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Chief Technology Officer at perfekt
MSP
Stable, scalable, easy to install and has good tech support
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is very simple."
  • "The integration with containers should be addressed."

What is our primary use case?

While we work with the latest version, we also support customers when it comes to backing up their older versions, meaning we work with a variety of different ones. 

Many of our customers have their core infrastructure on vSphere platforms. They make use of the solution for their virtual environments when it comes to their educational and healthcare institutions.

What is most valuable?

We consider the virtualization of CPU and storage resources to be a valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

The integration with containers should be addressed. While they have started to integrate with Tanzu, the integration is not that good at the moment. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using VMware vSphere for 15 years.

Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
May 2025
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

As the solution has been around for a while, it's quite stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is easy to scale. 

How are customer service and support?

We have take advantage of technical support. It is very good.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple.

Its duration depends on how big the environment is. Huge ones may take several weeks for implementation, while smaller ones would take several days. 

What about the implementation team?

Once the solution is deployed, there is a need for specific maintenance, as there are security vulnerabilities which must be considered, or new features or versions that may be put out. 

We provide all the maintenance for the customers. As we also have services organizations, we manage some of these environments on the customers behalf.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

As the vSphere platform allows for a variety of additions, it is quite good. There is enterprise plus, enterprise and standard, so the pricing is not too bad.

What other advice do I have?

The solution is mostly deployed on-premises, although we also have cloud deployments.

This product is suitable for a company of any size. 

The solution rates competitively against Nutanix and Microsoft. Overall, I feel it to be a pretty proven platform, although the underlying platform, or the management and features that surround it, are of secondary importance. BDI is the main focus. 

I rate VMware vSphere as an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Technical Account Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Simple to manage, user-friendly, and good technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is user-friendly and easy to manage."
  • "The installation can take a long time, they need to improve on the simplicity and length of the installation."

What is our primary use case?

This solution is used as a virtual and a clustered environment. We provide a minimum of two central storage server clusters and the maximum we have is for approximately four server clusters. 

What is most valuable?

The solution is user-friendly and easy to manage.

What needs improvement?

The solution could improve by providing better information on what other products it is compatible with. For example, we have customers that do not like AMD Chipsets used with VMware but it is not a technical issue, they need to bring more awareness. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using VMware vSphere for approximately 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have found the stability to be good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

we have approximately 50 customers using the solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

The customer service is good.

How was the initial setup?

The installation is straightforward because it comes with the appliance, you only have to deploy the appliance. The installation can take a long time, they need to improve on the simplicity and length of the installation.

All the customers who have the VMware have the vSphere because there is no single installation.

What about the implementation team?

We have five technicians for the installation and maintenance of the solutuion.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There is a perpetual license for this solution and the support is a yearly subscription.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution to others. If you use VMware, then you need to use vSphere to manage the clusters.

I rate VMware vSphere a nine 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
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VMware vSphere
May 2025
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Senior Infrastructure Solutions Specialist at Fiber Misr
Real User
Good virtualization and optimization in an easy to use solution
Pros and Cons
  • "Good virtualization and ability to optimize and deliver an automated and orchestrated cloud platform on-prem."
  • "Higher cost than other similar solutions."

What is our primary use case?

We deliver this solution to our customers and we partner with the vendor. I'm a senior infrastructure solution specialist. 

What is most valuable?

This is a straightforward solution, there's not much troubleshooting required and the work around it is quite simple. I particularly like the virtualization and the ability of the solution to optimize and deliver an automated and orchestrated cloud platform on-prem. They regularly surprise us with great features developed by a very, very sharp R&D team that delivers up-to-date technology with more features and more valuable ideas to enhance and automate the platform with data center.

What needs improvement?

If you're converting from any other virtualization system to VMware, you will note that the price is significantly higher. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable to an unlimited number of hosts.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is very helpful. They don't deliver the troubleshooting directly, but they understand and collect the logs and provide the procedure to follow in order to reach a solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. VMware is a very, very easy system to implement and to administer, as long as you have at least some sort of experience. You don't need to be an expert but those who have a high-level knowledge of VMware can manage and deliver the crucial tasks. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There are different licensing costs depending on whether you're using the standard or enterprise solution. A socket in the standard solution might cost $1,000 whereas it would cost $4,000 for the enterprise socket. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

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
PeerSpot user
Emmanuel Nguyen - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Architect at Anetys
Reseller
Top 5Leaderboard
A stable and scalable solution, but the controller needs improvement and the technical support and installation could be better
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is stable."
  • "The technical support is not too bad, but not the best."

