Discover the best alternatives to VMware for optimizing your IT infrastructure, the benefits they offer and how to choose the ideal solution.
Why consider an alternative to VMware?
VMware's limitations in certain infrastructures
VMware is one of the market leaders in virtualization, offering robust and proven solutions. However, like any technology, VMware has certain limitations in specific infrastructure contexts.
- High costs
For large companies with complex infrastructures, VMware licensing costs can become prohibitive. The pricing model based on the number of processors or cores can rapidly increase costs as the infrastructure expands.
In addition, the recent acquisition of VMware by Broadcom has led to a sharp rise in prices. Prices can be as high as “7x the base price” that a company used to pay. - Limitations for native containers
Although VMware has made progress in supporting containers with solutions such as vSphere Integrated Containers, other platforms can offer more native and efficient integration for container-centric environments. - Dependence on compatible hardware
Although VMware supports a wide range of hardware, some specialized or older equipment may not be fully compatible, meaning that the virtualization options will be limited in some environments. - Dependence on an integrated system
Leaving the VMware ecosystem can be a challenge for companies wishing to change supplier. Indeed, VMware systems are highly integrated (NSX, VSAN, etc.).
The cost of using VMware
VMware costs can be substantial and multi-dimensional, reflecting the comprehensive, enterprise-class nature of the solution. Here’s an overview of the main elements of cost:
- Licensing: The heart of VMware’s costs lies in its licenses, structured by CPU or virtual machine, depending on the product. vSphere, the main virtualization platform, is generally billed per physical CPU. More advanced editions such as Enterprise Plus carry higher licensing costs, but offer additional functionality. vCenter Server, which is required for centralized management, is billed separately, often on a per-instance basis.
- Support and Subscription: VMware offers Support and Subscription (SnS) contracts, which are generally invoiced annually. These costs often represent a percentage of the license price (typically between 20% and 25%) and cover updates, patches and access to technical support.
- Additional solutions: Complementary products such as vSAN for software-defined storage, NSX for network virtualization, or vRealize Suite for cloud management, come with their own licensing and cost structures, potentially increasing the overall investment by a significant amount.
- Training and certification: Although not directly billed by VMware, companies often need to invest in training and certification for their IT staff in order to use these technologies effectively.
- Compatible hardware: Even though VMware runs on standard hardware, optimizing performance may require an investment in specific or high-end hardware.
- Operational costs: Managing and maintaining a complex VMware environment can require specialized personnel, and this could increase operational costs.
VMware’s new costs after the Broadcom takeover are different. License costs will be linked to the number of cores, not the number of CPUs. To find out more, our DevOps expert Clément Raussin presents the changes linked to Broadcom’s takeover of VMware in this video!
Competitors' flexibility and options
Based on the 6 main competitors on the market:
| Solution | Flexibility | Licensing options | Cloud integration | Special features |
| Proxmox VE | Open source, free of charge | Subscription-based support | Via third-party plugins | Supports native VMs and containers |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Integrated with Windows Server | Included with Windows Server, core-based | Azure Stack HCI, Azure | Ideal for Windows environments |
| KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) | Open source, highly flexible | Free | Via third-party tools | Integrated into the Linux kernel, high performance |
| Nutanix AHV | Included with Nutanix platform | Per legacy node or capacity | Nutanix Clusters | Designed for hyperconverged infrastructure |
| Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer) | Free version available | Per socket or per CPU | Citrix Cloud | Optimized for VDI, good Citrix integration |
| Red Hat Virtualization | Open source, KVM-based | Subscription model | Red Hat OpenShift | Good Red HA ecosystem integration |
This non-exhaustive list provides a comparative overview of the alternative solutions to VMware, but these are not the only type of solution available.
The main alternatives to VMware (1st level)
There are some direct alternatives to using VMware, so you can switch directly to another provider.
Proxmox: An open-source solution for virtualized environments
Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is a complete open-source virtualization platform that stands out for its flexibility and cost-effective approach. Based on Debian Linux, it ingeniously combines KVM for traditional virtual machines and LXC for lightweight containers, offering a versatile solution managed via an intuitive web interface. Despite being free, Proxmox offers the kind of advanced features usually associated with expensive proprietary solutions, such as high availability, live migration and flexible storage.
This combination of technologies, coupled with an active community and extensive documentation, makes it an attractive option for small and medium-sized businesses, development environments, and organizations looking to optimize their IT infrastructures while keeping costs under control, although commercial support may be more limited than for paid solutions.
