When VMware’s Partner Connect program concluded around April 30, 2024, managed service providers (MSPs) were at a pivotal juncture. Additionally, VMware had to settle a class action lawsuit for allegedly making misleading statements to inflate its stock value. These events accelerated the need to transition to alternative desktop virtualization solutions, ensuring that the virtualization services delivered to clients remained uninterrupted and that they remained satisfied.
The shift also offered an opportunity for MSPs to explore innovative platforms that provide not only comparable virtualization capabilities but also potentially superior features, cost efficiencies, and partner benefits.
Here are our top picks for VMware alternatives, each distinguished by unique strengths that cater to varied MSP needs:
- Azure Virtual Machines: Best overall for a mix of core features, customer support, and Microsoft integration.
- Google Compute Engine: Best for widespread cloud infrastructure.
- Nutanix: Best for built-in automation and intuitive management across hybrid-cloud HCI.
- Scale Computing: Best for plug-and-play deployments.
- Red Hat OpenShift: Best for unified VM and container management.
Why consider VMware alternatives?
Rising costs, complex licensing, and a shifting partner landscape will prompt MSPs to consider exploring VMware replacements now, even if they weren’t forced to do so last year.
Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware and the retirement of the Partner Connect program introduced uncertainty around pricing, support, and partner incentives. At the same time, modern workloads demand simpler HCI, built-in automation, and cloud-native flexibility that legacy hypervisors often lack.
What channel partners need to consider before migrating VMware customers
Some of the considerations to make include:
- Licensing and TCO impact: Compare per-core vs. per-node pricing, subscription terms, and potential site-license options, factoring in support levels, promotional incentives, and any migration credits to estimate actual cost savings.
- Migration complexity: Assess available tools for VM conversion, data mobility, and network reconfiguration. Determine whether the alternative supports live-migration from VMware or requires planned downtime and manual replatforming.
- Feature parity and gaps: Map critical capabilities like live migration, high availability, and storage snapshots against customer SLAs. Shortlist which functions are native versus add-ons, and then plan for any third-party integrations needed to fill gaps.
- Operational readiness: Evaluate the ease of deployment, maturity of the management console, and automation features. Ensure your team can support the new platform’s lifecycle workflows, monitoring tools, and backup/DR processes without steep retraining.
- Partner ecosystem and support: Review the vendor’s partner program, referral incentives, and technical resources. Strong ecosystem alliances (backup vendors, networking partners, orchestration tools) can accelerate deployments and drive new services.
- Support and documentation: A concern that would likely have emerged post-VMware’s acquisition is the continuity of support. Migration is smoother with vendors that offer comprehensive guides, responsive support channels, and training for channel partners. Prioritize platforms with strong partner ecosystems and knowledge bases that minimize deployment delays and reduce ongoing support overhead.
Pricing: VMware’s switch to a subscription-only model resulted in significant price hikes, making it all the more crucial to understand pricing. Opt for platforms with transparent, tiered licensing (per-core, per-node, or per-site) and no hidden costs. MSPs benefit from solutions that allow quick ROI calculations and flexible term lengths.
Key features of virtualization software
When evaluating virtualization software to replace VMware, certain features stand out as particularly critical for ensuring efficient, secure, and scalable IT environments. These features include virtual machine management, networking capabilities, storage management, security, and backup and recovery.
Virtual machine management
Effective VM management is the cornerstone of any virtualization platform. This enables MSPs to deploy, monitor, and manage client VMs easily. The capabilities to expect under this feature include VM provisioning, cloning, and snapshot management — all crucial for maintaining flexible and responsive user environments.
Networking capabilities
Networking capabilities within virtualization platforms enable MSPs to configure complex network settings for their customers, including virtual switches, routers, and firewalls. This yields secure and efficient communication between VMs and the external network, supporting a range of client applications from web services to internal databases.
Storage management
Storage management allows MSPs to optimize and manage storage resources allocated to VMs, including disk provisioning, storage pools, and data deduplication. They can resultantly ensure that client data is stored efficiently, securely, and readily accessible when needed, which plays a crucial part in maintaining overall system performance and reliability.
Security features
Security features within virtualization software are critical for protecting client data and applications. This encompasses a range of functionalities, from VM isolation and secure boot processes to advanced encryption and compliance tools, thus helping MSPs safeguard their clients’ virtual environments against threats.
Backup and recovery
Robust backup and recovery options are essential for any virtualization solution, as they provide MSPs and their subscribers with peace of mind that data and systems can be quickly restored in the event of a failure or data loss. Features such as automated backups, point-in-time snapshots, and disaster recovery plans are crucial to ensuring business continuity.