What is most valuable?

I consider all the features to be of interest. 

What needs improvement?

Improvements should be made to the controller. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using VMware vSphere for between three and five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is not too bad, but not the best.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy but could be moderately improved. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing could be lower.

What other advice do I have?

I am a consultant and reseller.

My advice to others who are considering implementing the solution is they have a good partner.

I rate VMware vSphere as a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: reseller
PeerSpot user
reviewer1602309 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a legal firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Scalable with a straightforward setup and good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is quite good and very responsive."
  • "The cost could always be lower."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the product as a server. Most of the work we do for our clients. 

What is most valuable?

The product works very well for us. Over the last decade, it's been extremely dependable. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

The stability has been very good.

Technical support is quite good and very responsive. 

The solution can scale well.

What needs improvement?

The product meets our needs pretty well. I can't recall noticing any missing features. It's pretty complete. 

Our hopes are that it continuously keeps improving.

The cost could always be lower. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about ten years or so. It's been about a decade. We've had it a while. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is excellent. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's extremely reliable and the performance has been good. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is very, very scalable. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so without any issues. 

Our clients have users that vary anywhere from hundreds to thousands. Quite a few people are on it.

How are customer service and technical support?

We've dealt with technical support in the past and I would rate them very highly. They are helpful and responsive. They get us answers. We're quite satisfied with the level of support we receive. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't previously use a different solution. We've basically used this product since day one. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You can save quite a bit using this solution. 

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers and end-users. We don't have any business relationship with VMware.

We use the latest version of the solution. I can't speak to the exact version number.

We're very happy with the solution overall. I'd rate it at a nine out of ten.

Using this product is a no-brainer. It's a really easy product to use. If you're looking at simply a VM or anything similar or anything cloud-based, it's pretty much exactly what you need. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Useful Auto Deploy, scalable, and always updating for improvements
Pros and Cons
  • "The most useful features are ESXi, DRS, Auto Deploy, and the Lifecycle Manager."
  • "We would like to see the container-based operating system launched soon for this solution."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for network virtualization.

What is most valuable?

The most useful features are ESXi, DRS, Auto Deploy, and the Lifecycle Manager.

What needs improvement?

We would like to see the container-based operating system launched soon for this solution.

In a future release, multi-cloud capability should be simplified and easy to handle for administrators. For example, if I have a private cloud and public cloud and we have a feature to run VMware between these two, currently there is some complexity. We are hoping this can improve to allow us to run the workload anywhere.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for approximately 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have had some minor issues with stability in the past that has now have been resolved. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The architecture has been redefined and the scalability is good. In the previous editions, we had boot failing issues but they have resolved them and introduced a new model of high availability in vSphere for vCenter. Scalable is just a single click and is very easy.

How are customer service and technical support?

We were having some network glitches and some other issues known by VMware, they were all resolved through provided patches. Now everything is working fine.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have also been working with AWS and Azure. We normally recommend VMware solutions for private cloud, and for public cloud, AWS or Azure. However, VMware is also having capabilities on AWS and Azure which we recommend.

How was the initial setup?

The setup of this solution is very easy now, it was a bit difficult before and now has been simplified.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

When comparing the price of VMware solutions to other vendors, such as Nutanix, they are costly.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have compared this solution to Nutanix.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to small to large-scale enterprises companies wanting to move to virtualization, vSphere is highly recommended for effective cost savings. The future is in virtualization, the industries are moving in that direction. Everything is in virtualization, such as networks, storage, and desktop applications. We can reduce the data center space, power cooling, and hardware lifecycle. However, the licensing costs are expensive.

I rate VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1505493 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
Real User
Easy to navigate, simple to scale, and works well right out of the box
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability of the solution is excellent."
  • "The licensing costs for the solution are quite high."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is a hypervisor. 

What is most valuable?

If you're looking at virtualization, it's probably the most stable virtualization platform that I have worked on. 

VMware offers one of the most stable if not the most stable virtualization hypervisor.

The solution makes navigation very easy. 

It makes migration very simple. 

There is a lot of very impressive innovation happening within the product right now.

The integration capabilities are excellent. 

We've found the product to be quite scalable.

The installation is quite straightforward.

You can do so much out of the box with their product, with their built-in technology. In vSphere, you can manage the hardware itself using the same platform.

