Post-Broadcom VMware Era: Why Replacement is Inevitable for Many

In the fast-paced world of IT services and solutions, change is constant. The perpetual licensing of a tool that your enterprise used to rely on suddenly cancels the services and announces no further updates on the model your organization relied on. 

That’s what happened to many enterprises that relied on VMware virtualization in 2023. The shift started after Broadcom closed the acquisition of VMware on November 22, 2023, and reshaped the commercial model. The results? 

1. The perpetual licensing ended. 
2. Product SKUs were consolidated into subscription bundles (primarily VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation).
3. And customers (VMware users) were left to navigate new mechanics, renewals, and penalties, all of which affected their core operations and ROI. 

Many users in the mid-sized enterprise market felt an urgent need for a VMware replacement path. The need for a VMware alternative is inevitable for many enterprises and SMBs alike. 

That’s when many leading vendors presented HCI as the most reliable solution. This article explains why you should consider a VMware alternative. 

The HCI Idea in Plain English (Why It’s Part of the Answer)

Virtualization through hyperconverged infrastructure was introduced to avoid siloed data center architectures, rigidity, and complexity, and to minimize the high cost of owning complex hardware components.  

The initial target for HCI was to address use cases such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and remote office/branch office (ROBO) environments. However, following VMware’s virtualization rebranding with Broadcom, HCI became the key VMware alternative to address the market gap. 

Later,  the use cases of HCI expanded into mission-critical applications and data center modernization. But why is it the answer to the need for VMware alternatives? Here’s why: 

1. HCI integrates compute, storage, and networking through a software‑orchestrated platform.
2. It’s easy to expand and contract, making it scalable and leaving room for a growing corporation to scale up when needed. All they need to do is add one more node to the architecture for specific needs. 
3. Also, HCI reduces the need for excessive hardware components and overprovisioning by utilizing virtualization to its fullest potential. Therefore, it directly reduces costs. 

Why Many Are Moving: The Pressure Points

Although the benefits of HCI continue to intrigue enterprise decision-makers seeking efficiency and higher ROI, other pressures are shifting them away from VMware toward HCI. 

Three forces are driving the exodus:

Cost Escalations and Bundles: Enterprise owners have experienced a surge in price increases following the cancellation of VMware perpetual licensing. VMware users had no other choice but to take the bundled subscriptions introduced. 

Minimum Core Counts and Penalties: 2025 changes around per‑CPU core minimums and late‑renewal penalties have tightened compliance and budgeting windows, pushing teams to model alternatives sooner. 

Partner Ecosystem Consolidation: Cutting lower-tier partners and focusing on select resellers has reduced access for SMBs and public institutions that relied on local partners for pragmatic support. 

Decision Framework: Tactical Exit vs. Strategic Re‑platforming

A sensible VMware replacement plan distinguishes short‑term mitigation from medium‑term transformation:

• Tactical exit (lift‑and‑shift): Move VMs to an HCI platform with minimal redesign. Many HCI vendors help build architectures that require minimal redesign. 

A tactile exit requires prioritizing operational familiarity, migration tooling, and predictable performance to reduce downtime. This buys time and cost control while preserving application topology. 

• Strategic re‑platform: Modernize parts of the stack. Start by adopting containers where appropriate, refactoring automation (APIs and pipelines), and redesigning DR/backup workflows. 

Also, analysts caution that a strategic shift away from VMware doesn’t depend solely on hypervisor swaps. It’s an operational model change. When planning and replatforming, prepare for the impact on APIs and the ecosystem.  

What “Good” Looks Like in an HCI‑First Replacement

Regardless of vendor, ensure you have the following capabilities to avoid trading one complexity for another.

• Reliability & operations: Choose high availability, graceful live migration (for maintenance and thermal/power anomalies), and proactive failure detection that triggers evacuation before outages.  
• Performance controls: Prioritize NUMA‑aware scheduling, quality of service to isolate noisy neighbors, and network acceleration (SR‑IOV/RDMA) to keep latency‑sensitive workloads steady under load.  
• Security baked‑in: Microsegmentation for east‑west traffic, encryption at rest/in‑flight, and integrated posture checks to keep VMs compliant without stitching multiple tools.  
• Operational simplicity: Single‑pane management for compute/storage/networking, templated provisioning, and scripting/CLI parity so your team’s muscle memory transfers.  

Sangfor HCI: A Practical VMware Alternative

Several brands offer features similar to VMware’s. Here is the comprehensive guide for the VMware alternatives for 2026. Some notable brands include Sangfor HCI, Nutanix, Proxmox VE, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Scale Computing.

Sangfor HCI offers an integrated stack designed to simplify virtualization and reduce licensing complexity.

It’s an SV hypervisor built on KVM that delivers enterprise-grade performance with NUMA optimization, quality of service, SR-IOV/RDMA, and AI-driven placement. 

Additionally, reliability features include proactive HA, live migration, and storage path health checks. Also, users benefit from easier management thanks to a VMware-like UI and CLI parity for over 230 commands.

In Sangfor HCI, the storage is powered by aSAN for distributed SDS with caching, tiering, and multi-copy protection, while aNET provides virtualized networking with microsegmentation. 

Sangfor supports flexible migration paths for minimal downtime. Additionally, the compatibility charts support smooth pilots, making them a strong alternative to VMware.

Control the Narrative, Not Just the Cost 

The post-Broadcom moment created a frenzy among enterprise decision-makers. It caused licensing frustrations, increased costs, and renewal penalties. Additionally, with multiple HCI vendors introducing VMware alternatives, IT leaders’ decision-making has become more complex. 

A thoughtful VMware replacement requires more than swapping a hypervisor. It’s about selecting an HCI operating model that simplifies day‑two operations, stabilizes performance, and restores budget predictability. 

Whether you adopt Sangfor HCI or another integrated platform, aim for three outcomes: (1) unified management across compute/storage/networking, (2) built‑in reliability and security, and (3) migration tooling that fits your business windows. That’s how you skip past complexity, keep your teams productive, and get back to delivering outcomes.