ESXi is most definitely free if you can live without the enterprise features. For example, in many setups a max of 8 cores per VM is sufficient, and IIRC there

ESXi is most definitely free if you can live without the enterprise features. For example, in many setups a max of 8 cores per VM is sufficient, and IIRC there are no longer memory or storage limits for the free tier. The web admin (which replaces phased out vCenter admin interface) is pretty decent. Between that and the cli you're sorted for most non-enterprise use cases. But yeah, if you need vMotion and all the other orchestration features, the licensing is...far from free.