What needs improvement?

The licensing costs for the solution are quite high.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about seven years now. It's been a good amount of time.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is excellent. There aren't any bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. You can scale down or scale up provided you have the right licensing. 

There aren't users on the solution per se. Our IT team is mainly involved with it. That's it. We have three engineers that manage it.

I'm not sure if we will expand this product. It depends on what might happen next as one of the things that we will be embarking on is HCI technology. VMware came into HCI, however, there are multiple vendors such as Dell or HPE. It depends on how everything turns out in terms of the IT strategy. They're not that cheap.

How are customer service and technical support?

I personally have never had to ask for support from VMware's technical team. In the last six to seven years, I have never had to directly ask VMware for anything. Therefore, I can't speak to how knowledgeable or responsive they are.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we were using mainly the normal Windows hypervisor, Hyper-V. At my previous employer, we used to also have Xen hypervisor.

How was the initial setup?

The installation of the product is straightforward. It's really not too complex. All you do is install and click through. You put in your networking and you're done. Out of the box, it's great. However, if you do need to do some configurations, it can get a bit complex. 

I did not handle the installation process myself, and therefore can't speak to the actual amount of time it took to deploy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

One of the problems with the solution is the pricing. The licenses are not cheap.

We do pay a yearly licensing fee. Originally, it was a five-year package. Now we pay either every 12 or every 24 months.

If I have three hosts, just three hosts, a minimum of three hosts plus the vSphere and Center, I'm almost spending close to $250,000 a year. That's half a million in every two years inside just three hosts. In a serious medium enterprise where we would need at least 20 hosts, it means our annual fee or annual license cost could jump into the million-dollar range which means in three years you're spending three million alone on software.

What other advice do I have?

We're just customers and end-users. 

I would recommend the solution to other organizations, so long as they've got the money. If you don't have the money you probably want to look at things that are open source. It's not a one size fits all kind of product. I say this because of the licenses. The amount of money you spend on licenses annually might be less somewhere else. For a medium enterprise, if you want a cross-platform sort of initial hypervisor I would say yes, VMware is a good option. Of course, there's always something better than VMware as well. For example, Nutanix is way ahead if you are a big enterprise.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. If it was less expensive, it would basically be perfect.

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.
PeerSpot user
Irad Dukad - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Ducart
Real User
Top 10
Easy to navigate, with good technical support and satisfactory stability
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support was helpful and knowledgeable."
  • "The initial setup is a bit complex."

What is our primary use case?

The product is primarily used for my main server for the main business. All the servers are on it.

What is most valuable?

The interface that the product offers is very easy to navigate. I learned it quite easily. I check the hypervisor interface on it. It's much easier for one who is familiar with the technology. 

The details that I get from the solution are great. It gives a lot of detail.

The product has been pretty easy to use overall.

The stability is okay.

Technical support was helpful and knowledgeable. 

What needs improvement?

I would prefer it if there was a better connection between the storage and the server. For that reason, I'm going to HCI or dHCI. I want to integrate it all into one interface and I can't do that here. That's why I'm going to HCI or dHCI.

The initial setup is a bit complex. You likely will need some help with the implementation. It's not something just anyone can do.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for 15 years at this point. it's been a long time. I have a lot of experience with the product as I've worked with it for over a decade now. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution's stability is okay. For us, it's enough. There aren't issues with bugs or glitches and it doesn't seem to crash or freeze. It's reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability depends on the hardware. If your hardware allows you to expand, it shouldn't be an issue.

Every year we increase storage, and therefore we regularly increase usage. However, I am planning to replace our current storage.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have dealt with technical support in the past. It was less with VMware, and more with the vSphere storage. Once or twice I needed help. It was pretty good. I found them to be knowledgeable and responsive. I would say we are satisfied with the level of support on offer.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not really straightforward or simple to execute. 

I didn't do it myself. That would have been a bit much for me. I needed an integrator to do it. It's a bit complex to do.

In terms of the deployment time, when we last did it four years ago, it took about one week to get everything up and running.

We have one technical person on our team that assists with deployment and maintenance. They are an admin.

What about the implementation team?

I enlisted the help of an integrator that mostly did the installation for us.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We do pay for the solution. It's on a yearly basis.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options before choosing this product. When I started to use it about 15 years ago, it was the only tool option to work with.

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend the solution to other users and companies. 

Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. I would say that we are quite happy with its capabilities overall. 

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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.