Insights from Gartner’s 2025 Market Guide for Server Virtualization Platforms on VMware Replacement

As companies keep moving forward with digital transformation, the whole server virtualization market is changing quickly. Gartner’s 2025 Market Guide for Server Virtualization Platforms points out that “the server virtualization market is undergoing the most significant disruption in decades, as Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware has reshaped the competitive landscape.” The report further predicts that “by 2028, cost pressures will drive 70% of enterprise VMware customers worldwide to migrate 50% of their virtual workloads.” The main drivers are the new licensing rules and changing requirements within organizations. In this post, we will cover the VMware alternatives, explain why switching has become necessary for many teams, and show real ways to move to platforms that give more freedom and keep costs under control.

VMware Alternatives: The Need for Change

For a very long time, VMware stayed the clear leader in server virtualization. Its main products — vSphere, vCenter, and vSAN — delivered everything large companies needed. But after Broadcom bought VMware, the licensing model changed completely to subscriptions only. This change pushed costs much higher for most customers. On top of that, the design of VMware’s ecosystem limits the flexible development needs of users. Because of these reasons, many organizations now actively search for VMware alternatives that bring better flexibility, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and easier scaling.

Rising Costs and Licensing Challenges with VMware

One of the primary reasons businesses are seeking VMware alternative open source solutions is the increased cost of using VMware’s solutions. The shift to subscription-based pricing, coupled with the complexities of managing VMware licenses, has pushed organizations to consider more cost-effective options. For enterprises already under pressure to cut IT costs and optimize their infrastructure, this pricing change has been a significant factor in moving away from VMware.

Many companies are turning to VMware alternative open source platforms like Proxmox and Nutanix, which offer robust features at a fraction of the cost of VMware. These alternatives not only help reduce costs but also provide businesses with greater control over their infrastructure.

The Need for Flexibility and Cloud-Native Support

Another key driver for migration is the growing need for cloud-native environments. VMware’s platform, while robust, is more closely tied to traditional on-premises infrastructure. With businesses increasingly adopting hybrid, multi-cloud, and containerized environments, the need for virtualization platforms that seamlessly integrate with cloud-native tools and support modern infrastructure is becoming paramount. Solutions like OpenShift Virtualization and VMware alternative K8s offer greater flexibility and are better suited for companies seeking to modernize their IT environments.

Key Alternatives to VMware

As businesses search for alternatives to VMware, a few standout platforms have emerged. Hyper-V offers an enterprise-grade solution that is deeply integrated with Microsoft ecosystems. Proxmox, a popular VMware alternative open source solution, provides a powerful virtualization platform that is cost-effective and highly flexible. Nutanix is another solid VMware hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) alternative that businesses are adopting for their virtualization needs. Nutanix focuses on hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), allowing businesses to simplify their data center management while reducing dependency on VMware.

Additionally, ZStack ZSphere is a strong virtualization alternative that provides a more effective replacement for VMware vSphere. ZStack has been recognized in Gartner’s 2025 Global Market Guide for Server Virtualization Platforms with its ZSphere virtualization platform, and its Cloud platform has ranked No. 1 among independent enterprise cloud vendors in IDC’s China Cloud System Software Market Report.

ZStack’s product portfolio fully covers the software infrastructure required for intelligent computing centers, including cloud platforms, virtualization, distributed storage, hyper-converged infrastructure, container cloud platforms, cloud management platforms, database cloud platforms, and AI infrastructure platforms. ZStack serves more than 4,000 enterprise customers across 30+ countries and regions, delivering mainstream VMware replacement solutions such as virtualization platforms, enterprise cloud platforms, container service platforms, and hyper-converged platforms. These offerings enable enterprises to achieve 100% core-scenario replacement of VMware products and subscription bundles across different deployment needs.

Migrate VMware Virtual Machines (VMs) to Alternative Platforms

Migrating away from VMware may seem daunting at first; however, the long-term gains usually make the effort worthwhile. Below, we explain several proven alternatives and walk through the actual steps to complete each migration successfully.

