Top VMware Alternatives to Dive Deeper in 2024
In this blog post, we will cover following topics re VMware alternatives
Still Got VMware? Why now is the time to look for alternatives
Top 6 VMware Alternatives to Consider
Comparison Table for Core Virtualization Feature – VMware Alternatives
Still got VMware?
As we approach the one year anniversary of Broadcom acquisition of VMware, the number of enterprise customers traditionally loyal to VMware but now looking for an exit button is growing exponentially. And the top question on everyone’s mind is, where do I go next to find the best VMware alternative? Is there a platform that will give me all the bells and whistles of virtualization capabilities that I got so used to tweaking and tuning to my heart’s content over past couple of decades?
This multi-part series is our attempt to make your journey to finding the right VMware alternatives a little easier, by identifying the top contenders out of a longer list that are worthy of your attention, then outlining their strengths and weaknesses across various capabilities that are critical to enterprises. This should get your well situated on your journey to evaluate your options. If you’re looking for a single document with a deeper dive into the comparison, we also have Buyer’s Guide to VMware Alternatives which compares Proxmox, Nutanix, Hyper-V & OpenStack across 42 capabilities. You can download it here.
Top 6 VMware alternatives to consider
While VMware has ruled the kingdom as a comprehensive virtualization platform, several other options – both open source and commercial – have emerged and grown over past couple of decades as worthy alternatives. We chose a subset of 6 options out of a wider list as these solutions seem to have majority of the capabilities that an enterprise will need in order to replace VMware. Here they are:
- Proxmox
- Nutanix AHV
- Platform9 Private Cloud Director
- Microsoft Hyper-V
- Redhat OpenShift Virtualization
- OpenStack
We chose not to include other virtualization alternatives such as open source kvm, kubevirt, virtualbox or xen since any enterprise looking to run a virtualization environment at scale will find these options lacking in one or more of the following – breadth of features, enterprise support, future roadmap.
Proxmox
Proxmox Virtual Environment is an open source VMware alternative that allows users to manage both virtual machines and containers using a single product.
Under the hood, Proxmox combines two virtualization technologies – KVM for full virtualization and Linux Containers (LXC) for lightweight virtualization.
Proxmox is an attractive option for cost conscious customers since the product is completely free to use, but also comes with a paid commercial version that provides technical support, automated upgrades and additional features.
Nutanix AHV
Nutanix AHV is a virtualization platform that allows users to run virtual machines, containers and software-defined storage using a single platform. Nutanix first became popular for their hyper-converged solutions with virtualization, networking and storage all combined in a single stack that you can deploy for remote-office / branch office use case. But it has evolved now to become a comprehensive alternative to VMware, specially if you are looking for a single vendor to provide both hardware and software for your virtualization and storage needs. In the recent years they have broadened their capabilities to add support for containers and Kubernetes and also offer public cloud hosted deployments for backup or DR.
Platform9 Private Cloud Director
Platform9’s Private Cloud Director is a virtualization and container orchestrator platform that is built with the mission to provide a cost-effective and developer friendly alternative to VMware. Private cloud director has several capabilities that enterprise VMware customers are familiar with, such as hypervisor clustering, high availability, vMotion, distributed software defined networking (SDN) etc. Unlike a hyper-converged platform such as Nutanix, Private Cloud Director is a software-only solution that offers the flexibility to integrate with any server infrastructure, and any storage and/or networking solution of your choice. And it also comes built in with Kubernetes and container orchestration support. A key unique feature of PCD is that it’s the only VMware alternative that you can truly consume as a SaaS service that remotely connects to your hypervisors running in your data center. Although PCD does also provide self-hosted option for extra security.
Microsoft Hyper-V
Microsoft’s Hyper-V is a great VMware alternative for those enterprises deeply entrenched in the Microsoft and Windows ecosystem. Hyper-V comes built in as part of your Windows servers and integrates deeply into rest of your Microsoft tooling. Hyper-V offers all or a big subset of virtualization capabilities such as high availability, live migration that VMware users love. It also provides a depth of security and performance features that allow you to better access your hardware. What’s more is that Hyper-V is included as part of Windows licensing so there’s no extra licensing cost. However, hyper-v offers limited support for non-windows servers which is a big drawback unless your environment is majority Windows.
