VMware vCenter Minimal Mode: Keep Only Login Functionality and Free Up Memory

In many lab or resource-constrained environments, you may not need the full feature set of vCenter — features like vSAN, Lifecycle Manager, Content Library, and others can consume significant CPU and memory resources.
This guide shows how to disable and prevent non-essential services from starting, reducing vCenter (VCSA) to a minimal mode that keeps only login and basic management functionality, dramatically lowering memory usage.

Note: This procedure is for VCSA. Apply with caution and test in a non-production environment first.

1. Enter Bash Shell

shell.set --enabled true
shell

2. First Wave – Major Services to Stop/Disable

# Stop
service-control --stop eam               # ESX Agent Manager - used for 3rd party/VMware agents
service-control --stop vsm               # vService Manager - manages vServices, rarely needed
service-control --stop sps               # Storage Policy Service - for storage profiles
service-control --stop content-library   # Content Library Service - image/template library
service-control --stop updatemgr         # vSphere Update Manager - patching hosts/VMs
service-control --stop vsan-health       # vSAN Health Service - vSAN cluster monitoring
service-control --stop vcha              # vCenter High Availability
service-control --stop imagebuilder      # Image Builder - ESXi image customization
service-control --stop rbd               # Auto Deploy Waiter
service-control --stop netdumper         # ESXi Dump Collector
service-control --stop vmcam             # vSphere Authentication Proxy
service-control --stop perfcharts        # Performance Charts

# Disable at boot
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U eam -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vsm -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U sps -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U content-library -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U updatemgr -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vsan-health -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vcha -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U imagebuilder -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U rbd -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U netdumper -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vmcam -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U perfcharts -S DISABLED

3. Second Wave – Additional Services to Stop/Disable

# Stop
service-control --stop analytics          # Analytics Service - CEIP / telemetry
service-control --stop observability-vapi # Observability API - monitoring/telemetry API
service-control --stop vlcm               # vSphere Lifecycle Manager API
service-control --stop vstats             # vStats Service - performance statistics
service-control --stop vtsdb              # vStats Database
service-control --stop wcp                # Workload Control Plane - vSphere with Tanzu
service-control --stop hvc                # Hybrid Linked Mode Service
service-control --stop infraprofile       # Infrastructure Profile Service
service-control --stop topologysvc        # Topology Service - host/vCenter topology data

# Disable at boot
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U analytics -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U observability-vapi -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vlcm -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vstats -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U vtsdb -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U wcp -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U hvc -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U infraprofile -S DISABLED
/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli -U topologysvc -S DISABLED

4. Core Services to Keep

vsphere-ui
vpxd
vpxd-svcs
vapi-endpoint
rhttpproxy
envoy
lookupsvc
sts
vmonapi
vmware-vpostgres
vmware-postgres-archiver
cis-license
certificateauthority
certificatemanagement
trustmanagement
applmgmt
statsmonitor
sca

5. Verify

for s in $(/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli --list); do
  out=$(/usr/lib/vmware-vmon/vmon-cli --status "$s" 2>&1)
  st=$(printf "%s\n" "$out" | sed -n 's/.*Start[Tt]ype[: ]\{1,\}\([A-Z]\+\).*/\1/p; s/.*Startup Type[: ]\{1,\}\([A-Z]\+\).*/\1/p')
  printf "%-24s -> %s\n" "$s" "${st:-UNKNOWN}"
done

Non-core services should be DISABLED.

6. Reboot

reboot

7. Check Memory

free -h