What Is The Difference Between Hyper-V Free Vs Hyper-V Paid (2012 R2)

Wondering what the different features are between Hyper-V free vs. the paid version? The main difference between Hyper-V free and the Hyper-V paid version in Server 2012 R2 is licensing.

There are 3 versions of Hyper-V: Free, Standard and Datacentre. The latter 2 are commonly regarded as the paid versions. Essentially the difference between these versions is that the free version doesn’t license you to run any VMs on it, Hyper-V Standard licenses you to run 2 Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs. Hyper-V Datacentre edition is slightly different, which licenses you to run as many Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs as you can fit on the host. In addition to this, the Datacentre (paid) edition of Hyper-V also licenses you to use System Centre Virtual Machine Manager.

So as mentioned, the main difference between Hyper-V free vs. Hyper-V paid is Windows Server licensing and the System Centre Virtual Machine Manager. Of course, any Hyper-V feature that requires System Centre Virtual Machine Manager will also be a point of difference. That being said, it is possible to buy System Centre Virtual Machine Manager without buying the Datacentre version.