Redhat OpenShift Virtualization
Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization enables users to run virtual machines and container side by side. OpenShift Virtualization is based on KubeVirt which is an open source project that uses KVM under the hood to offer virtualization support natively as part of Kubernetes. Openshift provides key enterprise capabilities such as VM live migration and ability to manage virtualized environments at scale. A key benefit of using Redhat Openshift Virtualization is that you can run containerized and virtualized applications side by side using a single platform that is Kubernetes based. And so if you are a container first organization that is deeply immersed into Kubernetes as a de-facto mechanism to manage application, you will find yourself very comfortable using Redhat OpenShift Virtualization.
OpenStack
OpenStack was born out of a need to have an open alternative to VMware’s proprietary virtualization solution. OpenStack is open source and free to use, although multiple vendors offer commercial support for their own distribution of OpenStack. OpenStack comes built in with a breadth of features such as software defined distributed networking (SDN), software defined storage, image repository, application blueprint management, and object storage, making it a strong contender when one is looking to create a private cloud environment that mimics AWS style architecture and APIs.
Comparing VMware alternatives
Now that we’ve looked at an overview of these 6 VMware alternatives, lets start diving deeper, and compare them across various capabilities that are typically critical to an enterprise virtualization user.
Core virtualization capabilities
Clustering: Clustering enables organizations to create a resilient and scalable virtual infrastructure by grouping multiple servers together to work as a single system. It ensures high availability and fault tolerance, allowing for seamless workload distribution and resource optimization across the cluster.
High availability: High availability ensures continuous operation of critical workloads by automatically detecting and recovering from hardware or software failures. It minimizes downtime and ensures business continuity, enhancing overall system reliability and performance.
Shared storage: Shared storage facilitates data sharing and centralized management of virtualized resources, enabling seamless migration, scalability, and data protection. It provides a unified storage pool accessible to all virtual machines, improving resource utilization and simplifying management.
Software defined networking: Virtual networking enables organizations to create and manage virtual networks, providing connectivity and isolation for virtual machines and workloads. It allows for flexible network configurations, traffic routing, and security policies, ensuring optimal performance and security in virtualized environments.
Supported guests: Supporting a wide range of guest operating systems is essential
for accommodating diverse workloads and applications. It ensures compatibility and interoperability across heterogeneous environments, enabling organizations to run mission- critical applications without constraints.
Dynamic resource management: Dynamic resource management allows organizations to optimize resource utilization and performance based on workload demands. It enables automatic allocation and reallocation of resources, ensuring efficient use of computing resources and improved workload performance.
Cloud readiness: Cloud readiness is becoming increasingly important as organizations adopt hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. It ensures seamless integration with public and private cloud environments, as well as support for containerized workloads, enabling organizations to embrace cloud-native technologies and architectures.
Now lets see how our 6 VMware alternatives fair across these core virtualization capabilities
VMware alternatives comparison across core virtualization capabilities
| Core virtualization capabilities | Proxmox | Nutanix AHV | Microsoft Hyper-V | Platform9 Private Cloud Director | Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization | OpenStack |
| Virtualization technology | KVM | AHV (based on KVM) | Microsoft Hypervisor | KVM | KVM | KVM |
| Clustering | Proxmox VE Cluster supports clustering, although its implementation may not be | Offers strong clustering capabilities with features like Nutanix Cluster Services (NCS), providing enterprise- grade availability for virtualized workloads. | Supports clustering with features like Failover Clustering. Some users have expressed difficulties with clustering and HA, but generally it is mentioned to be reliable. | Offers built-in strong clustering support using PCD capabilities such as VM HA and Automatic Resource Rebalancing (ARR). You can create sub-groups of hosts within a cluster for more granular provisioning control. Additionally, the SaaS management option makes the setup experience easy. | Since this is Kubernetes native virtualization, there’s inherent support for hypervisor clustering along with automated scheduling of VMs across the cluster based on capacity, as well as HA by restarting VMs when they are terminated. However, there is no support for ongoing resource rebalancing via VM live migration. | Supports clustering through Nova Compute and Nova Scheduler. Provides ability to group hypervisors using a feature called ‘host aggregates’. However, no VMware DRS style resource rebalancing via VM live migrations offered. |
| High Availability (HA) | Provides HA with automatic failover, but the implementation may not be as mature or seamless as VMware’s HA. | Offers strong HA capabilities with automatic VM restart and failover, providing enterprise-grade availability for virtualized workloads. | Offers high availability through Failover Clustering feature, but the setup and management may not be as user-friendly as VMware’s HA. | Provides out of the box strong HA capabilities with node failure detection, automated node evacuation and VM restart. | HA is available for the clusters as a built-in Kubernetes feature. | No out of box seamless support for VM HA, however one can put it together using available open source components but with significant manual effort. |
