Virtualisation is where “free” got complicated. The options that were free five years ago are not the same ones that are free today, and at least one product on this site still carries “free” in its name while no free edition exists. This guide sorts out what you can actually run without paying, and what each licence really permits.
The state of play
| Product | Free? | The condition that matters |
|---|---|---|
| VirtualBox | Yes | The base package is free including commercial use; the Extension Pack is not |
| vSphere Hypervisor | Yes | Non-production use only, and the backup API does not work |
| XCP-ng Center | Yes | Open source; the management console for XCP-ng hosts |
| VMmanager | No | The free edition no longer exists despite the name — trial, then a licence per physical core |
Desktop and lab work: VirtualBox
VirtualBox is the default answer for running virtual machines on a workstation. It runs on Windows, Linux and macOS, handles the usual guest systems, and has snapshots, shared folders, a decent network model and its own export format.
The licence detail people miss: the base package and the Extension Pack are licensed differently. The base is open source and free to use, including at work. The Extension Pack — which adds USB 2.0/3.0 passthrough, disk encryption, PXE boot for Intel adapters and the RDP server — is free only for personal, educational and evaluation use. A company using those features needs a licence from the vendor. Oracle has audited organisations over exactly this, so it is worth checking what is installed on your machines before someone else does.
If you stay on the base package, you are free and clear.
Bare metal: vSphere Hypervisor
The free edition of VMware ESXi was discontinued in February 2024 and brought back in April 2025 as vSphere Hypervisor 8.0 Update 3e. It exists, it costs nothing, and its conditions rule it out for most production work:
- Non-production use only by the vendor’s own description — home labs, development, testing.
- vCenter Server cannot manage it, so no central management of several hosts, no vMotion, no HA, no DRS.
- The management API is not supported, which means backup products that depend on it — Veeam among them — simply do not work. Decide how you will back up before you build on it.
- Frozen at version 8. There is no free edition in the version 9 line.
- Two physical processors per host, eight virtual processors per VM, and no vendor support.
As a lab hypervisor it is excellent and very close to what you would meet in a paying customer’s data centre. As a production platform it is a trap.
A free platform you can actually run in production: XCP-ng
XCP-ng Center is the Windows management console for XCP-ng, the open-source hypervisor that grew out of XenServer. Unlike the free ESXi edition, XCP-ng puts no licensing wall between you and the features: pools, live migration, shared storage and working backups are all there, with paid support available if you want it rather than required to function.
For a small company that needs real virtualisation without a subscription, this and Proxmox VE are the two honest answers.
About VMmanager
Our page is called vmmanager-free for historical reasons, and it says plainly what the situation is: there is no free edition any more. What is available is a trial, after which licensing is per physical core. If you arrived here looking for a free VMmanager, the answer is that it does not exist and has not for some time.
Choosing, briefly
- Virtual machines on your own PC: VirtualBox, base package only.
- A home lab that mirrors enterprise VMware: vSphere Hypervisor, accepting the non-production licence.
- A production hypervisor with no licence fee: XCP-ng, or Proxmox VE if you prefer KVM.
- A Microsoft-only environment: Hyper-V, which is included with Windows Server and needs no extra product.
Backing up virtual machines
This is where free virtualisation most often goes wrong. Copying a running VM’s disk files usually produces something that will not boot, and on free vSphere the API that proper backup tools use is closed off entirely.
What works:
- Back up from inside the guest. Treat the VM as a server: Iperius Backup Free or SyncBackFree running in the guest, writing to a share outside the host.
- Export whole machines on a schedule using the hypervisor’s own export — VirtualBox and XCP-ng both support this.
- Snapshot before changes, not as a backup. Snapshots are an undo button that fills your datastore, not a copy of your data.
- Test a restore. A VM export you have never imported is a file, not a backup. See verifying backups.
Monitor the host as well as the guests
A virtualisation host that runs out of datastore space takes every machine on it down at once. Watch free space, memory and processor on the host itself — NetXMS can poll it over SNMP or SSH, and EventSentry Light covers Windows hosts and guests.
FAQ
Is VirtualBox free for commercial use?
The base package is. The Extension Pack is free only for personal, educational and evaluation use — business use of its features needs a licence.
Is VMware ESXi still free?
Yes, as vSphere Hypervisor 8.0 Update 3e, but licensed for non-production use and with no backup API.
Can I back up free ESXi with Veeam?
No. The free edition does not provide the management API those products need.
Is there a free VMmanager edition?
No. There is a trial, after which licensing is per physical core.
What is the best free hypervisor for a small business?
XCP-ng or Proxmox VE — both are genuinely free for production, unlike the free VMware edition.
