Windows Server 2022:
The Windows Server 2022 Essentials Edition is designed for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices. Licensing is socket based. Essentials Edition supports up to 10 cores and 1 physical or virtual environment on single-socket servers. User and Device Client Licenses are not required nor available.
The Windows Server 2022 Standard Edition is designed for businesses with more than 25 users and 50 devices which can run business-critical workloads in your datacenter, on cloud, and at the edge. Standard edition comes with 16 core-based license pack, plus additional Client Access Licenses (CALs). License includes permission for two OSEs or Hyper-V isolated containers. It has advanced multi-layer security against threats, and improved tools for hybrid-server management. It is great, cost effective option for small-to-medium-sized business with flexibility to go-as-you-grow with additional virtual licenses available at the time of purchases or after. Windows Server Standard Edition license limited to single Storage Replica volume up to 2TB. Additional Standard licenses are available for purchase.
The Windows Server 2022 Datacenter Edition is ideal for highly virtualized datacenters and cloud environments and corporations of all sizes. It allows users to run an unlimited number of Windows Server instances on a server, in physical and virtual environments, including containers. It includes all the features of the Standard edition plus support encrypted virtual machines, Hybrid integration, software-defined networking, Storage Replica, and software-defined storage. Licensing remains processor-core based with minimum of 16 core licenses per server and minimum 8-core licenses per processor.