Updated Aug 2023

VMware vSphere®
Product Line Comparison
The enterprise workload platform for traditional and next-gen apps

Key Attributes

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® vSphere® vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Enterprise Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

On-premises Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Cloud Connectivity No No No No Yes Yes

Perpetual Perpetual
Licensing Model Subscription Subscription Subscription Subscription
license license

Not Not
License Management Required Required Required Required
Required Required

License Metric Per CPU Per CPU Per Core Per Core Per Core Per Core

Not Not
vCenter Standard Included Included Included Included
included included

1
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Admin services

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise vSphere®
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® Enterprise vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

Cloud Console
Enables IT administrators to consolidate
 
management of all vSphere deployments
through a centralized cloud console.

Global Inventory Service

Visualizes inventory of vSphere resources and
 
capacity to quickly understand resource utilization
across vSphere estate.

Event View Service

Consolidates view of events and alerts to
 
quickly triage areas that need attention across
your vSphere estate.

Security Health Check Service

Evaluate the security posture of your entire
 
vSphere infrastructure to identify security
weaknesses or exposures.

VM Provisioning Service
Quickly create provision VMs from the VMware  
Cloud Console within any managed cluster.

ESXi Lifecycle Management Service

Update an entire fleet of ESXi hosts in one operation,
 
across multiple vCenters and clusters, and centrally
monitor progress from the Cloud Console.

vCenter Lifecycle Management Service

Simplifies the lifecycle management of vCenter
instances with a single click. Reduces maintenance      
window making it easier to schedule updates sooner,
allowing more rapid access to new features.

Configuration Management Service

Standardizes and cascades vCenter configurations
 
across vSphere estate. Detects and remediates
vCenter configuration drifts automatically.

Capacity Management Service

Gain visibility into capacity availability and time  
remaining in clusters before running out of capacity.

2
vSphere Product Line Comparison

DevOps services

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise vSphere®
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® Enterprise vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid™ Service

Requires
The Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service allows Tanzu  
developers to manage consistent, compliant, entitlement
and conformant Kubernetes clusters.

Tanzu Integrated Services

Streamlines the deployment and management of
local and in-cluster platform services—like
 
logging, monitoring, networking, and storage
services—to easily configure and maintain a
production-ready Kubernetes environment.

Tanzu Mission Control™ Essentials

Provides global visibility across your entire
Kubernetes footprint, and automates operational 
tasks such as lifecycle management, access,
security management, and more.

Cloud Consumption Interface

Fast, easy access to IaaS services
for DevOps and development teams. Manage

self-service access to IaaS services across
vSphere cloud infrastructure from an intuitive
cloud console.

vSphere Pod Service

The vSphere Pod Service allows developers to Requires Requires Requires
run Kubernetes containers directly on the Tanzu VMware VMware
hypervisor for improved security, performance, entitlement NSX-T NSX-T
and manageability.

Storage Service
The Volume Service allows developers to manage
persistent disks for use with containers,
 
Kubernetes and virtual machines. Deploy existing
block and file storage infrastructure for
containerized workloads.

Network Service
The Network Service allows developers to
manage Virtual Routers, Load Balancers and
Firewall Rules. Leverage existing networking
 
infrastructure using vSphere Distributed Switch's
(VDS) centralized interface to configure, monitor
and administer switching access for VMs and
Kubernetes workloads.

3
vSphere Product Line Comparison

DevOps services (continued)

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise vSphere®
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® Enterprise vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

Container Registry Service

Requires
The Registry Service allows developers Tanzu  
to store, manage and secure Docker and entitlement
OCI container images.

VM Registry Service
Requires
This registry service enables DevOps teams and Tanzu  
developers to publish and manage their own VM entitlement
images within a content library.

 
Network Load Balancing Requires NSX NSX
Advanced Advanced
Network load balancing for Tanzu Tanzu Load Load
Kubernetes clusters. entitlement Balancer Balancer
Essentials Essentials
included included

VM Service
Requires
The VM service allows developers to create Tanzu  
virtual machines independently from Kubernetes entitlement
without requiring access to vSphere Client.

Workload Availability Zones

Enhance Kubernetes workload HA with
availability zones. Provides resilience that spans  
across multiple clusters and potentially larger
geographical areas.

Simplified TKG cluster lifecycle

management
Easily configure TKG clusters at deployment time.
 
Declarative TKG cluster deployment configuration
through Kubernetes upstream aligned
ClusterClass.