Hyper-V: The Microsoft alternative for businesses
Hyper-V, Microsoft’s virtualization solution, is a robust alternative designed specifically for Windows environments and companies already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. Integrated directly into Windows Server, Hyper-V offers a type 1 (bare-metal) virtualization approach at no additional licensing cost for Windows Server users. It offers advanced features such as live migration, failover clustering, and native integration with Azure for hybrid cloud scenarios.
Although particularly effective in Windows environments, Hyper-V also supports certain Linux operating systems. Its management interface, familiar to Windows administrators, and automation tools like PowerShell make it an attractive solution for companies looking for virtualization that is tightly integrated with their existing Microsoft infrastructure, though it is potentially less flexible than some open-source solutions.
Nutanix: A hyperconverged platform for scalable infrastructures
Nutanix positions itself as a leading hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform, combining storage, compute, virtualization and networking in a unified, scalable solution. Its proprietary KVM-based hypervisor, AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor), is integrated free of charge into the platform, offering a high-performance alternative to traditional solutions such as VMware. Nutanix stands out for its ease of management, intuitive “one-click” user interface, and advanced automation capabilities, significantly reducing the operational complexity of data centers. The platform excels at elasticity, enabling linear scaling without disruption, and offers native disaster recovery, security and analytics capabilities.
Although potentially more expensive upfront than traditional solutions, Nutanix aims to reduce long-term TCO by simplifying infrastructure management, optimizing performance and easing the transition to multi-cloud environments, making it an attractive option for companies looking to modernize and simplify their IT infrastructure.
The main alternatives to VMware (2nd level)
The main alternatives to VMware (2nd level)
With the advent of public and sovereign cloud solutions, getting a virtual machine up and running quickly has never been easier. Switching to a tool like VMware can involve a radical change of landscape, with a preference for Cloud solutions (public, private or hybrid). This can enable companies to start migrating to the Cloud.
In a previous article, we discussed cloud migration in detail. For more information on this topic, please see our article Cloud Migration Services.
Public cloud solutions
There are many different players in the public cloud, but three always stand out:
- AWS EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud): AWS offers a wide range of EC2 instances to replace VMware VMs. Migration can be carried out via the AWS Application Migration Service (MGN). These tools convert VMware VMs into native EC2 instances, easing the transition to a pure cloud infrastructure.
- Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines: Azure offers Azure Migrate, a service that facilitates the discovery, evaluation and migration of VMware workloads to native Azure VMs. This approach makes it possible to gradually move away from VMware infrastructure, while benefiting from Azure’s native cloud services.
- Google Compute Engine: Google Cloud offers Migrate for Compute Engine, a tool designed to migrate VMware VMs to native Compute Engine instances. This service enables you to effect a smooth transition to Google Cloud infrastructure, converting VMware workloads into a format that is compatible with Google’s native cloud.
Sovereign Cloud solutions
For those who are reluctant to use foreign infrastructures, there are sovereign clouds all over Switzerland. They are independent, and promise 100% Swiss power.
- Hidora: Cloud and DevOps expert Hidora offers innovative Kubernetes solutions for rapid application deployment. Their offerings include KubeVirt for unified management of containers and VMs, as well as alternatives such as Jelastic.
- ExoScale: this will offer tailored solutions like azure with Compute Instances, and other tailored solutions like Kubernetes, Object Storage, etc.
OpenStack, the solution for a cloud at home
OpenStack is a robust, highly modular open-source cloud computing platform designed to create and manage large-scale private and public cloud infrastructures. Launched in 2010 by Rackspace and NASA, it has rapidly gained popularity thanks to its flexibility and ability to orchestrate large pools of compute, storage and network resources. OpenStack consists of several interoperable components, each managing a specific aspect of the cloud infrastructure, such as Nova for compute, Swift for object storage, and Neutron for networking. This modular architecture enables organizations to tailor their deployment to their specific needs.
Although OpenStack offers great power and flexibility, its complexity of implementation and maintenance can be a challenge, often requiring significant technical expertise. Despite this, the adoption of it continues to grow, particularly among large businesses and research organizations looking for an open, scalable and highly customizable cloud computing solution.
The main alternatives to VMware (3rd level)
More and more virtualization technologies based on Kubernetes and Kubevirt are emerging. They enable companies to adapt to a market that is increasingly focused on containerization technologies. These solutions are ideally suited to companies with existing containerized applications. This approach allows for unified management of the two models (virtualization and containerization).
