Many organizations are reassessing VMware because Broadcom’s changes are affecting both cost and licensing models.

From a recent peer poll with 257 participants in the Gartner Peer Community:

• 73% said they are actively looking at alternatives to VMware
• 13% are waiting to see how things develop
• Only 9% said they are not rethinking the relationship

The main drivers behind this shift include:

• Significant cost increases – some organizations are projecting a 2x–3x increase in renewal costs based on the new pricing.
• Move from perpetual to subscription licensing – this changes how budgets are planned and approved, and can increase long-term total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Broadcom’s acquisition track record – many IT leaders are cautious, given past experiences with other Broadcom acquisitions.

As a result, teams are not only looking at hypervisor alternatives, but also revisiting their broader infrastructure roadmap, including cloud strategy and vendor dependencies.

Peers are seeing a mix of contractual complexity and rising costs as they approach renewals.

Common issues include:

• Sharp renewal increases – one organization’s analysis of its 2025 renewal showed a potential 2x–3x cost increase under the new pricing.
• Perpetual to subscription shift – customers who previously relied on perpetual licenses are now being moved to subscription-based models, which can raise ongoing operating expenses.
• Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) uncertainty – some customers have clauses in ELAs (for example, signed in 2021) that allow a one-year extension at a capped price, and they are unsure how enforceable or negotiable these clauses are under the new ownership.
• Scale-based licensing exposure – for example, one organization’s VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) licensing is tied to 5,000 processor cores, so any per-core or bundle changes have a large financial impact.

To manage these challenges, organizations are:

• Right-sizing their VMware environments before renewal
• Actively benchmarking pricing and terms with peers
• Using renewal discussions as a trigger to evaluate alternative platforms

Organizations are not always abandoning VMware outright; many are reimagining how and where they use it, while also evaluating non-VMware options.

Common strategies include:

1. Hybrid cloud with VMware-compatible services

• Some teams are exploring Azure VMware Solution (AVS) as a way to keep a VMware-based stack while starting a hybrid cloud journey.
• This approach lets them reuse existing VMware skills and tools, move workloads to the cloud, and migrate back on-premises without refactoring applications.

2. Evaluating alternative hypervisors and platforms

• Organizations are looking at other hypervisors and network virtualization options to reduce single-vendor risk, including alternatives to NSX.
• Right-sizing and workload rationalization are often the first steps before any platform change.

3. Challenging vendor lock-in

• Teams are starting to question software vendors that require VMware as the only supported virtualization platform.
• The concern is that if VMware becomes more of a niche platform, the extra costs for specialized staff, hardware, and licensing will increase application TCO.
• This can trigger broader platform changes that go beyond just the hypervisor layer.

Overall, the trend is to rethink infrastructure strategy rather than make a rushed, one-dimensional switch. Many organizations are using this moment to reassess cloud adoption, vendor diversification, and long-term TCO.