VMware Alternatives: A Guide to Replacing Core Scenarios, from Products to Ecosystem.

Following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, the company has adjusted its business strategy and changed its licensing model.

It has abolished perpetual licenses, adopted subscription-based pricing, switched from per-CPU to per-core billing, and requires at least 16 cores per CPU for pricing.

These changes have driven many existing and potential users to migrate from VMware to new platforms, replacing VMware vSphere through alternative virtualization and enterprise cloud solutions.

However, VMware has long built a tightly coupled moat — forming an ecosystem of Compute (vSphere) + Storage (vSAN) + Network (NSX) + Operations (Aria) + Container (Tanzu).

Replacing any single product does not equate to replacing VMware as a whole.

Gartner has also pointed out in its reports that for most enterprises, there is no single substitute for vSphere — it requires a combination of multiple technologies.

This means that only vendors capable of providing a complete product portfolio can truly achieve 100% full-scenario replacement of VMware’s product suite.

1. Why Replacing VMware Is Difficult

The core difficulty lies in VMware’s highly coupled architecture and extensive software-hardware ecosystem.

As mentioned earlier, after more than two decades of evolution, VMware has built a deep moat through its tightly integrated product portfolio — Compute (vSphere) + Storage (vSAN) + Network (NSX) + Operations (Aria) + Container (Tanzu).

This combination forms an extremely complex and interdependent system.

In actual enterprise operations, these modules collaborate to support critical business scenarios:

• vSphere provides the runtime environment for virtual machines.
• vSAN enables storage resource pooling.
• NSX ensures network isolation and micro-segmentation.
• Aria handles full-stack monitoring and orchestration.
• Tanzu supports emerging container workloads and helps users transition toward cloud-native architectures.

Because of this tight coupling, replacing VMware cannot be achieved through a single product. It must cover multiple modules simultaneously.

For instance:

If you replace only vSphere but lack an alternative to vSAN, the absence of storage pooling will cause business disruption.

Without Aria’s operational features, monitoring and orchestration efficiency will drop sharply.

Any functional gap in one link creates a migration barrier for successful replacement.

Beyond its internal coupling, VMware has also built a powerful ecosystem of partners and hardware vendors.

For example, third-party backup vendors like Veritas are deeply integrated with VMware products.

Under the subscription model, enterprises seeking to replace VMware must not only swap out VMware products but also ensure the new platform can adapt to existing software and hardware ecosystems.

2. ZStack’s Full-Scenario VMware Alternative from Ecosystem to Product Portfolio

According to Gartner’s reports, the mainstream approaches to replacing VMware include hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), enterprise cloud (private or hybrid), container service platforms, virtualization platforms, and other open-source-based solutions.

To address the difficulties of replacing VMware, ZStack has developed its own answers across two dimensions: Ecosystem compatibility and Product portfolio substitution

Recently, Gartner released its 2025 Market Guide for Server Virtualization Platforms report. ZStack was listed as a representative vendor thanks to the outstanding technological capabilities of its virtualization platform ZSphere and its extensive global deployment practices.

2.1 Ecosystem Compatibility

ZStack’s virtualization platform ZStack ZSphere features a broad ecosystem that spans from underlying chips to infrastructure, operating systems, and application vendors.

It has achieved mutual certification with international partners such as Veritas, NetApp,  effectively decoupling from VMware’s closed ecosystem and enabling smooth migration without compatibility barriers.

It supports non-x86 CPUs such as Kunpeng, Hygon, and Phytium, as well as operating systems including Kylin and openEuler.

ZStack’s ecosystem now covers over 400 hardware and software combinations.

Currently, ZStack  supports four major chip architectures: x86, ARM, LoongArch, and SW64.

It is compatible with eight processor platforms — Intel, AMD, Hygon, Zhaoxin, Kunpeng, Phytium, Shenwei, and Loongson — providing full support for users deploying multi-architecture, multi-generation servers.

Looking toward AI-driven workloads, ZSphere supports unified management of heterogeneous GPU resources, allowing simultaneous operation of virtual machines, containers, and bare metal servers within one platform.

This enables the creation of flexible resource pools for AI training and inference workloads.