How to choose the best virtualization software for your MSP
When navigating the myriad of available virtualization software options, your first consideration must be the needs and operational contexts of your current clients.
Is the virtualization software compatible with their existing systems? Is it scalable enough to accommodate growth? Does it offer competent security features to protect sensitive data? What’s the level of support provided by the vendor? These are some of the questions to ask yourself.
Additionally, evaluate the software’s ability to integrate with other tools and services your clients use. Prioritizing these aspects will enable MSPs to make informed decisions that align with their clients’ strategic objectives.
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Top VMware alternatives comparison
As many MSPs shift their focus from VMware, they need to understand how these alternatives compare with one another. Critical features to consider include deployment and provisioning, resource management, automation capabilities, and pricing structures.
This comparison aims to highlight the distinct advantages and potential limitations of each platform, providing MSPs with a clear perspective on which solutions best align with their service offerings and client needs.
| Product | Virtual machine management | Networking capabilities | Secure data storage | Multiple workload support | Backup and continuity support | Starting pricing |
| Azure Virtual Machines | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | See calculator or contact for quote |
| Google Compute Engine | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | See calculator or contact for quote |
| Nutanix | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | See calculator or contact for quote |
| Scale Computing | Yes | Limited | Yes | Yes | Limited | $189/ core/year for a 5 year term |
| Red Hat OpenShift | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | See pricing page or contact for quote |
Azure Virtual Machines
Best overall for a mix of core features, customer support, and Microsoft integration
Overall rating: 4.6/5
- Cost: 4.5/5
- Core Features: 4.8/5
- Customer Support: 4.5/5
- Ease of Use: 4.2/5
- Management and Automation: 4.4/5
- Compatibility: 5/5
Azure Virtual Machines provides a seamless extension of Microsoft’s ecosystem, presenting a familiar environment for customers already using Microsoft products. Azure’s integration goes beyond VMware’s by offering native compatibility with Microsoft 365, Dynamics, and other Azure services. This helps it become a cohesive cloud experience.
The integration is particularly beneficial for MSPs managing clients with a strong reliance on Microsoft products.
Additionally, Azure’s global presence ensures that your clients’ applications are supported by a robust and reliable infrastructure that can scale to meet any demand.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Extensive integration with Microsoft products. | The wide array of options can be overwhelming. |
| Flexible pricing options. | Integration with non-Microsoft products may require extra configuration. |
| High compatibility and availability. | Customer service quality has room for improvement. |
Pricing
Azure Virtual Machines offers a flexible pricing model, including pay-as-you-go, reserved instances, and spot pricing, allowing your clients to optimize costs based on their usage patterns, plus an industry-leading one-year free trial. Microsoft offers a VM pricing calculator on their website for prospective clients to estimate their costs.
Features
- Supports a wide range of VM sizes and types, including GPU and high-performance compute options.
- Advanced security management and threat protection to secure client environments in the Microsoft ecosystem.
- Seamless integration with Microsoft 365, Dynamics, and other Microsoft products.
- Rapid backup and restore to ensure client data is secure and recoverable.
Google Compute Engine
Best for widespread cloud infrastructure.
Overall rating: 4.5/5
- Cost: 4.5/5
- Core Features: 4.6/5
- Customer Support: 3.6/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Management and Automation: 5/5
- Compatibility: 5/5
Google Compute Engine offers an extensive infrastructure that extends beyond traditional virtualization capabilities, providing MSPs with scalable and secure compute resources.
Unlike VMware, which focuses on server virtualization, Google Compute Engine enables MSPs to leverage the power of Google’s global infrastructure. This comes with high-performance, scalable virtual machines (VMs) with the benefits of Google’s advanced data analytics and machine learning capabilities for your MSP’s clients.
Google Compute Engine is a good choice if your customers will need not just virtualization but also integration with cloud-native services.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Highly scalable and reliable infrastructure. | Potential steep learning curve for those unfamiliar with Google Cloud. |
| Deep integration with Google Cloud services. | Pricing can be complex to understand due to the numerous options available. |
| Extensive global network for improved performance. | Customer support has room for improvement. |
Pricing
Google Compute Engine follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model, offering cost efficiency through sustained use discounts and custom machine types tailored to specific workload needs.
New customers get $300 worth of free credits to spend on Google Cloud. Still, you’ll have to contact Google sales for specific pricing information, or you can determine an estimate using the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator.
Features
- Scalable VMs enable MSPs to scale client resources on demand.
