The feature I find the most valuable is that vSphere doesn't break unless integrated with Veeam or vCenter.
Senior Distributed Platform Administrator at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Can run for 50 years on its own without crashing
Pros and Cons
- "Tech support is very knowledgeable."
- "Sometimes it's impossible to prevent problems from happening. With vSphere, you never know where the problem is going to come from, but you will always know that there is a problem. This is the problem."
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
When you run vSphere on its own, that thing can run for 50 years without crashing. The problem starts when you start integrating it to clusters, migrating the virtual machines, doing the DRS, and applying the resource pool. The problem is with the memory.
Sometimes it's impossible to prevent problems from happening. With vSphere, you never know where the problem is going to come from, but you will always know that there is a problem. This is the problem.
I would make integration much better and improve speed. I would also make the errors more visible to the user.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for many years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
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VMware vSphere
August 2025

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Tech support is very knowledgeable.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Owner at Computech Associates
Feature-rich, stable, scalable, and useful for running multiple virtual machines from a single server
Pros and Cons
- "This product is useful for running multiple virtual machines from a single server so that people can utilize the hardware resources in their organization. Its ability for backups is also valuable. In case of a disaster, you can recover the entire server from the images. It is easy to use. In terms of features, whatever they are providing is more than sufficient for us. We are not exploiting this product up to a hundred percent."
- "Its price should be better. Their support should also be more customer-friendly, and they should train people like us so that we know more about the latest technologies and features. If there is some program and drive from their side to teach us, it is definitely going to help us. Pricing and support are the most important features for mid-level companies. We are not implementing this solution for big tech companies."
What is our primary use case?
We are a service provider, and we give services to our customers. Whenever we provide the solution, we give the latest version available at that time.
What is most valuable?
This product is useful for running multiple virtual machines from a single server so that people can utilize the hardware resources in their organization. Its ability for backups is also valuable. In case of a disaster, you can recover the entire server from the images. It is easy to use.
In terms of features, whatever they are providing is more than sufficient for us. We are not exploiting this product up to a hundred percent.
What needs improvement?
Its price should be better. Their support should also be more customer-friendly, and they should train people like us so that we know more about the latest technologies and features. If there is some program and drive from their side to teach us, it is definitely going to help us.
Pricing and support are the most important features for mid-level companies. We are not implementing this solution for big tech companies.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been dealing with this solution for seven to eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable product. Very few people are using this product because of less awareness in our area. We are based in a small town in India where we don't have IT and IT companies. IT is a part of the production process. There are very few people who are using this service.
How are customer service and technical support?
They should be more customer-friendly.
How was the initial setup?
Its installation is almost straightforward. The basic installation is easy, but it also depends upon the customer requirements.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price is slightly higher for India. It is a little bit expensive on a monthly basis when considering the value of the Indian rupee.
What other advice do I have?
There is no other perfect solution as compared to this solution. If you want to go for virtualization, there is no other stable and sustainable option.
I would rate VMware vSphere an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
August 2025

Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.
866,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.
CIO at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A perfect solution that is easy to use, easy to implement, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
- "vRealize Operations Manager is the most valuable feature, but it is not embedded in vSphere; it is a part of vSphere. It is used for forecasting and checking the consumption of CPU, memory, and other resources. It has the capability to do the forecast based on the history and give advice on consumption. VMware vSphere is easy to use and easy to implement. Its learning curve is not sharp. Any engineer with little or medium knowledge of hypervisors and virtualizations can implement vSphere with a few clicks."
- "Its performance is an issue in version 6.5, but with the inclusion of HTML files in vSphere version 6.7, the experience is seamless. In version 6.7, VMware has included the HTML file protocol for the web browser or web console, which has changed the console's response and improved the performance. We are using the trial version of vRealize Operations. It would be nice if some of those capabilities could be included in future versions of vSphere, not as a part of vRealize Operations, but in vSphere itself. It can provide some kind of forecast about your resource consumption based on the actual workload and modeling or testing scenarios. It can give you some advice or tips for the future growth of your infrastructure."
What is our primary use case?
Basically, our operation cluster is hiding under vSphere.
What is most valuable?
vRealize Operations Manager is the most valuable feature, but it is not embedded in vSphere; it is a part of vSphere. It is used for forecasting and checking the consumption of CPU, memory, and other resources. It has the capability to do the forecast based on the history and give advice on consumption.
VMware vSphere is easy to use and easy to implement. Its learning curve is not sharp. Any engineer with little or medium knowledge of hypervisors and virtualizations can implement vSphere with a few clicks.
What needs improvement?
Its performance is an issue in version 6.5, but with the inclusion of HTML files in vSphere version 6.7, the experience is seamless. In version 6.7, VMware has included the HTML file protocol for the web browser or web console, which has changed the console's response and improved the performance.