Migrate VMware to Hyper-V

Hyper-V continues to be one of the top choices for companies that already use Microsoft products. It delivers reliable virtualization features and works perfectly with Windows Server. This natural fit makes it an excellent enterprise VMware alternative for Microsoft-focused organizations.

The task to migrate VMware to Hyper-V stays fairly simple. Microsoft supplies useful tools, including the Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC), that handle most of the work automatically. Once the move finishes, teams often see lower expenses. They also benefit from built-in backup, disaster recovery, and automation options, especially when everything connects to Microsoft Azure.

Migrate VMware Virtual Machines to Amazon

More companies now shift workloads to public cloud services. That is why moving VMware virtual machines (VMs) to Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become a common path. AWS created VMware Cloud on AWS exactly for this need. It lets teams keep their existing VMware environment while AWS manages all the hardware underneath.

This migration feels smooth for most users. It delivers clear advantages like instant scaling, better security layers, and cheaper storage. Teams do not have to rewrite applications or rebuild everything. The AWS Migration Hub tool gives a complete picture of every phase and helps solve small issues before they grow.

Migrate VMware vSphere VMs to Azure

Microsoft Azure provides its own powerful set of migration services. The central offering is Azure VMware Solution (AVS). It allows companies to stretch their on-premise VMware setup directly into Azure. Almost no changes are required for running applications or daily processes.

This hybrid method brings real freedom. Teams continue using the VMware tools they already know, yet they instantly gain access to Azure’s advanced services — artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, and more. Built-in disaster recovery keeps any interruption extremely short.

Migrate VMware VMs from a vSphere Datacenter to Google Cloud

Google Cloud simplifies the whole process with Google Cloud VMware Engine. Organizations can take their current VMware workloads and run them on Google’s fast infrastructure. Teams keep the familiar vSphere interface they use every day.

After the transfer, scaling happens automatically. Performance usually improves. Companies also unlock Google’s strong analytics and AI capabilities right away. Automated migration helpers take care of technical details, so the normal business keeps running without problems.

Migrating VMware Virtual Machines from vSphere to ZStack ZSphere

When enterprises evaluate VMware replacement options, one of their primary concerns is whether the migration process may cause business interruption, data loss, or unpredictable risks. The ZStack ZMigrate migration tool is designed precisely to eliminate these concerns—turning what would otherwise be an uncertain “technical adventure” into a predictable, controllable, and standardized process.

ZStack ZMigrate supports online full-machine migration and online migration of large block storage volumes. Regardless of the source environment—whether physical infrastructure, application scenarios, traditional virtualization, private cloud, or public cloud—workloads can be migrated efficiently and reliably to the ZStack ZSphere platform.

For different source platforms, migration can be performed through either the Agent-based mode or the Agentless mode. For different network environments, ZMigrate provides flexible migration architectures by deploying data gateways in various positions to support diverse migration requirements and adapt to multiple migration scenarios.

For large enterprises with hundreds of physical servers or even thousands of virtual machines, the migration challenge grows exponentially. These users typically have advanced requirements, including large-scale migration, complex network and security policies, and rollback mechanisms.

ZStack ZSphere provides corresponding solutions for these needs.

Large-Scale Migration

Gartner defines “large-scale migration” with specific quantitative criteria—usually referring to migration scenarios involving more than 2,000 virtual machines and/or over 100 servers.

Through the ZMigrate tool, ZStack enables VMware virtual machines to be migrated to the ZStack native platform through live migration or offline migration, allowing customers to proceed at their own pace while safely transitioning workloads from VMware to ZStack.

The core mechanism involves the use of an intermediate migration server, leveraging a V2V architecture and a dedicated recovery image to convert the VMware VM disk format, adapt the necessary drivers, and transfer the underlying data.

ZStack has demonstrated strong capabilities in supporting large-scale VMware replacement migrations. A representative example is SHEIN, the second-largest e-commerce company in North America, which successfully completed a VMware replacement project involving hundreds of servers—fully validating ZStack’s ability to support large-scale migrations and highly elastic deployments.

Cross-Platform Rollback Mechanism

In the entire VMware replacement process, the rollback mechanism is not an optional capability—it is the “safety rope” that ensures migration success and controls business risks. Its core principle is that business continuity must take absolute priority.