- Seamless integration with Google Cloud services gives MSPs a comprehensive suite of tools for enhancing client infrastructure.
- Custom machine types for tailored performance to optimize configurations based on specific client needs.
- Sustained use discounts for cost efficiency help MSPs manage customer costs effectively and maximize value.
Nutanix AHV
Best for built-in automation and intuitive management across hybrid-cloud HCI
Overall rating: 4/5
- Cost: 3.1/5
- Core Features: 4.3/5
- Customer Support: 2.8/5
- Ease of Use: 5/5
- Management and Automation: 5/5
- Compatibility: 4.40/5
Nutanix AHV is a fully integrated virtualization layer native to the Nutanix Cloud Platform. It consolidates compute, storage, networking, and security under a single control plane, eliminating the overhead of managing separate components. Admins benefit from an intuitive Prism UI designed even for teams with limited virtualization experience. From one-click upgrades to Nutanix Calm-powered automation, with AHV, you get simplicity and speed across the virtualization lifecycle.
MSPs that want hands-free day-to-day operations and seamless workload movement between private and public clouds should consider AHV.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Unified control plane simplifies management | Requires running on Nutanix-certified hardware |
| No separate licensing cost for hypervisor | Smaller ecosystem compared to VMware |
| Supports one-click upgrades and scaling | Upgrade processes can be time-consuming |
| Enables seamless workload mobility to public cloud | Limited support for external storage area networks |
Pricing
Nutanix Cloud Clusters offer a variety of licensing and pricing options, including Bring Your Own License (BYOL) and Pay-as-you-Go, providing flexibility that aligns with your deployment approach. Although pricing varies based on instances, they list only pricing estimates for Nutanix software, excluding the cloud infrastructure costs associated with Azure or AWS.
Features
- Consumer-grade UI and one unified control plane to ease management of day-to-day operations.
- Built-in live migration, high-availability clustering, and metro-scale failover to ensure SLA compliance.
- Pre-integrated networking and storage, as microsegmentation and storage snapshots, work out of the box with no extra configuration.
- Hybrid-cloud portability enables fast provisioning, with Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) letting you move workloads to Azure or AWS without redesigning apps.
Scale Computing
Best for plug-and-play deployments
Overall rating: 3.9/5
- Cost: 3.7/5
- Core Features: 3.7/5
- Customer Support: 4.1/5
- Ease of Use: 4.6/5
- Management & Automation: 4.5/5
- Compatibility: 3.8/ 5
Scale Computing delivers simple operability at the expense of granular configuration by packaging virtualization, storage, and networking into a single appliance. As you evaluate Scale Computing, you’ll note that it’s a self-healing platform, with patented automation that detects and corrects failures in real time. It features a straightforward UI and provides zero-touch provisioning via Fleet Manager, enabling MSPs to deploy and manage clusters with minimal hands-on effort.
Add automated rolling updates, reduce hands-on administration, and you see why it’s a plug-and-play solution, while its per-core licensing model offers predictable costs over a five-year term. Scale Computing’s appliance-first approach is ideal for edge and distributed environments where minimizing staffing and infrastructure complexity is crucial.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Zero-touch provisioning cuts deployment time | Limited native support for external SANs |
| One-click rolling upgrades minimize downtime | Basic snapshot and cloning features |
| Unified browser-based Fleet Manager interface | Bound to certified hardware appliances |
| Transparent per-core pricing over five years | Smaller ecosystem than major rivals |
Pricing
Scale Computing offers a variety of clear and straightforward pricing models, providing users with instant quotes and a transparent cost breakdown. For its tiered model, it follows a node-based, per-core license model with a mandatory five-year term. Its Standard plan starts at $189 per core per year for a 5-year term, and (software license only), while the Professional begins from $239 per core per year. Review their pricing page to gain a better understanding of their models.
Features
- Zero-touch cluster deployment where nodes ship pre-staged and auto-join clusters on power-up via Fleet Manager.
- Built-in self-healing and one-click full-stack rolling upgrades keep workloads online and uninterrupted.
- HyperCore OS delivers compute, storage, networking, and backup all in one.
- A unified UI that provides role-based access for all infrastructure functions.
