VMware is back with a free version of ESXi 8. You can now download the VMware ESXi 8.0U3e and install it for evaluation purposes. This is not the full version, but it is at least something. Finding it is painful, but in some ways, it is easier than the older version. Still, this is going back on the direction when Broadcom VMware Ended the Free VMware vSphere Hypervisor Closing an Era.
VMware ESXi 8.0U3e Now Has a Free Version
This one is more painful than it needs to be. First, you need to go to the Broadcom support portal here. At that point, you will also need to be logged in. If you have not logged in recently because you did a VMware Esxidous, it may require resetting your password. On that support portal page, go down to VMware vSphere Hypervisor.
Then you need to click VMware vSphere Hypervisor again. This is really the UI design. That expanded menu will give you the Release 8.0U3e that you can click.
Then you can download the ISO, maybe. The download will require accepting the terms and conditions. You may also be required to update contact information to get access to the download.
Once that is done, you get to the download action and you are ready to go with the ISO and load it on a system. You do not need to go and register a license key or anything like that.
Final Words
If you just want a simple VMware ESXi based virtualization host, then this is fairly easily so long as you already have an account. For a lot of people, this is going to be all they need out of a virtualziation host, albeit one that does not have many of the advanced features. This at least brings back the path to have a free option in the VMware ecosystem. After around 14 months without a free option, the sad part is that many will have already found alternative ecosystems.
Given that they just recently locked down updates for ESXI to uniquely generated repository URLs, I wonder if it’s possibly to apply security updates to this install version, or if you’re just stuck with it as it is at install time.
Why would you use it. Proxmox is far better and full version, free.
Not free… Fix your title.
+1 for Proxmox VE.
Just to let you know, if you have an email that broadcom flags as pending you will be not able to download no matter what. Considering how scuffed their website is and how their word is garbage, just save yourself some hearache and install Proxmox.
Worth mentioning that this license does not support vTPMs. So, no modern Windows on this one.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Running back to VMware, especially considering limited budgets, when they already removed the free tier once, is dangerous. You get no guarantee for your free tier to receive future updates without paying.
I just installed it on my home lab HP DL360 … can’t extend the data store or creat new one even though I have a 2T raid 5 free … wondering if this buggy from the start
“the sad part is that many will have already found alternative ecosystems.”
Only sad for Broadcom, the rest of the world is happy to have switched…
I Couldn’t care less, vmWare ditched it’s home lab enthusiasts, so I switched to proxmox. VMWare are dead to me… And I’m never going back
I ditched VMware and I wasn’t even paying for it at home. Switching away was enough trouble, why would anyone switch back? I also preemptively ditched other VMware products like rabbitmq, just in case.
There are multiple caveats:
– you will have to download eventual updates manually (if they are available for download) and apply them manually from the command shell
– the download portal only works for accounts created before the acquisition by Broadcom or for paying customers, who get the ESXi anyway
– if you name or surname contains accented characters, you’re out of luck, because you will have the download blocked, because “name or surname must not contain special characters”. And you won’t be able to fix it, because accented characters’ encoding has been broken during account migration and you have no way to correct it, because those fields are NOT EDITABLE!
– and the support is only available during Pacific Time Zone office hours
Long story short … ditch VMware as quickly as you can use literally anything else.
Too bad Hock Tan ruined VMware. He can collect this “free” version along with the predatory licensing practices and shove them right back up his ass.
Ditched VMware last year at home, Broadcom killed the community. Actively working through ripping every piece of VMware at work this year due to price increases that belong to the funny farm.
Nice try. Too late dear Broadcom management.
No more your arogant company.
Viva Proxmox.
Switched off my lab and Production workloads from VMware and will never look back. Thank you Broadcom for being greedy and finally pushing me to proxmox.
Wahh.. Why can’t I keep getting free stuff. What a bunch of turds.
I certainly will not revert back to anything related to broadcom. But I like to have a resource for those that may want it. None of my accounts had ESXi on it for downloading and search is useless. I had to have CS give me a direct download link (I found it best if you are already logged in to your broadcom account as this will validate you).
https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productfiles?subFamily=VMware%20vSphere%20Hypervisor&displayGroup=VMware%20vSphere%20Hypervisor&release=8.0U3e&os=&servicePk=&language=EN&freeDownloads=true
cho…you must work for broadcom. Have you ever used anything free? Are you yourself a turd?
VMware taking away the “free stuff” is exactly why they’re losing market share. Free stuff is how a lot of folks get into a new technology. This can lead to certified pros who do this stuff in their jobs.
I am happy to be free of VMware and won’t be going back.
No thanks. I purchased a VMUG subscription just a few months prior to their arbitrary license change, which removed my ability to obtain additional license keys w/o jumping through hoops. (They added training/test requirement BS… which I never agreed to nor do I have the time for)
This should be an FTC violation, if only we had an agency that actually cared about consumer interests & not CEO stock prices.
I’m still running my home server on the free version of ESXI 8 (8.0 Update 1). So far no problem. How long will this work?
I suppose the new free version (ESXi 8.0U3e) would be a downgrade compared to what I have now, so definitely not going down that road.
I agree with what has been said about the abysmal broadcom website, especially the horrendous handling of “special characters”. Bad enough that some apps/sites still throw errors with non-ASCII characters, but broadcom as somehow managed to make their handling of those characters exponentially worse. It’s insane.
Former VMware-holic here and deployed millions of vCloud Director across the globe in datacenters – certainly not the free stuff.
We started seeing the shift in VMWare a decade ago with products like vCloud and their hyper strategy fall apart and jumped ship to AWS for an even larger sucking sound – think $’s as there is no over subscription and you better be ready for containers, ECS, and autoscaling to manage your spend as legacy apps will cost a fortune.
Once we jumped away from VMWare at the enterprise level, made the switch for home labs to other products as well and don’t see a path back in the short or long term for any of our engineers.
It’s been a number of years, and I’ve never been able to get Broadcom VMWare downloads to work.
The instructions in this article are correct as of the time of publication, and are much appreciated – it can be difficult finding anything on the Broadcom website.
At the final step – downloading the product by clicking on an obscure “cloud” icon – I always get an error message:
“Account verification is Pending. Please try after some time.”
Fair enough.
For me, “some time” is about once every six months or so.
FWIW, downloading drivers for older Broadcom server hardware, such as Adaptec SAS controllers, almost always works great.
But despite decades as a VMWare customer, I have not been able to download anything post-Broadcom acquisition.
I just want to add that if you have a public domain email you will not be able to download ESXi. So I think the caveat that you need a work related or private domain might as well be treated as not a free product. My account has been pending since the acquisition. Also the website is a massive pain in the ass to use.
VMware is dead. After Broadcom took over and killing the free version, engineers and admins can no longer practice and recommend their product. I used VMware at home and we had massive installation at work. Before I made any changes at work I would try at home to make sure nothing blows up. Since the free version is gone all my recommendations are to switch to a different product. Hopefully everyone will dump the VMware and they will learn a lesson.