A free version of the ESXi hypervisor is available, but Broadcom notes the entry-level VMware hypervisor is for non-production use.
With little notice or fanfare, Broadcom is offering a free version of the VMware ESXi hypervisor for download. VMware vSphere Hypervisor version 8 can be downloaded from Broadcom’s support portal for free, but registration is required.
For years, ESXi was free to use and popular with home users and IT enthusiasts alike, giving IT professionals a chance to try VMware before they bought it. That changed after VMware was acquired by Broadcom and it transitioned from perpetual licensing to a subscription model, a decision that went over very poorly.
Broadcom didn’t promote the news of the return of a free version. It simply included a line in the release notes for version 8.0 Update 3e of ESXi. In the “What’s New” section of the note, Broadcom wrote:
“Broadcom makes available the VMware vSphere Hypervisor version 8, an entry-level hypervisor. You can download it free of charge from the Broadcom Support portal. No Broadcom support is available for this offering and it is for non-production use. vSphere Hypervisor cannot connect to vCenter and therefore cannot be centrally managed.”
Reached for comment, Broadcom stated it did not have anything to say beyond the above statement.
The initial reason for the free ESXi option was in response to free options from VMware competitors such as Microsoft, Nutanix, and other open-source vendors offering free or low-cost virtualization. The free version had limitations compared to paid editions, but it wasn’t meant to be deployable solution. Rather, it served as an effective on-ramp, experts said.
By many accounts, Broadcom’s handling of the VMware acquisition was clumsy, and it caused many enterprises to reevaluate their relationship with the vendor. The move to subscription models was tilted in favor of larger customers and longer, three-year licenses. With the string of bad publicity, VMware’s competitors pounced, offering migration deals and packages.
However, replacing a virtualization environment isn’t a trivial undertaking. A project to migrate from VMware’s server virtualization platform could require between seven and 10 full-time equivalents for one month and up to six FTEs for nine months, research firm Gartner estimates in its report, “Quick Answer: Estimating a Large-Scale VMware Migration.”
Broadcom must have been feeling some heat to bring back the free hypervisor. Still, it’s more than just Broadcom’s approach that is a threat to VMware’s dominance. It is the shifting sands of computing in the AI era.
“VMware is still highly relevant for managing the overall IT infrastructure that supports AI initiatives,” said Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group. “However, for the core task of large-scale AI model training and inference, the gravity has shifted significantly towards bare-metal clusters, container orchestration (Kubernetes), and specialized public cloud services, making VMware’s traditional hypervisor-centric approach less central than it is for general enterprise workloads.”
Broadcom is adapting to this brave new world, but the ecosystem’s center for massive AI lies increasingly outside the traditional VM management sphere. “And right now much of the focus is on this AI training making VMware less relevant,” Enderle said, adding that the Broadcom acquisition has had customers fleeing the platform because a lot of customers don’t like Broadcom’s licensing models.