TKG cluster package management

Requires
Easily manage TKG cluster packages. Configure Tanzu  
preferred packages for TKG cluster configuration entitlement
through Carvel and Tanzu CLI.

Customizable base OS images

Customize base OS images for fast, consistent
deployments. For example, customize images to
 
include logging or monitoring tools, change OS
parameters, adjust user configuration files, add
firewall rules, etc.

4
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Simplified operations

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise vSphere®
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® Enterprise vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

Next-Gen Infrastructure Image Management

Manage infrastructure images to patch, update or      
upgrade ESXi clusters using a desired state model.

vCenter Server® Profiles Requires

Desired state config management capabilities for vCenter
Server
   
vCenter Server. It helps the user to define/validate/
apply configuration for multiple vCenter Servers. STD

vCenter Server Update Planner

Manage the compatibility and interoperability for
vCenter Server for upgrade scenarios. We will allow     
users to generate the interoperability & pre-checks
report, which will help them plan for upgrades.

Content Library
Added administrative control and versioning
support. Provides simple and effective centralized      
management for virtual machine templates, virtual
appliances, ISO images and scripts.

Configuration Profiles
Set host configuration at the cluster level, verify
     
that hosts are compliant, and remediate hosts that
are not compliant.

Distributed Switch™
Centralizes provisioning, administration,
  
and monitoring by using cluster-level
network aggregation.

Host Profiles and Auto Deploy™

Captures host-level configuration settings and saves
them as a template to configure other vSphere
  
hosts. Monitors hosts for configuration changes and
automatically alerts vSphere administrators if a host
falls out of compliance.

Virtual Volumes™
Virtualizes external storage (SAN and NAS) and
     
provides VM-aware, policy-based storage
management through vCenter.

Green Metrics
Get power consumed by workloads, infrastructure
services and idling time, at the host or VM level
     
Discover opportunities to 1) optimize carbon
footprint of power-hungry workloads and 2) use
idle time to consolidate workloads.

5
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Built-in security

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise vSphere®
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® Enterprise vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

Identity federation with Microsoft Entra ID

(formerly Azure AD), ADFS and Okta      
Secure access and account management.

vSphere Trust Authority

  
Remote attestation for sensitive workloads.

TPM 2.0 Support & Virtual TPM

Supports TPM 2.0 hardware modules and adds
     
a virtual TPM device to shield guest OS from
Operator or in-guest attacks.

FIPS 140-2 Compliance & TLS 1.2 Support

     
Default enhanced security compliance.

Virtual Machine Encryption

Data-at-rest encryption for virtual machine   
data and disks.

Support for MSFT VBS

Supports Windows 10 and Windows 2016 security      
features, like Credential Guard, on vSphere.

Per-VM Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

Allows seamless migration across different CPUs
across the hybrid cloud by persisting the EVC      
mode per-VM during migrations across clusters
and during power cycles.

Instant Clone
Reduces provisioning times, especially beneficial      
for VDI applications.

Simplified NSX Security Setup from

vSphere Client2
     
vSphere Client now includes a tab for setting up
and configuring NSX security.

6
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Application performance

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® vSphere® vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Enterprise Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

NVIDIA AI-Ready Enterprise Platfm

Deliver AI/ML applications using vSphere   
and NVIDIA AI Enterprise Suite.

Distributed Resource Scheduler™

(DRS)
Redesigned with a more workload
centric approach, DRS balances
  
resources allocated to workloads in a
vSphere cluster; versus the previously
used cluster-wide deviation model; also
resulting in an improved cycle time.

Storage DRS™
Automated load balancing now looks
at storage characteristics to determine
  
the best place for a given virtual
machine’s data when it is created and
used overtime.

Distributed Power Management™

(DPM)
Optimizes power consumption by   
turning off hosts during periods of
reduced demand.

Storage Policy-Based Management

Allows common management across
storage tiers and dynamic storage      
class-of-service automation via a policy-
driven control plane.

I/O Controls (Network and Storage)

Prioritizes storage and Network access
by continuously monitoring I/O load of a
storage volume and over the network,   
and dynamically allocating available I/O
resources to virtual machines according
to business needs.

7
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Application performance (continued)

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® vSphere® vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Enterprise Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

Single Root I/O Virtualization

(SR-IOV) Support
Allows one PCI Express (PCIe) adapter to
be presented as multiple separate logical   
devices to virtual machines. Allows users
to offload I/O processing and reduce
network latency.

vSphere Persistent Memory™

Leverages Persistent Memory to
  
get DRAM like performance with
flash like prices.

