Windows Server 2012 R2 Products and Editions Comparison

Windows Server 2012 R2 Products and Editions Comparison by features, locks / limits and server roles.

	Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter	Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard	Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials	Windows Server 2012 R2 Foundation
Locks and Limits
Maximum number of users	based on licenses	based on licenses	25	15
Maximum SMB Connections	16,777,216	16,777,216	16777216	30
Maximum RRAS Connections	unlimited	unlimited	50	50
Maximum IAS Connections	2,147,483,647	2,147,483,647	50	10
Maximum number of 64-bit sockets	64	64	2	1
Maximum RAM	4 TB	4 TB	64 GB	32 GB
Server can join a domain	Yes	Yes	For migration only	For migration only
DirectAccess	Yes	Yes	See documentation	Yes
Server Roles
Active Directory® Certificate Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Active Directory Domain Services	Yes	Yes	Required	Yes (optional)
Active Directory Federation Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AD Lightweight Directory Services	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
AD Rights Management Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Application Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DHCP Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DNS Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fax Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
File Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hyper-V	Yes	Yes	No	No
Network Policy and Access Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Print and Document Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Remote Access	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Terminal Services Application Sharing	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Terminal Services Gateway	Yes	Yes	No	See documentation
Web Services (IIS)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows Deployment Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows Essentials	Yes	Yes	Default	No
Windows Media Services support (Streaming Media Services)	See Installation Options documentation	See Installation Options documentation	Yes	See Installation Options documentation
WINS Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Features
RODC – read only domain controller	Yes	Yes	No	No
Automatic Virtual Machine Activation	Both guest and host	As guest	As guest	No
Best Practices Analyzer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
BranchCache Hosted Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
BranchCache P2P Cache	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows Control Panel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Distributed File System Replication	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Data Deduplication	Yes	Yes	No	No
ISCSI target support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DirectAccess	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Memory (in virtualization)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Failover Clustering	Yes	Yes	No	No
"Hot" add/replace RAM	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
IPAM (IP Address Management)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Management Console	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Minimal Server Interface	Yes	Yes	No	No
Network Load Balancing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for Non-volatile Memory Express	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows PowerShell	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Server Core mode	Yes	Yes	No	No
Server license logging	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Server Manager	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SMB Direct and SMB over RDMA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Storage Management Service	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Storage Spaces	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Volume Activation Services	Yes	Yes	No	No
VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) integration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Windows Server Update Services	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

The full PDF that includes Hyper-V and Storage Server editions can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=41703