Server virtualization market heats up as VMware rivals try to create alluring alternatives
(2025/11/17)
- Reference: 1763358311
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/11/17/gartner_server_virtualization_guide/
- Source link:
The market for server virtualization tools is about to fragment, according to analyst firm Gartner.
“The server virtualization market is facing the most significant disruption in decades,” states the analyst’s October market guide to server virtualization platforms. Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware – and subsequent decision to focus its efforts on a broad public cloud platform – is the reason for the shifting market.
“For many Gartner clients, the aftereffects of VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom represent a turning point in the market for server virtualization,” the market guide states. “Disruption is being driven by customer concerns about increases in the total cost of ownership, the quality of support, and changes to product roadmaps with limited perceived benefit.”
[1]
The document notes that as of 2024 VMware dominated the server virtualization market with over 96 percent of revenue share, and that none of its rivals can completely match the capabilities of Virtzilla’s stack. But Gartner feels “many” of its clients are sufficiently upset by Broadcom’s actions, which have usually seen VMware customers’ software costs rise 300 to 400 percent, that they have lost trust in the virtualization pioneer and are ready to “explore alternatives for current and/or future infrastructure requirements.”
[2]IBM Cloud stops signing and seeking new customers for its VMware service
[3]Twist in Tesco vs. VMware case as Computacenter files claim against Broadcom, Dell
[4]OpenStack in the pink with Flamingo release that escapes ancient Python constrictions
[5]SaaS vendors are hiking costs faster than inflation, but squeaky wheels can still get deals
Gartner thinks this moment is therefore an opportunity in which VMware users should contemplate modernizing their infrastructure and the alternative virtualization platforms that will make that possible.
“Any significant change to an existing server virtualization platform would also take time and effort, but to generate business benefit, it must include reducing technical debt and application modernization as part of the process,” the market guide states, before urging heads of infrastructure and operations to “create an exit plan from their existing hypervisor vendor, now.”
[6]
“Identify the core capabilities required in a replacement virtualization platform, and then pursue ‘quick win’ and low-risk opportunities to evaluate and implement alternate virtualization technologies,” Gartner advises.
The document lists 32 server virtualization vendors, doesn’t recommend any, and says many VMware alternatives “are incomplete and/or maturing.”
[7]
Gartner also feels that most organizations won’t move to a new virtualization platform until 2027, but that “migrations will accelerate through 2026.” ®
Get our [8]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRsASKnkjdKtgQOODnQK_AAAAVg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/28/ibm_end_of_marketing_vmware_cloud/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/28/tesco_vs_broadcom_vmware_update/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/01/openstack_flamingo_release/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/20/saas_license_negotiation_advice/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRsASKnkjdKtgQOODnQK_AAAAVg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRsASKnkjdKtgQOODnQK_AAAAVg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
“The server virtualization market is facing the most significant disruption in decades,” states the analyst’s October market guide to server virtualization platforms. Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware – and subsequent decision to focus its efforts on a broad public cloud platform – is the reason for the shifting market.
“For many Gartner clients, the aftereffects of VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom represent a turning point in the market for server virtualization,” the market guide states. “Disruption is being driven by customer concerns about increases in the total cost of ownership, the quality of support, and changes to product roadmaps with limited perceived benefit.”
[1]
The document notes that as of 2024 VMware dominated the server virtualization market with over 96 percent of revenue share, and that none of its rivals can completely match the capabilities of Virtzilla’s stack. But Gartner feels “many” of its clients are sufficiently upset by Broadcom’s actions, which have usually seen VMware customers’ software costs rise 300 to 400 percent, that they have lost trust in the virtualization pioneer and are ready to “explore alternatives for current and/or future infrastructure requirements.”
[2]IBM Cloud stops signing and seeking new customers for its VMware service
[3]Twist in Tesco vs. VMware case as Computacenter files claim against Broadcom, Dell
[4]OpenStack in the pink with Flamingo release that escapes ancient Python constrictions
[5]SaaS vendors are hiking costs faster than inflation, but squeaky wheels can still get deals
Gartner thinks this moment is therefore an opportunity in which VMware users should contemplate modernizing their infrastructure and the alternative virtualization platforms that will make that possible.
“Any significant change to an existing server virtualization platform would also take time and effort, but to generate business benefit, it must include reducing technical debt and application modernization as part of the process,” the market guide states, before urging heads of infrastructure and operations to “create an exit plan from their existing hypervisor vendor, now.”
[6]
“Identify the core capabilities required in a replacement virtualization platform, and then pursue ‘quick win’ and low-risk opportunities to evaluate and implement alternate virtualization technologies,” Gartner advises.
The document lists 32 server virtualization vendors, doesn’t recommend any, and says many VMware alternatives “are incomplete and/or maturing.”
[7]
Gartner also feels that most organizations won’t move to a new virtualization platform until 2027, but that “migrations will accelerate through 2026.” ®
Get our [8]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aRsASKnkjdKtgQOODnQK_AAAAVg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/28/ibm_end_of_marketing_vmware_cloud/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/28/tesco_vs_broadcom_vmware_update/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/01/openstack_flamingo_release/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/20/saas_license_negotiation_advice/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRsASKnkjdKtgQOODnQK_AAAAVg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/virtualization&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aRsASKnkjdKtgQOODnQK_AAAAVg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Ditch the emotion
Anonymous Coward
A lot of us, myself included, have got angry at having our trusty hypervisor manhandled by Mr Tan and co...
There are many viable alternatives for hosting VM workloads, but it's interesting that Gartner are focusing on selecting a platform that is modern, removes tech debt, and ultimately offers more than just VM hosting.
VCF with it's software defined architecture, robust automation, native paas for DB and k8s.... Actually not a bad option after all.
Yes it costs more than it did, yes Broadcom have annoyed us all, but if you take the emotion out of it then choosing VMware VCF will give you the modern platform Gartner are suggesting and will certainly allow us IT techs to sleep easier at night.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out VMware by Broadcom
mfalcon
All going well the team I work in will have completed migrating all of our VMs off VMware by March of 2026.
Going forward it would be wise for organisations to maintain some competence in at least one alternative VM product as a standard risk mitigation measure against gross vendor greed.
I'm hopeful
for HPE VM Essentials. Though they have been terrible to-date releasing much of any info. On one of my fishing expeditions to find out more info I came across an excellent PDF document on some server in Italy. It answered most of my questions, almost all of them, the only remaining ones are around "how well does it work...". My biggest questions are around fibrechannel storage with GFS2(not as if GFS2 is a new filesystem, it's apparently 20 years old). Have read mixed results on that for other platforms at least. HPE supports it out of the box(unlike Proxmox last I checked). I got ~300T of HPE 3PAR fibrechannel flash storage across multiple arrays I don't plan to stop using anytime soon.
But this document is awesome(27 pages long, even has feature by feature breakdown comparing them vs vSphere), though found out apparently it is an internal only document not meant to be released, they have since removed it from the site in Italy. I actually found it doing web searches trying to find info about GFS2 and KVM. I sent HPE as strong wording as I could they need to get this info out there. The doc answered a ton of my other Qs and really made me feel good about using it. Only paranoia bit is are they not saying all this stuff in the doc yet because it doesn't work well? maybe..
I haven't spent TOO much time looking at other alternatives but from what I have seen, at least for my use cases(not ripping out my storage), nothing seems to come close to VM Essentials (not even Ubuntu's LXD product)
Also helps that Ubuntu 24 (which VM Essentials runs on top of) is my standard OS anyway. 90%+ of what would be deployed on it is other linux VMs.
I plan to evaluate it in 4-5 months, giving it more time to mature.