ESXi free 8.0 seems to be the last one (now available again) !

[MrGuvernment]

I 100% agree with this. We run two HyperV HA Clusters connected to a SAN in production with none of these issues. All of our IT guys also are running HyperV in their homelabs and are also having none of the problems listed.
We also run Proxmox in production. We have it on a 4 CPU server and it runs Splunk on prem. I felt better about using proxmox over HyperV for ZFS and because its all linux VMs and felt it was more optimal then running linux vms on HyperV. We also run proxmox backup server along with it on another server. We pay them for support that weve never used. Ive had the option of saving the money but keep paying for it to help support the project.

Sounds like you went a good route, also not being tied to any single product stack and giving flexibility, something many companies are adverse too because they think the over head would be too much. All companies should work towards being vendor agnostic as much as possible, whether cloud, on prem, hybrid. But this can be tough to find interoperability between various platforms as vendors try their dam best to lock you in some how.

 

[ochadd]

I've been running Hyper-V in production and at home since shortly after Server 2008 R2 came out. Probably upwards of 20 physical boxes in play including some small HA clusters. I've had problems with it along the way.
* Just this weekend, cluster aware updating crashed two VMs and left a cluster with one member server updated but not the rest.
* Had vswitch issues that took months identify and resolve.
* Storage performance while connected to an ISCSI SAN, 25 gbps ethernet links, isn't as fast as the exact setup running VMware (told this by a VAR engineer setting it up that had deployed identical hardware setups). It would have benefitted him not to admit that, so I believe him.
* Super weird asymmetrical networking issue with PFsense VM where 500 down and 50 up is seen on a 500 symmetrical connection. There's some command I have at home that had/has to be run on the host having to do with RSS (Receive side scaling), if I remember right. I blamed my ISP for hours before Google found me the fix.
* Veeam seems to have more problems with Hyper-V than Vmware. The folks I've relied on to guide me for Veeam say the problems we have are only seen w/ Hyper-V.

It works well enough that I've never been close to switching. Issues above are all the memorable problems over the last ~13 years. That's probably not that bad imho but I don't know how to compare my experience to an alternative. I've looked at Vmware, Nutanix, and very briefly at Proxmox.

At home, Hyper-V had been exceptionally stable in a single box.

 

[bigdogchris]

Sounds like they want to try to star squeezing pennies from companies that don't run vCenter. Either that, or they think businesses with hundreds or thousands of VM's (companies with money) are running stacks of servers with free hypervisors on them

Anyone with any decent size environment should be on vCenter anyways so they're just going after people who don't have money anyways. Very small businesses, small schools, etc.

 

[_Gea]

ESXi free is back
https://www.servethehome.com/broadcom-vmware-esxi-8-0u3e-now-has-a-free-version/

 

[Vengance_01]

honestly it's them just throwing a bone to get any good press. screw VMware I will never use there products in any capacity ever...

 

[Red Falcon]

From the article:

VMware is back with a free version of ESXi 8. You can now download the VMware ESXi 8.0U3e and install it for evaluation purposes. This is not the full version, but it is at least something.

Oh boy, a "free" limited version that allows almost nothing and has almost no features or functionality!
Vendor lock-in included and no updates, wow!

What a joke.

 

[grasshoppa]

ESXi free is back
https://www.servethehome.com/broadcom-vmware-esxi-8-0u3e-now-has-a-free-version/

I'm not quite sure what the intent behind this is. By pulling the free version, they let the genie out of the bottle; everyone who hadn't already been considering it started exploring their options. We saw huge boosts in alternative platforms like proxmox and xenserver ( among other platforms like nutanix ).

This move won't win back a single person who has already switched or is planning on doing so shortly.

I have to assume this is some sort of ploy to avoid some legal action ( although I'm not sure what legal action they may be facing ).

 

[TeleFragger]

I'm not quite sure what the intent behind this is. By pulling the free version, they let the genie out of the bottle; everyone who hadn't already been considering it started exploring their options. We saw huge boosts in alternative platforms like proxmox and xenserver ( among other platforms like nutanix ).

This move won't win back a single person who has already switched or is planning on doing so shortly.

I have to assume this is some sort of ploy to avoid some legal action ( although I'm not sure what legal action they may be facing ).

I installed Proxmox and for a home lab, just cant get with it... installed ESXi 8 u3e and got it all going quick, except for GPU passthrough and gonna start my own thread in a moment.

 

[Vengance_01]

I installed Proxmox and for a home lab, just cant get with it... installed ESXi 8 u3e and got it all going quick, except for GPU passthrough and gonna start my own thread in a moment.

it's a bit of adjustment but proxmox is just as capable. should have stuck with it a bit longer

 

[TeleFragger]

Going to reinstall proxmox today because I can't get past the windows 11 TPM requirement in ESXi. It seems that Microsoft got around it and don't allow you to bypass it anywhere.

 

[Red Falcon]

Repeating my post from here:

Prepare to get a cease and desist from Broadcom for simply using VMware.
I think this might be the final nail in the coffin.

2 minute video, worth the quick watch:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBKoMFKkig0