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Best VMware Alternatives – ESXi FREE is DEAD

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In this series of posts that we'll be creating over the next couple of weeks, we'll try to list the best VMware Alternatives for virtualization of servers. Many alternative vendors does not do VDI so we won't include those in our series. VMware does VDI pretty well and their Horizon/One products got pretty good over the years. However, I have completely lost interest in VDI and shifted my interest over the years so my thoughts on this are that it is certainly a big plus for VMware compare to the other vendor, but hey, not everybody needs VDI, right?

VMware just announced that they discontinue the VMware ESXi FREE hypervisor. (In fact, I saw a tweet from Anthony Spiteri, a fellow blogger. This is sad for all homelabbers and ESXi FREE users. This is a very black day for me too.

The KB is here.

Along with the termination of perpetual licensing, Broadcom has also decided to discontinue the Free ESXi Hypervisor, marking it as EOGA (End of General Availability).

Regrettably, there is currently no substitute product offered.

VMware is one of the most popular and widely used virtualization platforms in the world. It offers a range of products and services that enable users to create, manage, and run virtual machines (VMs) on various operating systems and hardware. VMware also provides cloud computing, networking, security, and storage solutions for enterprises and individuals.

Why You Should Consider Switching to a New Virtualization Platform and How to Do It?

However, VMware is not the only option when it comes to virtualization. Many other alternatives may offer similar or even better features, performance, and pricing. In this blog post, we will explore some of the best VMware alternatives and what are the constraints to switch to a new virtualization platform.

All VMware users might probably hate me after publishing this article, but for me, it's important to talk about alternatives as they no longer suck. That was the case probably 10 years ago when very little of them were actually in production. Now with Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, it seems that things has changed and everybody has an electroshock for a couple of months, or even over a year.

Vendor Lock-In

Are you 100% VMware shop and after the Broadcom acquisition of VMware you have counted that your subscription licensing costs will explode if you keep using what you currently use? Congratulations, you are locked in. No, but seriously, vendor lock-in isn't good, so even if you are 100 % VMware shop and you like VMware products, the company, and the ecosystem, you still should look around and make a small move and start building an alternative!

If you are 100% locked in, the switch is more difficult. Depending on your situation, getting out of VMware lock-in may be easy or hard, cheap or expensive, fast or slow. You need to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of switching versus staying with VMware and decide what is best for you.

Constraints to Switch to a New Virtualization Platform

Switching to a new virtualization platform may not be as easy as it sounds. There are many constraints and challenges that users may face when they decide to migrate from VMware to another alternative. Some of these constraints are:

  • Compatibility – One of the main constraints to switch to a new virtualization platform is compatibility. Users may have to ensure that their existing VMs, applications, data, and hardware are compatible with the new platform. This may involve converting, importing, exporting, or reconfiguring their VMs, as well as testing and troubleshooting their functionality and performance on the new platform. Users may also have to deal with potential conflicts or errors that may arise from different virtualization formats, drivers, or protocols.
  • Cost – Another constraint to switch to a new virtualization platform is cost. admins may have to incur additional costs to acquire, install, and maintain the new platform. This may include hardware, software, licenses, training, and support. Users may also have to consider the opportunity cost of switching, such as the time, effort, and resources that may be required to migrate and adapt to the new platform. Users may have to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of switching versus staying with VMware.
  • Risk – A third constraint to switch to a new virtualization platform is risk. Administrators may have to face various risks when they switch to a new platform, such as data loss, downtime, security breaches, performance degradation, or compliance issues. Administrators may have to back up their data, ensure their security, monitor their performance, and comply with their regulations when they switch to a new platform. Users may also have to prepare for contingency plans and recovery strategies in case of any failures or disasters.

The actual process might be less painful than you think

Back in the day, when we started with the virtualization of servers where we P2V'd our servers from bare metal to virtual infrastructure. We did not know much about virtualization, or management of VMs, but we've learned it all.

Once we've done that, we had the cloud, where we migrated our workloads to the cloud. Now we want to migrate it back take control, run it cheaper because the cloud is too expensive and the costs are not under control… The cycle…

Build a lab for testing – one of the ways that you could go is the way of the low risk and I think that everyone like to not to take too much risk. We've tightened with compliance, backups etc, so risk is important part of the job. By building a small lab with an alternative hypervisor solution, you'll get use to it, explore the tooling, create and (or) migrate some test VMs, test performance, monitoring, backups, restores. You have to do it by yourself. Even if I publish the best class review about some alternative platform, you'll probably still have doubts, you'll need to lab it!

