VMware vSphere
Shares rank 9 of 16 hypervisors by recommenders
Recommended for reliable live migration and easy cluster management; critics say Broadcom's licensing has pushed prices up and support has degraded.
Recommended for reliable live migration and easy cluster management; critics say Broadcom's licensing has pushed prices up and support has degraded.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 44%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Live migration with minimal downtime
“I have done migrations recently from vSphere to vSphere using vMotion and it was easy.”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct” “live migrating VMs with nonexistent downtime not even missing a single ping”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Performing live migrations of VMs at scale” Reliable and easy to manage
“A vSphere cluster (in comparison to say KVM) has been easier to run in my perspective”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct” “vSphere was extremely reliable and easy to manage.”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “VMware migration reduces Tottenham Hotspur's licensing fees by 85 percent” Considered best in class
“vSphere was in a league of its own.”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct” “VMware was such a great product (although a bit cumbersome in the VCF environment I managed)”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Leaving VMware just got harder after Broadcom pulled VDDK downloads”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive licensing and price hikes
“it's just obscene what they've done, with the price hikes, degraded support, etc.”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “"Negative" views of Broadcom driving VMware migrations, rival says” “due to licensing and cost considerations”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 available” “VMware rapidly gets very expensive.”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Run Docker containers natively in Proxmox 9.1 (OCI images)” Broadcom ownership strategy criticized
“I don't think the strategy works long term, and I still think it was shortsighted play to juice #s”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Red Hat being phased out of existence?” “the monster wearing broadcom skin fucking over vmware licensees”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Oxide raises $200M Series C” “broadcom's behaviour isn't helping”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “Supermarket giant Tesco sues VMware for breach of contract”
Other hypervisors people recommend
The four most recommended other hypervisors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proxmox VE | 208 | 60 | 78% | 12 | 3 yrs16 owners | Approved |
| Incus | 90 | 8 | 92% | 12 | 6 mo5 owners | Approved |
| KVM | 32 | 9 | 78% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Hyper-V | 17 | 9 | 65% | 9 | — | — |
| VMware vSphereThis page | 8 | 10 | 44% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I don't think the strategy works long term, and I still think it was shortsighted play to juice #s”
“But the device model is pretty bizarre and I haven't been particularly impressed by the guest driver quality over the years.”
“VMware was such a great product (although a bit cumbersome in the VCF environment I managed)”
“vSphere was extremely reliable and easy to manage.”
“live migrating VMs with nonexistent downtime not even missing a single ping”
“you ever try scripting vSphere?”
“A vSphere cluster (in comparison to say KVM) has been easier to run in my perspective”
“It struck me as an immature product under constant development and refactoring, which often introduced new problems.”
“broadcom's behaviour isn't helping”
“it's so big that it's going to take a very long time, and not every arrow is pointing down”
“vSphere was in a league of its own.”
“I have done migrations recently from vSphere to vSphere using vMotion and it was easy.”
“I don't care that VMware glossed over the whole two node HA cluster”
“it's just obscene what they've done, with the price hikes, degraded support, etc.”
“very much isn't limit of what we did with vsphere”
“the monster wearing broadcom skin fucking over vmware licensees”
“and yes it hurts, and we have no time to move it”
“due to licensing and cost considerations”
“VMware rapidly gets very expensive.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.