If adapting to the VMware ecosystem symbolizes breaking the “closed traditional virtualization model” and moving toward an open modern platform,

then replacing VMware’s entire product suite represents a fundamental transformation — shifting enterprise IT foundations from procurement-based integration to self-built innovation.

2.2 Product Portfolio Replacement

As a product-portfolio VMware alternative, ZStack currently offers four mainstream options: a virtualization platform, an enterprise cloud platform, a container service platform, and a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) platform.

Here, we first present the applicable scenarios for VMware’s different subscription bundles to help users make side-by-side comparisons and choose the most suitable alternative.

3. VMware Alternative with ZStack ZSphere Virtualization Platform

The ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform can achieve 100% replacement for VMware VVEP (vSphere Essentials), VVS (vSphere Standard + centralized storage), and VVF (vSphere Enterprise + centralized storage) bundles.

Through integration with CMP, centralized and distributed storage, and container products, it forms a complete upgrade path and replacement portfolio.

Previously, small and mid-sized users typically adopted VMware products such as vSphere Essentials, vSphere Enterprise, or vSphere Standard.

After the new sales model adjustment, VMware now promotes VVEP, VVS, and VVF subscription bundles as replacement options.

For customers using these VMware packages, ZSphere enables direct replacement, providing seamless hot upgrades, dynamic resource scheduling, security groups, and resource forecasting services.

ZStack also offers value-added upgrade paths, including modules for bare-metal management, continuous data protection, and backup and migration services.

For customers running vSphere + vSAN / centralized storage, VMware recommends the VVS and VVF subscription bundles.

ZStack ZSphere supports seamless integration with both ZStack ZStone distributed storage and centralized storage, allowing either compute–storage separation or converged deployment.

Accordingly, ZStack provides two alternative paths:

1. ZSphere + Centralized Storage (Smooth Evolution Path)

This path protects users’ existing investments in SAN storage assets from vendors such as HPE, NetApp, Dell, and Huawei.

Through ZSphere’s unique SharedBlock technology, existing SAN storage systems can be integrated directly.

SharedBlock abstracts the complex underlying storage protocols into a unified standard interface, providing standardized storage services for virtual machines.

As a result, ZSphere can simultaneously connect to and manage multi-type, multi-vendor storage resources (HPE, NetApp, Dell, Huawei, Sugon, etc.).

2. ZSphere + ZStone (New Deployment Path)

This path directly replaces the VMware vSphere + vSAN combination. ZStone is a distributed storage solution in the same category as vSAN but offers broader hardware compatibility.

While vSAN maintains a strict Hardware Compatibility List that creates vendor lock-in, ZStone adopts an open hardware compatibility policy. It supports not only x86 servers but also non-x86 ARM64 platforms and standard storage devices, thereby reducing hardware constraints and enabling better reuse of existing equipment.

For users of VMware subscription bundles, ZStack recommends an upgrade path combining ZStack ZSphere Virtualization Platform + ZStack Distributed Storage + ZStack CMP Multi-Cloud Management + ZStack Zaku Container Service Platform, with optional modules for bare-metal servers, continuous data protection, backup, and migration services.

ZStack ZSphere offers a similar user experience to VMware vSphere, allowing experienced administrators to adopt it immediately without additional training.

In addition to functional equivalence, ZSphere provides enhanced advantages:

• Cross-version hot upgrade support
• Installation and deployment within 30 minutes per server
• Cluster scalability from 1 to 1,000 servers
• Unified compatibility for legacy hardware and centralized storage
• Three-month free trial with full features
• End-to-end services from seamless migration to worry-free migration

4. Enterprise Cloud Platform Replacement Solutions

For medium and large-scale data centers using vSphere + vSAN + network + operations + container components, VMware recommends the VVF and VCF subscription bundles.

To replace these solutions, enterprises can adopt ZStack Cloud as a comprehensive enterprise cloud alternative.

The ZStack Cloud product suite integrates ZStack CMP multi-cloud management, ZStack distributed storage, and the ZStack Zaku container service platform.

ZStack Cloud offers full virtualization capabilities across compute, storage, and network, with resources allocated and expanded on demand.

A single cluster can scale from one to one thousand servers and manage heterogeneous virtualization environments (including co-management with VMware).

