrate to have it complete running ecosystem for virtualisation will all other needs. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Only what I dont dislike is that each extras is needed to install manualy that there isnt more integration automatisation and more user friendly interface with better overviews. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its solve all our problem and needes for our privat datacenter. ### 13. Comprehensive Management with Flexibility **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** David G. | Tech Support Specialist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I like being able to manage everything all in one place with VMware vSphere. It gives me the flexibility to add more storage space on the fly, increase RAM, and add additional servers as needed. I really like the update process and being able to do updates. I also enjoy the integration with Veeam backup, allowing me to restore VMs into vSphere. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** I wish it was maybe a little more user friendly. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use VMware vSphere to manage all our VM servers centrally. I can easily add storage, increase RAM, and add servers on the fly, offering great flexibility. ### 14. Goodbye VMware **Rating:** 0.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dirk V. | IT Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 07, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Very powerful and it works! easy to work with a multitude of VMs very easily **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The price increases are unbearable for us as a non -profit. They have seemed to have thrown away the little customer. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It controls our entire VM environment. ### 15. vSphere Centralizes VMware Administration Seamlessly **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Milton E. | Senior Director, Information Services and Strategy, Non-Profit Organization Management, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** vSphere places all VMWare administration in one place. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The current sales policy of Broadcom makes continuing with VMWare an impossibility. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** vSphere reduces the labor needed to maintain our VMWare installation. ### 16. Best Virtual Desktop for Organization **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Abhishek D. | Professional 1 System Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere is very useful web application which allows Administrator to create Virtual Desktop or Virtual Machine with all the resource allocation like RAM, Storage, OS, NIC, vCPU, etc and ability to Power ON/Off. The best thing about vSphere is We can remote into Multiple VMs at the same time and upscale/downscale the resources any time. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** I think vSphere is a complete package and don't have any downside to let anyone thinking to switch to other solution. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere is solving the problem of Capital Expenditure and eliminating the need to having physical devices which can further require maintenance. The benefit vSphere is providing that we can claim back the resources when it's not needed. We can allocate VDI to remote workers and eliminate the need of Office. ### 17. Centralized VMware Management **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dave C. | Senior Technical Operations Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 18, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Manage and view all your existing VMware hosts and clients from a single portal **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** At times, it’s difficult to understand how certain configuration options work, such as how VM clustering is set up for a site. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We need on-premise virtualisation for several sites that can’t be cloud-based, and vSphere is meeting that requirement. ### 18. Reliable Virtualization Platform for Scalable Infrastructure **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Muhammad A. | System & DevOps Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 21, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** What I like best about VMware vSphere is its stability, performance, and centralized management through vCenter. It makes it incredibly easy to manage multiple virtual machines, allocate resources efficiently, and monitor performance across the infrastructure. Features like vMotion and HA (High Availability) significantly reduce downtime and help maintain service continuity. The interface is intuitive once you're familiar with it, and the flexibility it offers for scaling workloads is a major plus. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** One of the main drawbacks of VMware vSphere is its licensing and cost structure, which can be quite high for small to mid-sized businesses. Additionally, some parts of the web-based interface (especially in older versions) can feel sluggish or unintuitive at times. The learning curve for new administrators is also a bit steep, especially when dealing with advanced features like DRS or configuring networking and storage clusters. Better documentation or in-tool guidance could improve the onboarding experience. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere helps us consolidate physical servers into virtual machines, reducing hardware costs, space, and power consumption. It enables efficient resource utilization, high availability, and easier disaster recovery planning. With features like vMotion and snapshots, we can perform maintenance with minimal downtime and quickly revert systems if needed. Overall, it gives us a stable, scalable environment to manage workloads efficiently and respond faster to business needs. ### 19. VMWare is cognitive **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gary S. | Senior Network Admin, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Ease of use. Ongoing healthcare issues. Changing technologies **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Sytems tend to lock up. Restarts for VM's are eccential **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ease of use in ongoing changing technology. ### 20. VMware Vsphere : The Virtualization Titan **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nikunj D. | Lead System Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere stands out for its robust virtualization capabilities, offering excellent scalability and flexibility. Its centralized management via vCenter simplifies complex environments. The high availability and fault tolerance features ensure minimal downtime. vMotion and Storage vMotion provide seamless migration of workloads. Overall, it's known for its reliability and performance in enterprise-grade environments. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** One downside of VMware vSphere is the cost, which can be quite high, especially for small to mid-sized businesses. The complexity of setup and configuration can also be daunting for those without deep technical knowledge. While vCenter is powerful, it can become cumbersome to manage at scale. Additionally, licensing can be confusing with multiple tiers and add-ons. Lastly, vSphere's reliance on specific hardware requirements may limit flexibility in certain environments. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere optimizes resources by consolidating VMs onto fewer physical servers, reducing costs. It offers easy scalability without disruptions. High Availability and Fault Tolerance features ensure minimal downtime. Centralized management through vCenter simplifies administration and monitoring. Disaster recovery tools like Site Recovery Manager enhance business continuity. ### 21. "VMware: Powering Virtualization with Precision and Flexibility" **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shreyas K. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere stands out for its robust performance and scalability, making it suitable for both small and large environments. Key features like vMotion and Storage vMotion ensure seamless VM migration with no downtime. High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT) ensure minimal disruptions. The centralized management through vCenter simplifies operations, while Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) optimizes resource allocation. Additionally, integration with vSAN and strong security features make vSphere a powerful, reliable solution for virtualization. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere can be complex to set up and manage, especially for smaller environments without dedicated IT teams. Licensing costs are high, making it less budget-friendly for smaller businesses. Some features, like vCenter, require additional resources and can become a bottleneck. While it offers great scalability, managing large environments can still become cumbersome without proper automation. Lastly, the reliance on VMware-specific tools can create vendor lock-in, limiting flexibility with other platforms. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** "VMware: The Virtualization Titan – Does It Live Up to the Hype?" ### 22. Enterprise-Grade Virtualization Made Easy with Outstanding Support **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Michael Z. | Pre-Sale System Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 25, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Easy to Deploy, Ge all Relevant features for an enterprise grade virtualization Software. Great Support & Service. 80% of enterprise are using it. Using it every day in my job. Can integrate with any system lot of plugins and a Great APi **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** New license model. based on Cores and not on Socket. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provide the best Platform for virtualization and Containerization in one place. Easy to deploy and Integrate. Simply the best. ### 23. Over Ten year's with Vmware vsphere esxi **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** alaa e. | infrastructure Systems Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** stable product for many years you can count on vpshere esxi , compatability for many hardware you can install esxi you can get knlowdeg based and lead the implelmention by your self and get your certification also dor intergration also provide high end of intergartion spcial with dell storge API the most simplie GUi used and fridnly use for user than more prodecut eals i have been hired by 5 compaines and all the time use Vsphere esxi since esxi 5.0 **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** high license cost complex for purchasing **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** solve the vartiy fro vertualiztion of phsyical server's ### 24. Robust Virtualization Pioneer, but the High Cost Stings **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Aaron G. | IT Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 27, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Robust features Pioneer in virtualization High uptime **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** High cost of the virtualization platform **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Provides high uptime due to its redundant hardware and network connections. Top performance for business users ### 25. Simplified Server Management, But Cost Model Needs Improvement **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Paul C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** It has simplified our build outs and upgrades from bare metal servers. We used to have over 1000 bare metal servers and have paired that down 5 or 6 clusters. A large portion of our servers were mostly for developers and spinning up a temporary server is now a piece of cake. I personally am a network administrator but have found it easy to adapt vSphere into my daily work flow. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The cost model and constant change especially post Broadcom purchase. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is cost saving in the long run. We are also able to simplify the technology in use and simplify the number or server types (physically) we have deployed. ### 26. My everyday work tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Fernando L. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 25, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** It's really easy to use. I've been using vSphere since v5 and it has evolved in a way that feels familiar every time a new version arrives, but always comes with tons of improvements. Every component of the platform matches so fine. The way it handles VMs, workloads, vmotion, storage, networks, nics really shows how ahead they are in the matter. It makes me happy to administer this platform every day at work. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Upgrading VMware tools every time a new patch comes in. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ease of administration. Workloads handling. Storage administration. Network administration. ### 27. Flexible VM Creation Tailored to Your Needs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ajay P. | Data Team Lead, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 10, 2026 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** It's giving you space to create VM machines as per your requirements. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** You can only used it for organization levels. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solved the physical space, and you can increase hardware as per requirements. ### 28. Powerful virtualization made simple with VMware vSphere **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Arpan J. | System Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Provides an intuitive interface that simplifies virtualization management even for complex environments. Also, its robust feature set and seamless integration with third-party tools make it ideal for enterprise-scale deployment. This is frequently used across industries as it stands out for its stability and straightforward implementation with clear documentation and automation options. Customer support is responsive and knowledgeable, which ensures quick resolution and guidance. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Due to its well-designed hardware and resource allocation to avoid performance bottlenecks, licensing cost is bit high for small and medium businesses. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It solves several critical business and IT problems by enabling efficient and scalable virtualization of computing resources. ### 29. OVERALL BEST HYPERVISOR **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** arpit k. | technical account manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 16, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** i am very much satisfied with that vmware esxi and vcenter i am using it since 2018 ,and its overall performence to maintain multiple Vm and quality of vM is excellent and its interfcae is user friendly ,new employee also easy to use its task **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** license is costly and sometimes its stuck **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** handle multiple heavy virtual machine in esy manner and its security, snapshot feature is good ### 30. Perfect way to utilize hardware **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Robust Virtualization Platform – It allows you to run multiple virtual machines (VMs) on the same physical hardware efficiently. • High Availability & Fault Tolerance – Built-in features like HA, vMotion, and DRS minimize downtime and keep workloads running even during hardware failures. • Scalability – Easy to expand from a small lab environment to enterprise-level data centers. • Centralized Management – vCenter Server gives a single pane of glass for managing resources, performance, and configurations. • Performance & Resource Optimization – DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) automatically balances workloads to avoid bottlenecks. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Complexity for Beginners – Steep learning curve, especially when setting up advanced features like clusters, HA, or networking. • Resource Requirements – Needs powerful hardware, lots of RAM/CPU, and proper storage to get the best performance. • Licensing Restrictions – Some useful features (e.g., vMotion, DRS, Fault Tolerance) are locked behind higher-tier licenses. • Storage Configuration – vSAN and shared storage setups can be tricky and sometimes costly. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Server Sprawl & Inefficiency – Instead of running one app per physical server, vSphere consolidates many workloads on fewer hosts. 2. Downtime & Business Continuity – Features like vMotion, High Availability (HA), and Fault Tolerance reduce planned and unplanned downtime. 3. Resource Management – Balances CPU, memory, and storage automatically with DRS to prevent performance bottlenecks. 4. Disaster Recovery Challenges – Simplifies backup, replication, and recovery across sites. ### 31. Effortless VM Management in One Tool—No Drawbacks So Far **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Danilo D. | Technical Support Analyst, Government Administration, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Easy management of virtual machines in just one tool, which facilitates the management of local servers **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Nothing at the moment that discredits the use of the tool **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** The unification of all machines on a single platform, solving several problems when there is a need for information integration ### 32. Best in industry **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Consulting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 25, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** It is the best in class hypervisor. There is no other technology that even comes close to this software. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Broadcom has made it difficult to consume now. It used to be "buy vCenter/ buy esxi / buy VSAN / buy NSX." But now, all the sales team will sell is VCF. Now, even if you want the product, you have to literally fight the sales team to sell what Broadcom has been offering on their new SKUs: VVF/Standard/Edge. If they won't sell anything other than VCF, why are the other products listed? Make the decision to sell only VCF and call it a day. This will allow better experience for both your business units and the customer! **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It collapses our entire operational environment from 500 physical servers, to 50. This unprecedented scale allows our business units to function under the protection of HA/DRS//Shared Storage, security and many other industry standards. And as they all are VMs that live in vSphere, backups are easy with the eco-system VMware has created. ### 33. The ultimate Private cloud Hypervisor **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pieter V. | Senior Cloud Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Ease of use and Functionality. VMware is straight forward to deploy, runs on almost any type of Hardware, has phenomenal integration to a multitude of tools and extension options. Its very easy to implement and get up and running, their customer support is on the forefront of client driven experience. We use VMware on a daily basis across our landscape, our product sets include, vSphere, vCentre, VMware aria ops, NSX and VDC. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Costs. You get what you pay for, but VMware has become a lot more expensive than any other Hypervisor. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Providing our customers a private cloud, over distributed hardware such as storage, networking, and compute. Micro Segmentation with NSX provides reliant and effective optimized software defined networking. vCloud gives our customers a Cloud based direct to landscape portal access to their infrastructure. ### 34. vSphere in on-premises **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Hardware | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 04, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I like VMware vSphere for the easy integration with Terraform, easy deployment and easy implementation. It is isntuitive use.VMware customer support is really helpful. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** New liciensing model can be expensive. Web Client could work better. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** VMware vSphere helped with having high available servers. ### 35. From the eyes of an Admin **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Financial Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 26, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** I have been a VMware admin for many years, and my experience has shown me that VMware vSphere's greatest strength is its robust and comprehensive virtualization platform. Tools like vMotion and High Availability (to name a couple) are essential for ensuring business continuity. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** However, recent changes by Broadcom have introduced significant concerns. The shift to a more expensive, subscription-only licensing model has drastically increased costs for many customers. Broadcom has also alienated a segment of the customer base by cutting many smaller, long-standing partners. The future direction is a strong push toward VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), which is now the company's flagship product. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cost Savings & Efficiency: Save money on hardware and energy while making IT management simpler and faster. Business Continuity: Critical applications stay available and running, even during unexpected hardware failures. Flexibility: Easily scale IT resources up or down to meet changing business needs. ### 36. A certainty in system virtualization **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Giovanni C. | SysAdm, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** A very efficient system for creating virtual machines and maintaining them with excellent performance over time **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The change of ownership of VMware has led to increased difficulty in managing licenses **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It gives me the opportunity to set up systems on which to test new services in a very short time. ### 37. VMware Explore 2025 impressions **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 01, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** The history and progression of products has been notable and Explore in Las Vegas last week was no exception. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** While stating "fewer SKU # with more encompassing features" and minimizing partner levels to the big providers it seems there is some confusion on how VMware will work out in the future. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It provides a lot of the compute environment in one package. If designed and implemented well, it can cover the centralized infrastructure with compute, storage, network and operational oversight from a "single pane" environment. Some of the current and future AI efforts will help with managing the solution if they come to fruition. ### 38. The standard for enterprise virtualization software **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Adam B. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 25, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** It is very easy to provision, manage, and troubleshoot VMs at a high level. The ability to manage VM templates via Content Libraries can help reduce the time to update across several vCenters. Support has been great to work with when we do run into issues. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** There can be some errors that are not very intuitive to parse through or may point to a different issue than it may be. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We utilize vSphere for VM management and it makes provisioning, managing, and troubleshooting those VMs very easy to see a high level view, but also quickly dive into a deeper view for more technical information. ### 39. VMware: still the best option out **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sam W. | Network Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 26, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware does a good job about rolling in new product updates and features without needing to overhaul their UI a ton. They keep the interface the same over time so I don't have to relearn how to do things in my data center. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** I think because the product is so big, there's always another feature to learn and stuff that I've been doing the long way in my environment when there's been a built in short way the entire time. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Space in our small datacenter. We don't have the room for bare metal so a hypervisor is the way to go. ### 40. An excellent home for your VMs **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brian B. | IT Systems Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** vSphere serves as a comprehensive platform for managing virtual machines, offering impressive flexibility when it comes to creating VMs. Whenever I encounter an issue, I find that the support provided is excellent. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The main drawback I’ve noticed is the learning curve, which can be a bit challenging at first. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** vSphere assists us in managing our virtual machines for thin clients. After we create an image in vSphere, it becomes available to all our thin clients across the organization. ### 41. I used many vmware vspere server on my enterprise **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 31, 2016 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Virtualize server to save money on hardware. Nice way to optimize ressource performance vs investissement. Easy to implement. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Configuring server with many networking interface with internal vlan. **Recommendations to others considering VMware vSphere:** Vmware vsphere is a very nice optimisation on any enterprise. Saving money on hardware with a leader on market is not a bad thing 😀 **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Save a lot of money on hardware. Save space on server room. Minimize external support cost on hardware. ### 42. Reliable Virtualization Platform for Enterprise Environments **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hisham A. | System administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere offers a robust and stable platform for managing virtual machines at scale. The interface is intuitive, especially with vCenter, and the performance is very reliable for hosting mission-critical workloads. Features like vMotion, DRS, and High Availability make it easy to manage resources across multiple hosts. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The licensing cost can be high, especially for small businesses. Some advanced features require Enterprise-level subscriptions. Also, initial setup and networking configurations can be complex without prior experience. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use vSphere to consolidate physical servers into a virtualized environment, reducing hardware costs and improving system availability. It’s made managing backups, disaster recovery, and patching much easier and more centralized. Overall, it has increased infrastructure flexibility and uptime. ### 43. Efficient VM Management with Flexible Snapshots, But Licensing Could Be Simpler **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Glenn K. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Being able to take snapshots of VMs to test changes and revert to them if there are issues. Being able to maximize hardware resources and efficiency. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The granularity of the various license features and capabilities. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Deploying various operating system VMs, i.e. Windows, Linux., etc. Efficient server utilization. Monitoring server performance. Snapshots for testing changes. Overall server administration through one dashboard (vCenter). ### 44. Innovation **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 26, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** The platform is what we run our virtual infrastructure on both for servers and vdi. It has been a very sound structured product that we thoroughly enjoy and continually expand. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Cost seems to continue to rise with newer competitors which basically brings you back to what am I getting for the price versus others m **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Our entire and virtual environment runs in VMware it allows us to sleep at night because it just runs smoothly with all of the tools and monitoring that it provides us. ### 45. VMware vSphere **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Wessam F. | Chief Information Officer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 03, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware vSphere is very important for my environment Daly operation manage all my v host **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Nothing Disliked as it is very excellent **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy to mange than others ### 46. Effortless Virtualization, But Costs Are Climbing **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nick P. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Virtualizing infastructure made easy. You are able to manage your entire enviornment from one single pane of glass. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Rising costs to keep the product. Broadcom has priced many small groups out of keeping the product long term. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** easy to maintain an entire virtual environment. This lowers your physical footprint in racks, power, and time to update. ### 47. Best in class hypervisor, accept no substitute **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jon R. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 27, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** VMware by Broadcom continues to invest in game changing innovations at the core hypervisor layer. Live vmotion (even with gpu workloads!) and new NVMe memory tiering to help mitigate server cost and consolidate workloads are huge standouts. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The downside of vSphere is the per-core licensing model. It would be great to get back to the per socket model! **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** We're still on the physical-to-virtual journey for some (database) workloads, so support-ability, mobility with vmotion, consolidation and HA resiliency are the main factors for me. ### 48. Easy to Use and Learn—A Solid Product Overall **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anthony D. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Ease of use and easy to understand and learn. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** Nothing really off the top of my. Overall a good product. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's beneficial to our company to have a modular and easy to manipulate environment. The ability to build and tear down VM's within our environment help us test hundreds of products to benefit our company. ### 49. Vmware Sphere is a game changer **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cole B. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** Vmware sphere allows our enviorment to be highly avaliablity and is product that allows our IT team to effieicently and effectivly manage and deploy our infrastructure. It has an extremely easy to use interface. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** The licensing model and it's product/license model are difficult to follow and keep up with. Vmware's partnership with Broadcom although recent has made it difficult. **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Vmware VSphere is helping us solve the reduency between our infrascturue. ### 50. VSphere is the one place for management and visibility **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nelson P. | Assistant Network Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 19, 2024 **What do you like best about VMware vSphere?** The easy setup and deployment, how it allows for management of VMWare environments. Simple to deploy and manage. The one place where I can have a true overview of our environment. **What do you dislike about VMware vSphere?** There really isn't much to dislike compared to all the advantages and features. The only concern would be the cost **What problems is VMware vSphere solving and how is that benefiting you?** Integration and management of my Servers and applications. Ease to migrate, integrate and work with other solutions ## VMware vSphere Discussions - [Is ESXi software free?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-esxi-software-free) - 4 comments, 1 upvote - [What is ESXi used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-esxi-used-for) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is VMware vSphere Hypervisor used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-vmware-vsphere-hypervisor-used-for) - 2 comments - [What is VMware vSphere standard?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-vmware-vsphere-standard) - 2 comments - [What is ESXi operating system?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-esxi-operating-system) - 1 comment - [View VMware vSphere pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-vsphere/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-27+09%3A21%3A16+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=caca6bcc-9779-4460-9080-b20d4c024b8f&secure%5Btoken%5D=b8e0aa8e0214701164ffab1191800f5eba5ba52b0e34544e57573db459c97e8b&format=llm_user) ## VMware vSphere Integrations - [Acronis Cyber Protect](https://www.g2.com/products/acronis-acronis-cyber-protect/reviews) - [Azure Portal](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-portal/reviews) - [Grafana Labs](https://www.g2.com/products/grafana-labs/reviews) - [Veeam Data Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/veeam-data-platform/reviews) - [VMware NSX](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-nsx/reviews) - [Zabbix](https://www.g2.com/products/zabbix/reviews) ## VMware vSphere Features **Performance** - Scalability - Portability - Data Recovery **Functionality** - OS Integration - Resource Saving - Performance Management - Security **Agentic AI - Server Virtualization** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making ## Top VMware vSphere Alternatives - [Red Hat OpenShift](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-red-hat-openshift/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (288 reviews) - [Azure Virtual Machines](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-virtual-machines/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (377 reviews) - [Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)](https://www.g2.com/products/nutanix-cloud-infrastructure-nci/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (284 reviews)