| Shared storage | Supports shared storage with options like Ceph and NFS, | Offers shared storage out of box with Nutanix Distributed Storage Fabric (DSF), providing scalable and resilient storage for virtualized workloads. This is the preferred model of integration. Limited support and flexibility for integration with third party storage vendors. | Supports shared storage with features like Storage Spaces Direct (S2D). “We have customers with Hyper-V. When it comes to the S2D, it really disappoint- ing. That’s why most users using 3rd party software for storage like hardware SAN, Starwinds vsan, etc.” | Offers out of box shared storage support for all popular enterprise storage solutions, using OpenStack cinder interface. Flexibility to integrate with storage solution of your choice. Platform9 also partners with most of the popular storage solutions. | Support for various leading storage solutions using Kubernetes CSI framework for Kubevirt. Red hat also provides ceph storage out of box as an option. | |
| Virtual networking | Supports virtual networking with options like Linux bridges and Open vSwitch (OVS). No out of box support for a full featured distributed software defined networking (SDN). | Offers virtual networking with features like Nutanix Flow, providing network security and micro-segmentation capabilities within Nutanix clusters. | Supports virtual networking with features like Hyper-V Network Virtualization (HNV). | Out of box support for full featured software defined networking (SDN), including micro-segmentation, virtual networks, switches and all other required capabilities. | No VMware style software defined networking. But support for networking available through CNI integrations with Kubernetes native networking plugins. Support for multiple NW interfaces per VM using multus plugin. Support for network policies via k8s native initiatives. Requires deep understanding of k8s. | Out of box support for full featured software defined networking (SDN). |
| Supported guests | Supports various guest operating systems, including Windows | Supports a wide range of guest operating systems, ensuring broad compatibility for virtualized workloads within Nutanix clusters. | Supports popular guest operating systems like Windows and Linux. | Supports a variety of guest operating systems, but compatibility may vary depending on the hypervisor used and guest requirements. | Supports popular guest operating systems like Windows and Linux, but compatibility with some enterprise applications may require additional configurations. | Supports popular guest operating systems like Windows and Linux |
| Dynamic resource management (DRS) or equivalent | Only available at startup. Ongoing DRS is not available. | Offers dynamic resource management with features like Nutanix Prism and Acropolis Dynamic Scheduling (ADS), enabling automatic workload placement and resource optimization within Nutanix clusters. | Supports dynamic resource management with features like Hyper-V Dynamic Memory and Dynamic Optimization | Out of box support for DRS style hypervisor clustering through Virtualized Clusters feature. Automated VM scheduling on the cluster as well as ongoing resource consolidation and management. | Dynamic resource management achieved through Kubernetes scheduling, might require additional configuration such as separate schedulers etc. Platform9 provides dedicated management dashboards and configuration to manage resourcing for VM workloads. | Supports dynamic resource scheduling and management through Nova Compute and Nova Scheduler. But resource management does not include active moving of VMs to better utilize existing capacity. |
| Private Cloud experience | Not designed to be a private cloud experience OOB. | Provides private cloud experience with features like multi-tenancy, automated scheduling of VMs. May require more management effort as was not built to be private cloud ready. | Has support for private cloud capability by creating a VMM private cloud. Supports features like self-service access, resource pooling, elastic scaling. | Was designed to provide OOB private cloud experience. Comes natives with features like self-service portal, automated VM provisioning, dynamic & elastic scaling of resources, and resource optimization through Virtualized Clusters | Is designed for cloud-native environments as Kubernetes was designed to be cloud native. Does require additional work to create a true cloud like experience, specially around software defined networking. Redhat offers additional features like image catalog. Cross -cluster provisioning not possible so provisioning scope limited to single k8s cluster. | Was designed to provide OOB private cloud experience. Comes natives with features like self-service portal, automated VM provisioning, dynamic & elastic scaling of resources. |
| Public cloud integration | Possible with features | Also provides seamless integration with public and hybrid cloud platforms. | Is suitable for cloud environments with features like Azure integration and support for hybrid cloud scenarios. | No OOB integration for hybrid cloud management | No OOB integration for hybrid cloud management | OpenStack has some hybrid cloud integrations but they are not widely used. |
In the next few blog posts, we will continue to compares these 6 solutions across additional features and other important aspects such as pricing, support, roadmap etc.
Want a single whitepaper that compares these 6 options across 42 different capabilities?
Download our VMware buyer’s guide now.
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