vSphere 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

vSphere

4.7

(431)

Pricing

Starting at $576.96 per year

About vSphere

vSphere is a server virtualization solution, which enables businesses to run, manage, connect and secure applications in a unified operating environment. The system automatically restarts VMs in case of hardware failures and sends alerts about compliance issues to supervisors.

Key features of vSphere include business continuity, image management, content library and virtual machine encryption. Enterprises can protect their hybrid cloud infrastructure from malware or ransomware and utilize virtual machines, Kubernetes and containers to improve the computing environment for applications. Additionally, teams can centralize provisioning, monitoring and administration processes using cluster-level network aggregation capabilities.

vSphere maintains software, patching and firmware updates for virtual machines. Pricing is available on request and support is extended via chat, email, phone, documentation, FAQs and other online measures.

vSphere Screenshots

vSphere Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $576.96 per year

Free Trial

Free Version

vSphere Essential Kit

$576.96

per user, per year

Plan includes:

All-in One Solution
Server Virtualization and Consolidation
Simplify Software Upgrades
Vsphere Hypervisor (Esxi) and Vcenter Server Essentials

vSphere Essential Plus Kit

$5,596.00

flat rate, per year

Plan includes:

Business Continuity and Always-Available IT
Cross Switch Vmotion
Improve Service Levels and Application Quality
Save on IT Hardware Costs
Strengthen Security and Data Protection
Vcenter Server Essentials. Vsphere Data Protection. Vsphere High Availability (HA)
Vsphere Hypervisor (Esxi)
Vsphere Vmotion
Vsphere Vshield Endpoint and Vsphere Replication

vSphere Standard

$1,268.00

flat rate, per year

Plan includes:

Entry-Level Solution
High Availability
Next-Gen Infrastructure Image Management
Reduce Hardware Cost
Vshield Endpoint and Vsphere Replication
Vsphere Hypervisor (Esxi) Vmotion

vSphere Enterprise Plus

$4,350.00

flat rate, per year

Plan includes:

Data-at-Rest Encryption
High Availability
Run Modern Applications
VM Encryption and Vsphere Replication
Vmotion
Vshield Endpoint
Vsphere Hypervisor (Esxi)
Vsphere Trust Authority

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vSphere Features

Popular features found in Big Data
Access Controls/Permissions
Collaboration Tools
Data Blending
Data Connectors
Data Security
Data Visualization
Data Warehousing
Forecasting
High Volume Processing
Predictive Analytics
Statistical Analysis
More features of vSphere
API
Bandwidth Monitoring
Configuration Management
Dashboard
Data Cleansing
Data Discovery
Data Management
Data Migration
Dedicated Virtual Resources
Load Balancing
ML Algorithm Library
Model Training
Monitoring
Namespace Management
Performance Management
Server Monitoring
Templates
Version Control
Virtualization
Virtual Machine Encryption
Virtual Machine Monitoring
Virtual Server

vSphere User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.7

Ratings Breakdown

68%

30%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.4

Value for money

4.2

Customer support

4.3

Functionality

4.7

Bradley W.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

10000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed December 2025

VMware vSphere gets better and better on each revision

A product that just gets better and better as more investment is made on the various streams. Now developed is VCF and complete framework trying to tie in all these streams into a single based product.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The new release of VMware VCF version 9.x is a complete package all wrapped up to deliver virtually any technical requirement a business could need.

Cons:

The patching of the vCentre and ESXi servers unfortunately still need a reboot to complete and this can be a problem for businesses gaining downtime and losing access / service during the reboot and restart.

Reasons for choosing vSphere

As this time we needed a solid support wrapper as many of our production services were being migrated to virtual machines using vSphere products.

Verified

Reviewer

Information Technology and Services

11-50 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed December 2024

Reliable Virtualization Software: vSphere

I love using vSphere because vSphere is widely regarded as one of the most robust and feature-rich virtualization platforms on the market. It excels in creating and managing virtualized environments, offering high performance, scalability, and reliability so my overall experience is 8.5 out of 10.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

vSphere is a virtualization software which is well for its reliability. The most important feature that I love most about this service is that it allows multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on a single physical server, ensuring hardware resources are fully utilized also it include features like Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) automatically allocate resources based on workload demands.

