To determine whether to deploy a candidate VM to a candidate host, taking into consideration resources available from the candidate host and resources required by the candidate VM, a sub-rating is calculated for each of several resources available from the candidate host, where the sub-rating for the resource corresponds to an amount of the resource that is free after the candidate VM is deployed to the candidate host. Thereafter, a rating is calculated from the calculated sub-ratings to characterize how well the candidate host can accommodate the candidate VM. The rating for the candidate host are presented to a selector that determines whether to deploy the candidate VM to the candidate host based on the rating thereof.