I'm wondering if anyone out there is still using the free version of ESXi. Are you able to download patches for it, or are people facing cease and desist notices? I'm trying to make a business case to migrate my host to Hyper-V as soon as possible.
2 Answers
I'm in the same boat! I've got three ESX hosts running at home, and I want to keep them alive until vSphere 7 is out of support. However, at work, we’re already testing Hyper-V and some Red Hat solutions. It’s a tough spot to be in!
Just a heads-up, you need a valid subscription to get ESXi updates, so make sure to consider that!
You should know that running free ESXi in production isn’t really recommended. You can’t download updates without a subscription and a personal access token. If you're looking for alternatives, it might be smarter to switch to any other free hypervisor that meets your needs or go for a VVS subscription.
Isn’t there a new free version of ESX9 out now? Might be worth looking into.