One year ago, Broadcom killed the Free vSphere Hypervisor, but now, with the last VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3e, the free (and limited) version is back again! Broadcom makes again available the VMware vSphere Hypervisor (the entry-level and free hypervisor).

To download the free ESXi, you still need to login in the Broadcom Support Portal, but now you don’t need anymore any license entitlement.

The VMware vSphere Hypervisor has of course some limitations:

• Max 8 vCPU per VM: the new free version has a limit of the number of vCPUs per virtual machine to 8 (like the older free versions)
• No central management: like before, is not possible connect a free ESXi to vCenter. Without vCenter integration, advanced or complex setups could be challenging.
• Several features and functions are disabled: like vSphere HA, vSphere DRS, templates,
• No support for R/W API: for example PowerCLI can perform get commands, but not set commands!
• No native backup: official backup programs that support VMware vSphere cannot handle the backup of VMs on a free ESXi.
• No enterprise-level support: troubleshooting might be tougher and usage should be limited to test/lab.

The license is embedded in the ISO installation:

But you can assign a valid license and make this a standard or enterprise plus edition.

Does it mean that the trial license does not exist anymore? The ISO has the same name of the payed version… so this could be a huge cons! But the ISO of the free ESXi is different from the ISO that you can download for a licensed version… in this case the ESXi starts with a trial mode (with all Enterprise Plus features).

For more information on how download VMware ESXi see the KB 372545 article.