Originally Posted by GoBruins
Is ESXi something that you have to pay for?


ESXi is free. To manage it, you will need the vSphere client which is also free.

HyperV is also free. It uses RSAT (aka Hyper V tools) to manage the guest VMs which is also free.

Great for small business. I lean towards Hyper V due to the cheap price of backup solutions like backup assist.