VMware or Proxmox: what actually matters when you choose
VMware or Proxmox: what actually matters when you choose
Broadcom's VMware licensing changes sent a lot of infrastructure teams back to the whiteboard. The question isn't whether VMware is good technology (it is), but whether the new cost structure and support model fit your environment. Proxmox has become the most common alternative conversation, so here's what the comparison looks like when you strip away the marketing.
VMware still offers the deepest feature set for large, complex environments. vMotion, DRS, and the ecosystem of third-party integrations are mature and well-documented. If you run thousands of VMs, need predictable vendor support, or rely on specific VMware-only tooling, the licensing cost may still make sense. The risk is lock-in and future price changes you can't control.
Proxmox is open-source, built on KVM and LXC, with a capable web interface and API. It handles live migration, clustering, and software-defined storage without per-socket fees. The trade-off is a smaller ecosystem, less hand-holding from a vendor, and more responsibility on your team to configure and troubleshoot. For mid-sized environments or teams comfortable with Linux tooling, it's a serious option. You pay for support if you want it, not because the software won't run without it.
The real decision comes down to your team's skills, your workload complexity, and whether you want to own more of the stack or pay someone else to. Both paths work. The wrong choice is staying on a platform that no longer fits your budget or risk profile because migration sounds hard.
If you're weighing this for your environment and want a second opinion on what the move would actually involve, we're happy to talk through it.