Few topics collect more outdated advice than ESXi licensing. The free hypervisor many tutorials still describe was withdrawn after Broadcom's VMware takeover, evaluation mode confuses everyone, and the rules keep moving. This page states only what is solid — and says check the current terms exactly where that is the honest answer.
Search for ESXi licensing and you will find confident guides from three different eras contradicting each other — because all of them were true when written. The product changed owners, the free tier vanished, and the packaging was rebuilt around subscriptions for organisations. What follows separates the three things people constantly merge into one blur: evaluation mode, which every install starts with; the withdrawn free licence, which still haunts old tutorials; and today's paid packaging, which is aimed at companies, not hobbyists.
👆 Most licensing confusion is a date problem: advice from before the takeover describes a product that no longer exists (illustration).
Every ESXi installation begins life in evaluation mode: the full feature set, unlocked, for 60 days. VMware intends it as a trial, and for a course, a certification sprint or a project, it is a perfectly legitimate way to use the product. What it is not is a permanent arrangement. As the period ends, warnings escalate; once it expires, restrictions bite and the host drops out of central management. Plan the ending on day one — licence it properly, rebuild it as a lab exercise, or move the workload — and never let anything you depend on drift past day 60 by accident.
For years VMware gave away a free ESXi licence with reduced features — the version half the internet's home labs were built on. After acquiring VMware, Broadcom ended that offering, announcing the withdrawal of the free hypervisor in early 2024. Existing free licence keys did not stop working on the hosts already running them, but new keys stopped being issued, and the downloads moved behind a Broadcom account. So when a tutorial walks you through requesting your free licence key, it is reading from an old script. The button it describes is gone.
Today VMware is sold as subscriptions, bundled into platform packages with names like vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation, licensed around cores and aimed at organisations with real budgets. This page deliberately prints no prices and no package contents: both change, both depend on region and reseller, and a wrong number in a guide like this would be worse than no number. If you need the current sheet, get it from Broadcom or an authorised reseller on the day you need it. The only durable fact for a home user is the direction: you are no longer the customer this packaging is designed for.
A vSphere licence key you already own still activates what it always activated — keys do not expire just because the catalogue changed. Two disciplines matter. Keep the key text backed up somewhere that is not the host itself, because a dead host with the only copy of its key is a small tragedy. And remember that keys belong to their major version: a version 7 key does not unlock version 8, and whether you are entitled to an upgrade key depends on the agreement you bought under — check the portal rather than assuming.
One: use evaluation periods deliberately — a focused 60-day sprint to learn a topic is exactly what eval mode exists for. Two: buy through proper channels if your lab genuinely justifies it, such as certification study tied to your job. Three: run Proxmox VE — free, open source, no clock — for the always-on home stack, and keep ESXi for the focused learning it is best at. What is not on this list: key generators and "cracked" licences. Beyond the legal problem, they are distributed through exactly the channels that bundle malware into downloads — the one bargain that can cost you every machine the host touches.
The video covers the install itself. Watch it, then come back to this page before you plan anything around how long the install stays fully active.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo — it is simply an existing licence continuing to do its job on the version it belongs to. Nothing needs fixing. Just know that the key would not be issued today, and guard it accordingly: if that host is rebuilt onto a newer version, the old free route does not follow it.
Installer downloads now sit behind a Broadcom support account, and entitlement rules decide what each account sees. The portal is the only source worth trusting — and because Broadcom has revised the arrangements more than once, check what your account offers on the day rather than following any guide's link list, including ours.
Using evaluation mode within its terms is explicitly allowed — that is what it is for. Piracy is the other stuff: generated keys, licences bought from key-resale sites against their terms, or defeating the expiry restrictions. The honest routes on this page cover every legitimate home use; there is no need to wander off them.