The licensing situation, stated plainly
Broadcom withdrew the free ESXi edition and reorganised the licensing after acquiring VMware. ESXi here is bring-your-own-licence, and if you do not already have one, the honest advice is to look at Proxmox before you buy one.
That is not a swipe at VMware. It is that a page recommending a licence purchase it does not sell, when a free alternative does the same job, would be a page written for somebody else’s benefit.
Hardware compatibility
ESXi is much fussier about hardware than Linux is, particularly on storage controllers and network cards. Tell an engineer that ESXi is the plan before you order and the build gets specified to the compatibility list, which is what custom builds are for.
Where it makes sense here
As an offshore extension of an existing vSphere estate: same tooling, same runbooks, different jurisdiction and a company that never learned who you are. That is a narrow case and a real one.
Questions people actually ask
Do you sell VMware licences?
No. Bring your own, or use Proxmox.
Will ESXi install on any of your machines?
Not necessarily — the hardware compatibility list is real. Say so before ordering and the build is specified for it.
What it is genuinely good at
- Existing tooling. If your organisation runs vSphere, everything you already have keeps working.
- Mature operational tooling, and staff who already know it — usually the real reason and a perfectly good one.
- Straightforward to fit into an existing estate as an offshore extension of it.
Choose a different one if
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Proxmox VE
You are starting fresh. Proxmox does the same job, costs nothing, and has not just been through a licensing upheaval.
That list is here because a page that cannot name a situation where something else is the right answer is an advertisement. Every image on this estate is included in the price of the machine, so there is nothing to sell you here — only the one that fits.
Versions and support dates are checked against upstream when they change. Last revised 30 juillet 2026.
Every price on this estate is published in full, in one place. See the whole catalogue