It also features elastic bare-metal support and heterogeneous CPU/GPU computing capabilities, serving a wide range of scenarios including private clouds, hybrid clouds, cross-region management, and AI computing.

5. Container Service Platform (ZStack Zaku) Replacement Solutions

For medium-to-large users deeply invested in TKG (Tanzu Kubernetes Grid), whose stacks include vSphere + vSAN + Aria + NSX + TKG, VMware recommends the VVF and VCF bundles.

ZStack offers a comprehensive alternative through its Zaku Container Service Platform, augmented with modules for DevOps, tenant management, and K8s cluster governance.

The ZStack Zaku platform fully covers the container service capabilities of VMware Tanzu, achieving functional parity and deep integration with ZStack Cloud’s compute, network, storage, and security components.

Its plug-and-play architecture abstracts the complexity of container technologies and simplifies operations.

It provides unified login, tenant, resource quota, and authorization management, as well as enterprise-grade features such as multi-cluster management, CI/CD, microservice governance, GPU scheduling, disaster recovery, and operations monitoring.

This enables enterprises to build a self-controlled cloud-native platform that supports both VM and container workloads.

6. Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) Replacement Solutions

For small and medium-sized enterprises using vSphere + vSAN or vSphere + vSAN + NSX + Aria, VMware recommends two subscription bundles: VVF (vSphere Foundation) and VCF (vSphere Cloud Foundation).

These organizations can choose ZStack Cube as their HCI replacement.

Within the product portfolio, ZStack Cube HCI can be freely and flexibly upgraded and expanded. It integrates with ZStack CMP for multi-cloud management and with the ZStack Zaku container service platform, enabling users to build a next-generation cloud infrastructure.

ZStack Cube currently offers four versions:

1. Virtualization Edition
2. VM + Container Dual-Engine Edition
3. Cloud Edition
4. AI Edition

ZStack Cube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure can be freely expanded and upgraded, supporting integration with ZStack CMP multi-cloud management and ZStack Zaku container service platform to build a next-generation cloud infrastructure.

6.1 Virtualization Edition

Supports both x86 and non-x86 processors and hybrid storage (HDD & SSD).

Utilizes VM High Availability policies to ensure system stability and business continuity.

Its fully asynchronous, lock-free architecture improves overall system performance in high-concurrency scenarios.

6.2 VM + Container Dual-Engine Edition

Adopts a dual-engine architecture allowing dynamic resource allocation based on workload requirements, improving utilization.

Containers run directly on physical machines, reducing VM overhead and improving performance while eliminating virtualization license costs and simplifying system operations.

This lowers TCO and enhances O&M efficiency.

6.3 Cloud Edition

Provides unified management of heterogeneous resources.

Its virtualization management module is compatible with VMware and OpenStack platforms.

Combined with V2V migration tools, it enables seamless migration of legacy workloads to the cloud, building a unified control plane for physical machines, VMs, and containers.

ZStack Cube features a “One Cloud, Multi-Chip” capability — supporting heterogeneous deployments across Intel, AMD, Hygon, Kunpeng, Phytium, and Zhaoxin architectures.

This achieves cross-architecture resource integration and scheduling, allowing enterprises to reuse existing x86 or ARM hardware and experience a consistent cloud environment.

6.4 AI Edition

Delivers a complete service stack for AI computing management, AI model management, and AI application development.

At the computing layer, it offers unified management for physical GPUs and vGPUs, hardware information tracking, fault localization, real-time monitoring, custom alerts, and notifications.

It supports GPU classification, sorting, and search for optimal resource allocation and multi-brand GPU compatibility.

At the model management layer, it enables local model file management, imports from local repositories or open sources such as Hugging Face and ModelScope, and supports model sharing.

It provides AI model inference and tuning, one-click deployment of inference services to generate APIs, performance evaluation, and report generation.

Comprehensive logging and monitoring cover LLM model and service performance evaluation, with downloadable records.

At the application development layer, ZStack Cube supports local deployment of multiple open-source LLMOps services, RAG knowledge bases, and multi-inference workflow orchestration to build AI applications and interfaces.

It provides workflow composition strategies, application version management, and release tools to streamline enterprise AI development.