What's the difference between VMware Hypervisor VSphere and ESXi 5.0?

[tankman1989]

I'm lost in figuring out the difference between these two pieces of software. The website says that "VMware vSphere Hypervisor" is free while "VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.0" is pay to use. I have a trial for ESXi and licenses for vSphere, but can't figure out what the difference is when I go to download.

Here are the options:
http://images.tuprox.com/VMware.jpg

It lists all the available downloads but it hasn't changed since I signed up for the free version. Is it the same?

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Hypervisor is a generic term. ESXi goes on the server and is where your VM's go. The vSphere client is installed on your desktop and is what is used to connect to and interact with your ESXi server.

You want to download VMware ESXi 5.1 CD ISO Installable and VMware vSphere Client 5.1. Hope that answers your question.

 

[onetech4all]

Re:

You will need to download the VMware Hypervisor ESXi 5.0 to run on your ESXi host servers. The Hypervisor is what you install either on a barebone server (with no OS) or in an OS (XP, 7, etc) with the help of VMware Workstation now at version 9, I think.
The VMs are actually stored on a shared storage and not on the ESXi servers. The ESXi server provide only a means to connect to the VMs (I oversimplified this). The VMware vSphere is what you use to bring the ESXi hosts together and create a datacenter and a cluster (basically will help you pool hardware resources from the ESXi hosts).
The ESXi Hypervisor is free, you need to pay for the license to use vSphere.
The VMware client is what you use to connect either individually to each ESXi server or to your vSphere, whether your vSphere is on a physical or virtual server. I run my own VMware environment and I have my vSphere as a VM.