We are using the trial version of vRealize Operations. It would be nice if some of those capabilities could be included in future versions of vSphere, not as a part of vRealize Operations, but in vSphere itself. It can provide some kind of forecast about your resource consumption based on the actual workload and modeling or testing scenarios. It can give you some advice or tips for the future growth of your infrastructure.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable enough. We are satisfied with its stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability seems to be straightforward. Obviously, you have to check if you have the correct license. Otherwise, you will have to change the license. Licensing can sometimes stop you from growing.
We currently don't have any plans to increase its usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
We haven't raised any case with VMware so far. We didn't require any support from vSphere tech support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We moved from legacy servers to VMware Hyperconverged Infrastructure. We were using the ESXi version from vSphere, and then we moved to the cluster version. We have multiple servers in one cluster.
One of the main reasons for choosing vSphere was that it is one of the most known hypervisors in the market. It is easy to use, easy to implement, and straightforward. It was very good for our proof of concept, and we went for it. Eventually, we moved to a cluster infrastructure. Obviously, we use vSphere as the hypervisor.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took one to three days.
What about the implementation team?
We bought the local service from vSphere. The experience was overall good.
We have three people for its maintenance. They are system integrators and infrastructure administrators.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also tested Microsoft Hyper-V, but at that time, it was unstable. It was not stable enough to be implemented in our environment. That's why we didn't use it.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. I would rate VMware vSphere a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Delivery Manager at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We found this to be much stronger and easier to deploy compared to other solutions we've used
Pros and Cons
- "The features that I have found most valuable are the overall good ease of use and the good interface which makes it very easy to migrate from one bare metal to another. These are the two things which I like about it."
- "They should improve their storage management part. vSphere has its own file system type, called VMSS, and that file system doesn't report on proper data usage or things like that. There are certain loopholes wherein it sometimes shows you erroneous data. Again, their VMSS file system, their data storage management system, and its reporting must be improved a lot."
What is our primary use case?
It is a private cloud and it's on a standalone Bare Metal system. On the private cloud environment we provide virtualized computers for different users.
What is most valuable?
The features that I have found most valuable are the overall good ease of use and the good interface which makes it very easy to migrate from one bare metal to another. These are the two things which I like about it. There are certain things as well which I don't like.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved, they should improve their storage management part. vSphere has its own file system type, called VMSS, and that file system doesn't report on proper data usage or things like that. There are certain loopholes wherein it sometimes shows you erroneous data. Again, their VMSS file system, their data storage management system, and its reporting must be improved a lot.
There are certain features which are called VCE which are available as a separate suite for this VMware cloud. The networking is almost integrated within the vSphere so it would be really helpful for the implementation team if they also had an orchestration for a different storage. There might be multiple OEM storage in the back-end, for example, that could connect with the vSphere while the vSphere shows it to the front-end user as a single storage. There is a lot of scope in terms of managing hybrid storage at the back-end of vSphere.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for around six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is stable in terms of the computer virtualization and it's also scalable. We can go ahead and make HA clusters, but as I said, in terms of the storage stability, there are certain issues because sometimes it gets confused when showing you the actual status. The back-end of the CLI shows you certain data and the front-end shows you different data. That's where there are certain issues with the reliability, but otherwise, it is quite robust and it's scalable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have more than 60 people using the different platforms. The functions include several web developers and a lot of finance applications which are running on Oracle and on different RDBMS's.
How are customer service and technical support?
They have a wonderful technical support team. Additionally, there are a lot of blogs, forums and community support available over the internet where you do get a lot of support as well. So it's not always necessary to reach out to their technical assistance team. They also have wonderful documentation available that is quite helpful in terms of resolving a lot of issues.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This was a first implementation of vSphere for us. They have a hybrid environment where there is a Hyper-V running their Oracle with VirtualBox running across. We found this to be much stronger and much easier to deploy and hence we thought to continue with it.
Also it supports a wide range of operating systems.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very simple, not complex.
I would say from a completely blank bare metal to the private cloud, it took us around a few hours. Not more than that.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it ourselves.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend VMware vSphere to potential buyers. I will always do that. It's highly recommended to go with the entire vSphere Cloud Suite rather than only just going with the Hypervisor. But if you go with the entire suite, it's really wonderful.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate VMware vSphere an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Entrepreneur at WindiS
A straightforward setup with good documentation and excellent stability
Pros and Cons
- "The documentation is very good."
- "Sometimes you can't find items and you need to log onto different physical servers to do technical tasks. I don't fully understand why this is the case."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is primarily used to house VMs, virtual machines.
How has it helped my organization?
Virtualization changes radically the IT landscape. Rare are our customers who have not implemented it. vSphere is #1 in hypervisors and offers the flexibility and the fastness our customers need.
What is most valuable?
VM models is a great feature. It allows to create VMs very fast and already patched with the different configurations that the are needed.
The ease to move a VM from a host to another or even to another storage/DC is very convenient. That all this can be done while users work on the VMs is awsome.