Start small, grow bigger – put some small workloads on this alternative lab system, migrate some monitoring VMs, some non-critical workloads, test whether you can restart if one of the hosts goes down (HA). The alternative solution should have migration tool build-in. If not, you can use one of V2V or P2V software around (Hypervisor switch with StarWind V2V/P2V converter) If the alternative solution has vMotion (it should imho), test it to see the performance degradation. Test backups and or replication (if included). Check with your favorite backup vendor whether they're planning to support this solution.

Validate migration scheme – once those testings done, time to grow this lab system into a small production system. Continue migrate more VMs to it while backing them up. Reconfigure your backup software so you don't lose any backups and stay in compliance.

Final Words

We will still be monitoring this space, and over the next couple of weeks/months, we try to look into alternatives, like many of you do to. I alredy looked at some, but needs to gather more data about about some solutions such as XCP-NG (Frenchies!!), VergeIO, Nutanix (needs hardware to buy with), KVM, Proxmox VE, Hyper-V, and more….

Update:

Check out those posts about VMware ESXi and vSphere Alternatives:

More posts from ESX Virtualization:

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About Vladan SEGET

This website is maintained by Vladan SEGET. Vladan is as an Independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert x16, Veeam Vanguard x9, VCAP-DCA/DCD, ESX Virtualization site has started as a simple bookmarking site, but quickly found a large following of readers and subscribers.

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Comments

      • Thomas says

        I’m not convinced Broadcomm has made the best decision with VMware, especially longterm.

        No doubt the VMware/ESXi community will suffer as a result. Less new users and small businesses etc…

        I suppose their will be a popular move to adopting KVM/Promox or similar

        Reply

  2. RMPL says

    “This deal is getting worse all the time.” (L.Carlissian)

    The real question is when Broadcom will come to the conclusion that “on-premise” software as such has no future…. We just see it with Microsoft. Then generally switching to any other viritualization software now is extremely risky, products are niche, not widely supported (especially in backup and disaster recovery area), most of open source projects has two kind of future – closing sooner or later or go full corporate with the same path as Broadcom nad ecisting corporate owned virtualziations maybe just side business for companies and they can cancel it any moment.

    Sadly in my humble opinion VMware was chosen by so many customers because of predicted offering stability and now they may not recover form current ways. Changes are rushed badly communicated and I am pretty sure that just month ago they announce that Hyeprvisor Free will stay safe and sound. So what message are sent to cutomers ?

    I believe that cost of staying with Hypervisor Free was marginal for Broadcom and eliminating this offer showing customers that general idea of on-premise software model at Broadcom is endangered. I cannot see any other explanation.

    What is also interesting that no major Vmware releases wasn’t released since what september 2023 ? This may show additional problem, but time will tell…

    Reply

    • Vladan SEGET says

      To me, ESXi free was the symbol of FREE virtualization (with known limitations) from VMware. We all knew those limits, but hey, why you taking this from us when it’s free? Those who will want to get in control of the cost of their infra, will go back on-prem. With no hidden costs, no opaque offers, no small prints.

      Reply

  3. nick says

    A significant problem that we face in the tech industry today is the conglomeration of smaller tech companies into extremely large monopolistic entities that are, together, driving customers to abandon ownership of infrastructure and become overly dependent on their rental subscription services.

    We generally do not stop to consider the financial ownership, interest and intent that lies behind many of these increasingly connected corporations and if we continue to ignore this trend we will find that we have reached a milestone. At which point freedom to choose how to build and run infrastructure, and even our tech businesses, will be all but removed.

    Broadcom’s acquisition of Vmware will result in a great many smaller businesses defaulting to a move into the clouds provided by the big three or four. Much of the finance backing Broadcom also backs the big cloud providers.

    If people look closely, if they scrutinise Broadcom and their behaviours past and present, as well as their financial and industry relationships, they will begin to recognise some not so good trends that also are occurring in many other industries and sectors. There is a kind of brutality and arrogance in their governance towards people – both customers and employees, all the while hiding behind very nice marketing with expressions of kindness and tolerance and, especially, community.

    Reply

  4. Cello says

    Sorry but the title left me with the impression that this blog would be listing the alternatives to ESXi, did I get click baited?

    Reply

    • Vladan SEGET says

      This was an introductory post, where I’m doing a series of posts (link at the bottom, already started with XCP-NG and Verge.IO). No you did not get “click baited” -:)…. If you have any suggestions for other alternative hypervisors, don’t hesitate. Next on my list will be Proxmox.

      Reply

  5. Larry says

    IMHO killing off the free version of ESXi is going to impact them big time in the long run. So many people got into and loved VMware from this route.

    Now that it is gone, they will move to something else then champion that something else eventually. Brodcom does not care they are in it for the maximize the short-term profits.

    If you virtualize mostly Windows Sever workloads, then Hyper V is kind of a no brainer. With Server 2025 improving Hyper V features at least it will be around for a while. However it might be another Azure subscription before long.

    Reply

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