Cons:

I don't face any big issue on using vSphere but I fell it's expensive licensing and subscription costs as well as UI portion can be improved more

Reasons for switching to vSphere

from my personal opinion it's reliability and our company's decision as well.

Carlos Hugo Martin C.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed December 2025

vSphere Review

We have used it for the local deployment of monitoring solutions that run directly on the VM as well as on PODs, in addition to facilitating high availability and disaster recovery processes.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

In recent versions, implementing orchestrators like Kubernetes or OpenShift is much easier. This allows for the simple and controlled use of pre-built images for each node, whether for a local or hybrid implementation.

Cons:

Over time, it has become more restrictive with the prerequisites needed for each version, not only for the installation of the hypervisor, but also for the use of the latest versions of operating systems, causing many cases to require migration to other hypervisors.

Reasons for choosing vSphere

Due to its support capacity for large environments, in addition to its implementation and deployment facilities.

Reasons for switching to vSphere

The latest versions that support the latest versions of operating systems no longer support the hardware currently available.

Brittany P.

Verified reviewer

Computer & Network Security

11-50 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

vSphere is a Virtuosic and Verbose Virtualization Vessel.

vSphere is a robust solution for virtualization offering features such as vMotion for live migration of virtual machines, although costly, ease of use and scalability are just a few reasons why vSphere is worth the price.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

vSphere is an established platform and has a strong track record in virtualization and cloud computing.

Cons:

Licensing and implementation can be on the more expensive side for smaller businesses.

Soe Moe T.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed May 2025

Excellent Virtualization Platform

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

As a System Engineer, Vmware Virtualization is very excellent platform. We don't need to spend the a lot of physical server. The most I like about vSphere features are: 1. High Availability and DRS 2. Live Migration with vMotion 3. very simple and easy to use other than virtualization 4. A lot of Knowledge Base and strong community 5. Vmware Site Recovery Manager 6. VM Host Affinity Rules

Cons:

I don't have much about vSphere. But now We can't download the vmware and vcenter path file in Broadcom portal.

Verified

Reviewer

Food & Beverages

10000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2025

Great virtualisation tool

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I use VmWare vSphere for infrastructure virtualisation in the Cloud

Cons:

Hardware restrictions for installing vSphere ESXI

Reasons for switching to vSphere

vSphere is much more stable and professional

jesus v.

Verified reviewer

Information Technology and Services

501-1000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed November 2024

VMware is the best solution to virtualization

VMware is the very stable and very easy to management, really the price is expensive but the features and services are the best option in the market of virtualization.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

-VMotion service to migrate virtual machines in real time is amazing. -The stability of the system working with clusters is the best option the in the market. -A lot compatibility with physical storages -Amazing management to discover datastores created in the physical storages. -The security updates to fix vulnerabilities are published very quick. -The dashboard to management our clusters is very easy to see and very light to load a lot of data in the dashboards. -The upgrades improve the VMware environment with new capabilities in storages and new OS published.

Cons:

-Since January 2025 the prices increased in a 600% in the licenses, in others subsidiaries the prices increased around 1000%. -Now the prices are very expensive.

Ilario M.

Verified reviewer

Mechanical or Industrial Engineering

1001-5000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

de facto the Hypervisor virtualization solution

vSphere is the most known, stable and used hypervisor OS; we use it in every site for both general purpose server infrastructures and VDI solutions.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Stability, options, features, wide knowledge base on 3rd party partner

Cons:

after acquisition by Broadcom, price too high

Scott B.

Verified reviewer

Computer & Network Security

11-50 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed May 2025

Great product

Great product, hopefully the purchase process for this product will be simplified like it used to be.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Very simple management product for vmware servers. Easily handles multiple hosts and virtual servers in one simple interface.

Cons:

Price of product can be high, and since the Broadcom acquisition its nearly impossible to purchase the product.

René B.

Verified reviewer

Automotive

51-200 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed June 2025

Switch from HyperV to vmWare

Overall its a good alternative to HyperV and easy to setup. The Updates a fast and not often necessary.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It has a clear dashboard you can see the CPU, RAM, and Network Outage. You can easily add new hard drive storage to Servers or edit the RAM. With templates you can add new Server rlly fast and implement them in your environment.

Cons:

The new Price politic is a rlly bad thing for costumers who bought it before. Now when you have to get a new licence the price is doubled or trippled.

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