ZStack ZSphere’s cross-platform rollback mechanism is built on technologies that reverse the migration process, with two key foundations: data re-synchronization and network configuration restoration.

• Reverse incremental data synchronization and rollback

ZStack ZSphere’s incremental rollback mechanism relies on the original VMware-side virtual machine retained during migration and performs incremental data synchronization. This means that once rollback is initiated, the system synchronizes only the incremental data generated while the VM was running on ZStack, rather than performing a full copy—minimizing the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) during business rollback.

• Seamless restoration of network configuration

To ensure that the virtual machine is immediately recognized by the original VMware network environment after being rolled back, ZStack ZSphere supports preserving or restoring the VM’s original MAC address and IP address during the rollback process. This prevents business interruption caused by network configuration changes and avoids extending downtime.

• Streamlined, procedural rollback operations

Users can explicitly trigger rollback from the management interface. The system then automatically performs a sequence of actions—shutting down the VM on ZStack ZSphere, synchronizing incremental data back to the VMware environment, and starting the VM on the VMware platform—minimizing manual intervention and reducing operational risk.

How to Migrate from VMware to OpenShift Virtualization

OpenShift Virtualization quickly gains fans among companies that want one platform for both containers and traditional virtual machines. When teams move from VMware to OpenShift Virtualization, they modernize the entire infrastructure in one step and start their cloud-native journey.

The platform runs VMs and containers side by side. This setup lets every team pick the right tool for each workload. Because OpenShift builds on Kubernetes, container deployment and management become fast and reliable.

ZStack: Let Every Company Have Its Own Cloud

Along with the options listed above, ZStack brings a modern and powerful choice for everyone searching for VMware alternatives. As a provider of AI-driven cloud infrastructure, ZStack helps companies build and control their own private or hybrid clouds easily.

ZStack offers a complete product family that covers virtualization, unified management, and strong disaster recovery. Its dedicated migration tools make the switch from VMware smooth and safe. No matter if the target is a full private cloud or a mixed environment, ZStack keeps everything highly available and fully integrated.

When organizations choose ZStack, daily IT work becomes simpler and faster. They cut their dependence on expensive VMware licenses. The platform supports current VMware workloads from day one while opening the door to the newest cloud-native features. The final result is faster innovation and clearly higher efficiency across the whole company.

ZStack now serves more than 30 countries and regions worldwide and has accumulated over 1,000 successful VMware replacement cases across industries including finance, government, telecommunications, education, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, and transportation.

ZStack has been recognized in Gartner’s 2025 Market Guide for Server Virtualization Platforms with its ZSphere virtualization platform, and has ranked #1 among independent cloud vendors in the IDC China Cloud System Software Market report with its ZStack Cloud platform.

FAQs: Common Questions About VMware Migration and Alternatives

Q: What are the best VMware alternatives enterprises looking to reduce costs?

A: Teams that want to lower spending usually pick Hyper-V, Proxmox, or Nutanix. These enterprise VMware alternatives deliver almost the same features as VMware but at much friendlier prices. Companies can grow without facing the high subscription costs that VMware now charges.

Q: How can I migrate VMware virtual machines (VMs) to Amazon or Azure?

A: Both cloud providers built special services for this exact need. AWS offers VMware Cloud on AWS, and Microsoft provides Azure VMware Solution (AVS). These tools let teams extend on-premise VMware setups into the cloud with almost no changes to applications. The whole process stays smooth and saves money compared to staying only on VMware.

Q: What steps should I take to migrate VMware VMs from a vSphere datacenter to Google Cloud?

A: The main path uses Google Cloud VMware Engine. It runs the same vSphere environment on Google infrastructure. Automated tools guide every step, keep disruption very low, and quickly deliver Google Cloud’s speed and scaling power.

Q: How does ZStack facilitate VMware migration?

A: ZStack is designed for deep compatibility with VMware environments. Its complete migration services move workloads without trouble. Companies gain a modern, scalable cloud that costs less to run. The entire transition feels natural, and critical applications stay online from start to finish.