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VMware vSphere vs VMware vSphere Foundation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
VMware vSphere enhances efficiency and agility, reducing costs and resources, while improving performance and providing rapid ROI.
Sentiment score
4.7
Organizations benefit from server consolidation and VMware vSphere for improved scalability, reduced costs, and enhanced flexibility in infrastructure.
Server consolidation can reduce the physical server count by 60 to 80%, resulting in less spending on hardware purchases, data center rack spaces, power consumption, cooling space, and maintenance contracts.
Associate Team Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We can say 10% is the approximate amount of savings because most of the things are automated and streamlined, so the manual work is eliminated in most cases.
Sr. Technical Architect at StarOne IT Solutions
In an environment where the infrastructure has to be up for monitoring and controlling physical infrastructure like water plants, it has absolutely returned on its investment.
OT Technologist at a energy/utilities company with 201-500 employees
There is flexibility and interoperability with multi-mode architectures that accommodate both on-prem and cloud realities.
CIO and Chief Digital Officer at Reliance Industries Ltd
Server consolidation is one return on investment where we can use one server for multiple workloads.
Enterprise Virtualization Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
VMware vSphere support is knowledgeable and efficient but could improve response times, especially for non-urgent and weekend issues.
Sentiment score
6.1
VMware vSphere Foundation garners mixed reviews, with strengths in responsiveness but concerns over management, support, pricing, and regional resources.
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
Server Support Engineer at CIPL - Corporate Infotech Pvt Ltd
Recently, support has been less friendly and slower, especially after the company was acquired by Broadcom.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
Technical Assistant at EOCD
There is nonstop support available around the world, which allows issues to be resolved continuously without interruption, regardless of whether the problem occurs in the USA, India, or another location.
Product Manager at MSiT Technology
I believe support deserves a rating of ten out of ten.
IT Infrastruture Consultant at Devoteam Management Consulting
Now, with Broadcom's management, I would rate it a three out of ten.
Enterprise Virtualization Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere excels in scalability, enabling efficient resource adjustment and extensive deployment, though some licensing and hardware issues occur.
Sentiment score
7.7
VMware vSphere Foundation is praised for its scalability and integration, facilitating easy expansion and efficient workload management.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
It is a highly scalable solution.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
The return on investment is high because we can maximize the use of one server for multiple workloads.
Enterprise Virtualization Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It's straightforward to procure additional licenses, install them on the host and add them to the same cluster.
Technology Solution Consultant at DWP Technologies
You can simply add more hosts to your VMware stack seamlessly, scaling up vertically or horizontally.
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
VMware vSphere is a highly reliable, stable virtualization solution with minimal downtime, valued for its robust 24/7 performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
VMware vSphere Foundation is praised for stability, low management needs, reliable performance, and effective performance monitoring in data centers.
Most features will not fail, such as vMotion, snapshot recovery, and disaster recovery points.
Information Technology Architect at Central Bank of India
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
While they are generally stable, if outages occur, they tend to be due to brands like HP or Dell, not VMware vSphere itself.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
Stability is optimal.
Enterprise Virtualization Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Frequent updates are required due to constant security challenges and attacks.
Solutions Manager at ICSI
It is a standard tool and is considered very stable.
Quality Engineer at KML
 

Room For Improvement

VMware vSphere needs cost management improvements, enhanced integration, intuitive UI, better support, and simplified setup for broader appeal.
VMware vSphere Foundation suffers from licensing complexity, high costs, procurement confusion, limited cloud management, and performance monitoring challenges.
If I want to add micro-segmentation for a particular set of VMs, I need to purchase it as an add-on, but after purchasing, I cannot utilize it due to license limitations.
Information Technology Architect at Central Bank of India
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
Manager of Systems at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
I highly recommend that continuous support for perpetual licenses be provided.
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc
VMware needs to improve cost efficiency, especially in Pakistan, as customers often seek more affordable solutions.
Technology Solution Consultant at DWP Technologies
Recently, VMware shifted its licensing models, and they should streamline it.
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
 

Setup Cost

VMware vSphere's high pricing and licensing complexity are balanced by praised features like centralized management and support services.
Enterprise users find VMware vSphere Foundation expensive, citing high licensing costs, support challenges, and increased pricing post-Broadcom acquisition.
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The solution is too expensive.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
It's expensive, however, the stability it offers is optimal.
Enterprise Virtualization Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
In Brazil, we are increasingly using open-source alternatives like Proxmox due to their lower prices in comparison.
Product Manager at MSiT Technology
During one project, the price doubled or even tripled before implementation, causing issues with clients.
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc
 

Valuable Features

VMware vSphere offers high availability, seamless migrations, centralized management, robust integration, scalability, and cloud support for dynamic business needs.
VMware vSphere Foundation provides scalable, user-friendly infrastructure management with robust features, enhancing IT efficiency, resilience, and cost reduction.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The tool is highly available, which is crucial for implementing critical applications requiring 24/7 availability.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
I always use VMware vSphere vMotion; we work with this feature all the time. vMotion is very useful; that's why we use the virtualization.
IT Director at Def Industry
vSphere Foundation is valuable due to its scalability, reliability, and ease of management.
Technology Solution Consultant at DWP Technologies
VMware provides the tools needed to move environments between private and public clouds seamlessly.
Product Manager at MSiT Technology
The virtual stack of vCenter, its distributed resources system, high availability engines, and the ability to move VM workloads from one host to another are outstanding.
Senior System Administrator at Interactive Group
 

Categories and Ranking

VMware vSphere
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
461
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSphere Foundation
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of VMware vSphere is 19.1%, up from 16.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere Foundation is 1.0%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSphere19.1%
VMware vSphere Foundation1.0%
Other79.9%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

RajeshK10 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Architect at Central Bank of India
Reliable virtualization has supported smooth DR drills and efficient resource allocation
VMware vSphere has proven to be robust in nature, and the new features are quite acceptable. The new features in NSX network switching make it more useful in the reliability management of data centers. vMotion has helped my organization's business continuity strategies during our planned DR drill activity. The migration of VMs from DC to DR is quite smooth with respect to the network link. I assess the impact of VMware vSphere's High Availability feature on my infrastructure resilience as effective during DR drill activities and firmware upgrades, which we perform every six months. During those times, we rely on maintenance mode of several servers, and HA works properly. I have nothing to complain about. We have utilized VMware vSphere's Distributed Resource Scheduler effectively. Even though we have over-provisioned the vCPUs, it efficiently manages the CPU cores and memory of the servers intelligently, so I am not experiencing any bottleneck in resource utilization. Distributed Resource Scheduler has affected my resource allocation performance positively, providing a 20 percent advantage over my old hardware.
AY
Consultant at Tenaga Nasional Berhad
Optimized resource usage and ensured high availability with consistent support
If VMware vSphere Foundation can maintain their pricing, it would be beneficial since Broadcom has acquired their shares. This means that if Broadcom can provide more value to VMware vSphere Foundation, they can invest more, as previously many customers used the platform. The biggest issue is pricing due to the Broadcom acquisition. In terms of features and readiness, we can achieve consolidation and save money. The support is satisfactory, and we hope they continue their momentum to ensure they can support their existing users.
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Consultant, ASEAN at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business177
Midsize Enterprise138
Large Enterprise261
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware vSphere Foundation?
I don't know the exact pricing for the VMware vSphere Foundation, but I think the last license model to upgrade is three or four times more expensive.
What needs improvement with VMware vSphere Foundation?
It is not the best because something is bothering me and could be enhanced. I want to discuss disadvantages because I have covered some positive things. There are potential areas that could be better.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware vSphere vs. VMware vSphere Foundation and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.