It is a free hypervisor. If you don't need all the features then Nutanix AHV is a great alternative hypervisor.

I am not sure what workloads you're planning to run on the virtualized platform - databases, SAP, Hadoop, etc. But VMware vSphere is a great virtual platform to run (mixed of different types of workloads).  It is simple to deploy and maintain.  Do you still have 3 tiers of…

if it is for business or enterprise-class virtualization, vSphere solution is the way to go.  Workstation is used for lab.