Red Hat OpenShift
Best for unified VM and container management
Overall rating: 3.9/5
- Cost: 3.8/5
- Core Features: 4/5
- Customer Support: 3/5
- Ease of Use: 3.8/5
- Management and Automation: 4.4/5
- Compatibility: 4.5/5
Red Hat OpenShift is a Kubernetes-native container platform that merges Kubernetes with enterprise-grade features. OpenShift’s Virtualization, included with Red Hat OpenShift, brings traditional virtual machines into a container-native hybrid cloud platform. It simplifies VM migration and management through a consistent control plane that handles both VMs and containers. This helps MSPs preserve existing virtualization investments while adopting modern orchestration and developer workflows.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Industry-leading stability and security | Subscription costs add up at scale |
| Extensive enterprise support | The platform may require specialized knowledge to use effectively. |
| Wide compatibility with enterprise environments | Limited 3rd party application support. |
Pricing
Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization offers either cloud services or self-managed options. Cloud services offer reserved instances starting at $0.076 per hour, based on 4vCPU and a 3-year term. The pricing of the self-managed option depends on your environment size and support level. Subscriptions are sold per core or per node.
Features
- Advanced security features for client data protection using an industry-leading security framework.
- Supports containerized applications, allowing MSPs to offer modern application deployment options.
- An extensive ecosystem of certified applications and hardware.
- Automation capabilities with Ansible integration.
Bottom line: Offering VMware alternatives should include customization to their needs
As MSPs become aware of more virtualization solutions following VMware’s Partner Connect program and class action settlement, the alternatives presented offer a diverse range of capabilities tailored to different types of clients and their specific needs.
From the scalability and compatibility of Google Compute Engine and Azure Virtual Machines to the automation of Nutanix and the plug-and-play nature of Scale Computing, you’re well-equipped to deliver customized, efficient virtualization services to your clients.
How we evaluated VMware alternatives
The core features always play a huge part in the identity of a software tool. As a result, we gave those features the highest weight. That was followed by cost, since the tools should be straightforwardly and transparently priced. Otherwise, it’s easy to confuse prospective clients with convoluted pricing models. Management and automation, customer support, and compatibility follow in our rankings, with a three-way tie, and are finally topped by ease of use.
- Core features (25%): We assessed features critical to virtualization, such as VM management, networking, storage capabilities, security, and backup and recovery.
- Criterion winner: Azure Virtual Machines
- Cost (20%): Our assessment was based on the pricing models, transparency, and potential for additional costs.
- Criterion winner: Azure Virtual Machines and Google Compute Engine
- Customer support (15%): We considered the availability and quality of vendor support via live chat, phone, email, and more.
- Criterion winner: Azure Virtual Machines
- Management and automation (15%): We examined the tools and features available for simplifying and automating routine tasks like user and role management, deployment, and resource management.
- Criterion winners: Nutanix and Google Compute Engine
- Compatibility (15%): Here we reviewed integration with existing client systems and applications, OS and hardware compatibility, and API availability.
- Criterion winners: Azure Virtual Machines and Google Compute Engine
- Ease of use (10%): We compared the tools based on verified user reviews to determine overall user experience.
- Criterion winner: Nutanix
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Can I migrate from VMware to Hyper‑V?
Yes. You can convert VMware virtual machines to Hyper‑V using tools like the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC), System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), and third-party options like StarWind V2V Converter or Veeam Backup & Replication. However, you need proper planning for workload validation, licensing checks, and infrastructure compatibility before making the switch.
Why use Hyper‑V instead of VMware?
Hyper-V can be more cost-effective, especially for Windows-centric environments. It integrates tightly with the Microsoft ecosystem. It also includes virtualization in Windows Server at no additional cost, and offers features such as live migration, dynamic memory, and failover clustering without requiring premium licensing. For some MSPs, it offers better alignment with hybrid cloud strategies and simplified management.
Who is VMware’s biggest competitor?
VMware’s competitive landscape includes a variety of key players, most notably competitors such as Microsoft with Azure Virtual Machines, which offer deep integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, and Google Cloud’s Compute Engine, known for its scalable infrastructure.
Other significant competitors include open-source platforms such as Red Hat Virtualization and Oracle VM, which offer flexibility and optimization tailored to specific enterprise needs.
Do companies still use VMware?
Yes, VMware remains widely used by companies around the world, thanks to its comprehensive suite of virtualization and cloud management solutions. Despite the emergence of various alternatives, VMware’s established presence, extensive feature set, and strong ecosystem support ensure its ongoing relevance in enterprise IT environments.
Who bought VMware in 2023?
In 2023, Broadcom Inc. completed the acquisition of VMware, marking a significant milestone in the tech industry. This acquisition, valued at approximately $69 billion, brings VMware into Broadcom’s portfolio, expanding Broadcom’s reach in the cloud computing and virtualization sectors. It was also Broadcom’s decision to shutter VMware’s Partner Connect program and focus more on direct business with enterprise clients.