What needs improvement?
The graphical vSphere vCenter interface is now in HTML. I'm not very found of it. Sometimes you can't find items and you need to log in to the different hosts.
Some work has to be done with this admin console.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have many years (lost the count...) of experience with this solution, beginning with version 4.0, then 5.0, 5.5, 6.7 and finally 7.0 and use it daily.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been very, very good. I didn't have any crashes. There aren't bugs or glitches. I find it to be a very, very strong architecture.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, I haven't really had the opportunity to address this as my customers are not very big companies and we have relatively small data centers.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never had to call VMware. You basically can find everything on the web. VMware's website is very good and there is a lot of information everywhere about vSphere on the web with real experts of the product.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No
How was the initial setup?
The setup is straightforward, only a few questions to answer, and you have your hypervisor ready !
What about the implementation team?
Always in house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of the solution is relatively low. VMware proposes the Essentials kits which are very affordable for SMB companies.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I didn't really evaluate any other solutions. I haven't even really looked at Hyper-V, although my clients sometimes ask about it.
What other advice do I have?
We are implementors and our customers don't sometime have any dedicated IT guy. But, as vSphere works well once implemented, there's relativally less to do.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Head of Technical at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A virtualization platform with useful standard features
Pros and Cons
- "I like the standard features."
- "The price could be better."
What is our primary use case?
We use vSphere primarily for data center solutions. We migrated most of the physical workloads to a virtual environment. Even physical data center migrations were made possible because of VMware workloads. We had replication workloads using such technology for DR purposes. I've also deployed a Nutanix cluster with the VMware Hypervisor.
What is most valuable?
I like the standard features.
What needs improvement?
The price could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using VMware vSphere for eight or nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable product. I have a little reservation about their vSAN product, which I don't think is well suited for co-work loads that require performance. In that aspect, I tend to favor Nutanix, but other than for vSAN, I think it's a good product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup becomes simpler by the day. It's very easy. But it wasn't easy before and was pretty tedious. But these days, it's easy.
The deployment time depends on the workload and how large the environment is. If there are a lot of hypervisors and migration work, it could take anywhere from two to six days or more to install and deploy.
What about the implementation team?
I work as an integrator, so I implemented this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It could be cheaper. But not only cheaper because Nutanix's hypervisors are free of charge out of the box. You don't even have to pay for the hypervisor's enterprise version. Given that, I don't think VMware should be charging so much for the hypervisor. The hypervisor is a commodity now.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it to potential users.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give VMware vSphere a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
Database Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Robust and easy to use with good performance and efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "The performance is efficient."
- "One of the areas creating a crash is when you are cloning."
What is our primary use case?
We have Hyper-V on a physical machine and another virtual machine. We are using this because of iSCSI, and we are using VMware for performance and production.
What is most valuable?
The performance is efficient. You can log the performance and report on the bottlenecks or any other problems you encounter.
What needs improvement?
One of the areas creating a crash is when you are cloning.
If you are cloning a virtual machine and you have any license on another system it will crash and we have to contact third-party support for assistance.
It's not cloning 100%.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for eight years.
We are using version 5 and 6.7.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution, we have not had any issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable solution. We have three people in our organization who are using this solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
We did not contact technical support. It wasn't necessary.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are working with Hyper-V. It was so poor that we started using VMware.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, it was easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price could be lower.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are looking for other solutions, specifically for Hyper-V and domain controllers.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. It's robust, it's working and it's easy to use.
I would rate VMware vSphere a ten out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Executive Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy and quick to install, flexible, and stable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are that it's stable, easy to use, and it's flexible."
- "The price is a big issue for us because the market is very competitive in our country, so we can't really push our VMware vSphere products because the customers will prefer to use something cheaper."
What is our primary use case?
We have been using ESXi hypervisors with vCenter. We use it for both private and public clouds.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are that it's stable, easy to use, and it's flexible.
What needs improvement?
The price is a big issue for us because the market is very competitive in our country, so we can't really push our VMware vSphere products because the customers will prefer to use something cheaper. Customers in our country are very price-sensitive, so if the price were reduced it would be more popular.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with VMware vSphere for the past decade.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a simple product to use and we haven't had any issues with using it, right out of the box. We plan to continue using it in the future.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable product. Our entire business and virtual machines run on vSphere, and our customers do, as well.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have been in contact with technical support and had a good experience. We are satisfied with them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use another similar solution prior to vSphere.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is straightforward and probably takes less than 20 minutes per host.
What about the implementation team?
It is easy to install and we did it by ourselves.
We have two engineers who are responsible for maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This is an expensive product, especially because we need to pay in US Dollars. Really, it depends on the exchange rate. If the exchange in our country is bad then the product becomes even more expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have evaluated other hypervisors and based on my experience, I find that vSphere is top-rated.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good product and I recommend it.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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