KubeVirt: an open-source solution
KubeVirt is an innovative virtualization solution designed to extend the capabilities of Kubernetes by enabling it to manage traditional virtual machines (VMs) alongside:
- Native Kubernetes integration: KubeVirt integrates directly into the Kubernetes ecosystem, enabling VMs to be managed as native Kubernetes objects.
- Coexistence of VMs and containers: Allows VMs and containers to run side by side in the same Kubernetes cluster, offering greater flexibility for mixed workloads.
- Use of Kubernetes APIs: VMs can be managed via standard Kubernetes APIs, simplifying orchestration and automation.
- Support for legacy workloads: KubeVirt facilitates the migration of legacy applications to a Kubernetes environment without the need for immediate containerization.
- Migration tools: Provides tools for migrating existing VMs to the Kubernetes/KubeVirt environment.
- VM lifecycle management: KubeVirt manages the entire VM lifecycle, including deployment, scaling and upgrades.
- Integration with Kubernetes features: VMs can benefit from Kubernetes features such as persistent storage, networking, and security policies.
Harvester: another open-source solution
Harvester is an open-source hyperconverged virtualization (HCI) solution designed to run natively on Kubernetes. Key features include:
- Hyperconverged infrastructure: Harvester combines storage, network and compute in a unified platform, simplifying infrastructure management.
- Kubernetes-based: Built on Kubernetes, it benefits from its robustness and orchestration capabilities.
- Virtual machine management: Create, manage and orchestrate virtual machines in a Kubernetes environment.
- Intuitive user interface: a user-friendly web interface for VM and infrastructure management.
- Integrated distributed storage: Integrates Longhorn, a persistent storage solution for Kubernetes, offering advanced storage features.
- Software-defined networking: uses software-defined networking technologies for flexible network management.
- Cloud-native integration: Facilitates integration with other cloud-native tools and services in the Kubernetes ecosystem.
- Simplified deployment: Designed to be easy to deploy and manage, even on generic hardware.
Red Hat Virtualization: A robust alternative for large enterprises
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) is a robust and mature enterprise virtualization solution, based on open-source KVM technology and powered by Red Hat. It offers a complete virtualization platform, designed for mission-critical workloads and large-scale environments. RHV features high performance, enhanced security and tight integration with the Red Hat ecosystem, including OpenShift for containers and Ansible for automation.
The solution offers advanced features such as live migration, high availability, and centralized management tools via an intuitive web interface. Although it comes at a price, it offers Red Hat’s characteristic support and reliability, as well as extensive compatibility with Linux and Windows systems.
RHV is particularly well-suited to large enterprises with complex virtualization needs, looking for an alternative to traditional proprietary solutions, while benefiting from professional support and a clear evolution roadmap.
Adopting it can require a significant initial investment in terms of costs and skills, though, and this can be an obstacle for smaller firms.
Containerization
Containerization offers a modern, efficient alternative to VMware. Using technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, it enables better resource utilization, increased application portability and simplified infrastructure management. This approach facilitates rapid deployment and automatic scaling, and aligns with DevOps practices and microservices architectures.
Although it may require some applications to be redesigned, containerization promises great agility, improved performance and a potential reduction in costs. This makes it an attractive option for companies wishing to modernize their infrastructure and free themselves from VMware.
How do you choose the best alternative to VMware?
Assessing the specific needs of your company
What are your business needs? A number of factors come into play when you are choosing a virtualization tool.
The size of the infrastructure and its complexity (heterogeneity, segregation, security, etc.) are important criteria. Some virtualization tools will be better able to administer large infrastructures efficiently.
In any project, the guiding factor is, of course, the budget. What is your budget? This requirement can be very restrictive.
Tip: In addition to the cost of the solution, there’s also the cost of training and product maintenance! Keep the whole picture in mind.
Your teams’ skills are very important! Indeed, using a complex tool without any skills creates a learning curve at the start of the project. This means you will need to train a large number of players and have a higher initial budget, to ensure that the project is sustainable.
For the more fastidious, a performance prerequisite could tip the balance. If your needs in terms of performance are very specific, some tools will offer a significant gain.
Identify your company’s specific features. Like High Availability, Live Migration, Centralized Management, etc.
Compare costs and features
Based on your strategy and ecosystem, compare the solutions’ functionalities. Compare the costs of different solutions, based on the price of licenses and in-house training skills.