NVIDIA GRID vGPU

Enables native 2D and 3D graphics
  
performance for virtual machines.
Supports multiple vGPUs per VM.

Proactive HA
Receive server health information and
  
migrate virtual machines from degraded
hosts before problems occur.

Accelerated Graphics for

Virtual Machines
  

Dynamic DirectPath IO
Support for vGPU and DirectPath I/O      
initial VM placement.

vSphere on DPUs
(VMware vSphere® Distributed
Services Engine™)
Accelerate infrastructure network
functions on the DPU. Reduce
operational burden of managing DPUs   
with integrated vSphere workflows. Use
proven vCenter interfaces to get DPU
alerts and performance metrics. Utilize
available CPU cycles achieve higher
workload consolidation per host.

Vendor Device Group

Combine multiple PCIe devices into
a group that is assigned as a unit to a   
VM, giving it user-prescribed access
to that group.

8
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Business continuity

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® vSphere® vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Enterprise Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

vSphere Hypervisor
Provides a robust, production-proven,      
high-performance virtualization layer.

vMotion
Enables live migration of virtual machines
with no disruption to users or loss of
service, eliminating the need to schedule
application downtime for planned server
     
maintenance. The recent enhancements
in vMotion logic provides non-disruptive
operations, irrespective of the size of
VMs, specifically for large and mission
critical workloads.

vCenter® Hybrid Linked Mode

Enables unified visibility and management Requires Requires
across on-premises vCenter and vCenter vCenter    
vCenter on a vSphere enabled cloud Server STD Server STD
such as VMware Cloud on AWS.

vSMP
Virtual symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)
     
enables virtual machines to have multiple
virtual CPUs.

High Availability (HA)

Automatically restarts your VMs      
following physical machine failure.

Storage vMotion
Avoids application downtime for
planned storage maintenance by      
migrating live virtual machine disk
files across storage arrays.

Fault Tolerance
Provides continuous availability of any Included
application in the event of a hardware 2-vCPU 8-vCPU 2-vCPU 8-vCPU 8-vCPU
2-vCPU limit
failure — with no data loss or downtime
For workloads up to 4-vCPU..

vShield Endpoint™
Secures virtual machines with offloaded
anti-virus and anti-malware solutions,      
without the need for agents inside the
virtual machine.

9
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Business continuity (continued)

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® vSphere® vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Enterprise Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

vSphere Replication™
Enables efficient, array-agnostic
replication of virtual machine data
     
over the LAN or WAN, and simplifies
management by enabling replication
at the virtual machine level.

Support for 4K Native Storage

Enhances platform scalability by
     
leveraging high capacity drives.
Reduce CAPEX.

vSphere Quick Boot™

Skips hardware initialization steps and
     
dramatically reduces time required for
patching and upgrades.

vCenter High Availability Requires Requires

vCenter STD vCenter STD
   
Native vCenter Server availability.

vCenter Backup and Restore

Requires Requires
Native vCenter Server backup vCenter STD vCenter STD
   
and restore.

vCenter Server Appliance™

Migration
A tool for single-step migration Requires Requires
vCenter STD vCenter STD
   
and upgrade of existing Windows
vCenter deployments to vCenter
Server Appliance.

10
vSphere Product Line Comparison

Hybrid cloud capabilities

vSphere®
vSphere® Enterprise
Standard™ Plus™ vSphere® vSphere® vSphere+™
(Perpetual (Perpetual Standard Enterprise Plus Standard5 vSphere+5™
License) License) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription) (Subscription)

vCenter Hybrid Linked Mode

Enables unified visibility and Cross vCenter Cross vCenter Cross
management across on-premises Server / Server / vCenter Server
 Long Distance / Long Distance / / Long Distance
vCenter and vCenter on a vSphere
Cross Cloud Cross Cloud / Cross Cloud
enabled cloud such as VMware
Cloud on AWS.

Cross vCenter Mixed Version

Provisioning
Uses different vCenter versions across Requires Requires
on-premises and vSphere based public vCenter vCenter    
cloud environments, while allowing Server STD Server STD
provisioning operations such as vMotion,
Full Clone and Cold Migrate to continue
on seamlessly.

Hot and Cold Migration to the Cloud

Supports hot and cold migration of      
workloads across the hybrid cloud.

Per VM Enhanced vMotion

Compatibility
Allows seamless migration across
different CPUs across the hybrid cloud      
by persisting the EVC mode per-VM
during migrations across clusters and
during power cycles.

1. vSphere+ product lines are compatable with vSphere 7

2. Requires NSX-T version 3.2 or later.

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