Enterprise VMware licensing costs have jumped from $37 to $350 per core per year, with every order now billed at a 72-core minimum. Rehost legacy virtual workloads directly on OpenStack or alternative virtualization platforms, scale containers on a secure Enterprise Kubernetes Platform, and gain full unified visibility with Unified GitOps Observability.
View alternatives$0.00
Estimated unnecessary VMware licensing fees paid globally since you opened this page.
300-400%
Typical bill increase (Gartner)
Up to 70%
Lower licensing cost with Open Hybrid
CEOs want cost predictability. CIOs want enterprise stability. These three pillars offer a combined modern strategy to transition off VMware entirely.
VM re-hosting layer
Up to 70% lower licensing cost
Enterprise-grade, cost-effective virtualization platforms. A proven replacement to re-host legacy virtual machines (using Proxmox VE, Xen, or Hyper-V) without Broadcom's price premium.
Operational benefits
Private cloud layer
Lower TCO at massive scales
A massive-scale, robust cloud operating system that controls pools of compute, storage, and networking resources. Ideal for big enterprises and compliance-heavy private cloud operations.
Operational benefits
Cloud-native PaaS layer
80% operational efficiency gain
Transform containerized apps. KUPL is an in-house Kubernetes Platform as a Service that brings public-cloud efficiency on-premise, backed by 10 years of field-tested enterprise expertise.
Operational benefits
Every strategic pillar is independent. Run them individually or combine them as a unified, cohesive suite. No forced licensing bundles, no forced vendor lock-in.
Estimate how much your enterprise is overpaying on VMware licenses and see the immediate financial relief of moving to open infrastructure.
Estimated Broadcom VMware annual cost
Based on VMware Cloud Foundation list price of ~$350 per core per year and Broadcom's 72-core minimum. Gartner reports typical VMware bills rising 300-400% under the new model. Estimates exclude one-off migration costs.
$385,140
By migrating virtual machines to alternative virtualization platforms and deploying cloud-native workloads on KUPL PaaS.
C-Suite Advisory: Licensing savings represent only a part of the return. Deploying KUPL Kubernetes PaaS cuts engineering overhead and provides a turnkey GitOps operating model in weeks, speeding up feature deployment times by 80%.
See how our open cloud platforms and observability solutions drive measurable cost reductions, eliminate vendor lock-in, and accelerate delivery speeds in production environments.
Client: Home Credit International
A custom 'DIY' Kubernetes approach proved operationally expensive and fragmented, making updates, patching, and policy auditing highly complex. Engineering teams struggled to balance rapid feature deployment with strict governance and security compliance.
Delivered KUPL, a highly automated Kubernetes Platform as a Service spanning on-premise, cloud, and hybrid environments. The platform integrates full-lifecycle cluster automation, Infrastructure as Code, declarative GitOps deployment, built-in observability with Prometheus, Grafana and Loki, and out-of-the-box security and audit controls.
Measured impact
80% Faster Deployment Speed
Weeks down to hours
10 Years Kubernetes Experience
Proven Track Record
14 Data Centers
Across 7 Countries
Platform capabilities & coverage
Straight answers on VMware pricing, alternatives and what a migration involves.
Gartner reports that typical VMware licensing bills rise by 300 to 400 percent under Broadcom, which now sells VMware through per-core VMware Cloud Foundation subscriptions listed at about $350 per core per year.
Since April 2025, Broadcom requires a minimum order of 72 licensed cores for VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation, so small environments pay for capacity they do not run.
There are three independent paths: alternative virtualization (Proxmox VE, Xen or Hyper-V) to re-host existing virtual machines, an OpenStack private cloud for large multi-tenant or compliance-heavy estates, and KUPL managed Kubernetes for modern containerized applications. You can adopt one or combine them.
An Open Hybrid approach, with alternative virtualization for VMs and KUPL for containers, can lower licensing cost by up to 70%. Our ROI calculator estimates your 3-year saving from your core count, based on VMware Cloud Foundation list price. Real savings depend on your estate and exclude one-off migration costs.
KUPL is EmbedIT’s in-house Kubernetes Platform as a Service. It brings public-cloud efficiency on-premise with Infrastructure as Code and a GitOps operating model, backed by 10 years of Kubernetes experience.
Our observability platform is built on open-source Prometheus, Grafana and Loki: metrics, dashboards, alerting and centralised logs across virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters and data centres. It is built into KUPL, managed through GitOps like the rest of the platform, and we run it for clients, including after VMware to OpenStack migrations.
OpenStack is an open-source cloud platform, licensed under Apache 2.0, that pools compute, storage and networking and exposes them through APIs, much like a public cloud running in your own data centres. It suits large, multi-tenant or compliance-heavy estates that want full control without per-core licence fees. EmbedIT has migrated several data centres from VMware to OpenStack.
In a free 60-minute technical evaluation with a principal cloud-native engineer, we cover VMware licensing auditing and renewal cost predictions, VM compatibility analysis with alternative virtualization platforms and OpenStack, KUPL container onboarding plans, and sovereignty and security planning.
Don't face the VMware licensing storm alone. Our Chief Infrastructure Architects help CEOs, CIOs, and IT directors evaluate current core footprints and build automated migration frameworks.
3 questions · instant result
Answer 3 executive questions about your current infrastructure and security needs. We'll generate a personalized, step-by-step roadmap to transition from VMware to open alternatives.