Remember to think about compatibility with your existing infrastructure
Your information system may not be compatible with the solution chosen.
When choosing the best alternative virtualization solution to VMware, compatibility with your existing infrastructure is something you must keep in mind. It is a vital consideration if you wish to ensure a smooth transition and maximize the efficiency of your new virtualized environment.
To ensure a successful transition to a new virtualization solution, several critical aspects need to be assessed. The compatibility of the existing hardware is paramount, especially for servers, storage and networking, as some platforms have specific resource requirements. Support for existing operating systems, both for hosts and virtual machines, needs to be verified, as does the compatibility of critical business applications that may have particular dependencies. The integration of existing management, monitoring and backup tools needs to be assessed, as upgrades or replacements may be required. The skills of the IT team are also crucial: having a solution that is aligned with their current expertise will ease the transition. If you plan to implement a cloud strategy, the solution must offer compatible integration options. Finally, make sure that the new platform satisfies the requirements as regards security and compliance, while offering the scalability needed in order to support the company’s future growth.
If you take these compatibility aspects into account, you’ll be able to choose a solution that can be seamlessly integrated into your existing environment, minimizing disruption and maximizing the ROI of your transition to a new virtualization platform.
Should you choose an open-source or proprietary solution?
The advantages of open-source solutions
Open-source solutions offer several major advantages for businesses. The absence of upfront licensing costs means substantial savings, particularly for large infrastructures, though professional support may be required. The open nature of the source code offers great flexibility for customization and adaptation to specific needs. Innovation is constant, thanks to active communities ensuring frequent updates and rapid corrections. Vendor independence is reinforced, giving companies greater control and freedom in their technological choices. Source code transparency enhances security through continuous community review, while broad compatibility with different kinds of hardware and software offers great infrastructure flexibility. Finally, active community support, via forums and wikis, facilitates problem-solving and the sharing of best practices.
Guarantees and services for proprietary solutions
Proprietary virtualization solutions, while they may be more expensive than their open-source counterparts, offer a set of guarantees and services that can justify their investment for many companies. These solutions, such as VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V, are designed to meet the stringent requirements of enterprise environments. They generally offer 24/7 professional technical support, ensuring rapid, expert assistance in the event of critical problems.
Regular updates and security patches are provided systematically, guaranteeing the stability and security of the virtualized infrastructure. What’s more, these solutions often offer integrated advanced features, such as high availability, disaster recovery, and sophisticated centralized management tools, which may require complex configurations or add-ons in open-source solutions.
Training and certification of IT teams is also facilitated, with structured training programs and industry-recognized certification. Finally, hardware and software compatibility is generally more extensive and better tested, reducing the risk of incompatibility and simplifying deployment in heterogeneous environments.
Which option is best suited to your IT strategy?
To choose the best virtualization solution, assess your organization’s specific needs carefully. Consider the scale of your infrastructure, the skills of your IT team, your budget, and your long-term strategic objectives. Large enterprises may prefer proprietary solutions like VMware or Hyper-V for their advanced features, while SMEs might opt for open-source alternatives like KVM or Proxmox for their flexibility and attractive price.
Don’t forget to explore public cloud options, which offer increased scalability and flexibility without an initial hardware investment. Solutions like KubeVirt, combining traditional virtualization and containerization on Kubernetes, represent an interesting hybrid approach. Pure containerization, using Docker and Kubernetes, is a modern option that can improve application efficiency and portability, while also being aligned with DevOps practices.
Each option has its advantages and challenges. The key is to choose a solution that is in alignment with your business objectives, budget constraints, in-house skills and specific technical requirements. A thorough assessment of these factors will guide you toward the best decision for your organization.
Qim info helps you make the right choice for your infrastructure
Qim info supports you in optimizing your IT infrastructure, from initial analysis to full implementation. Our structured approach includes:
- In-depth assessment of your current environment
- Risk assessment and potential impacts
- Detailed analysis of the risks identified
- Strategic study of the alternatives available
- Drawing up of a customized migration plan
- Implementation and realization of the chosen solution
- Change management, including training and case studies
We guide you every step of the way, ensuring a smooth transition to an optimized infrastructure, aligned with your business objectives and tailored to your specific needs. Whether you’re considering migrating to the cloud, adopting containerization technologies, or exploring hybrid solutions like KubeVirt, Qim info can help you make the right choice and implement it efficiently.
Qim info can also work with its partners HIDORA and ExoScale to help with migration and understanding.
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