What is the average VMware price increase since the Broadcom acquisition?

Market feedback indicates increases of 3x to 10x depending on configuration. SMBs with essential contracts are hit hardest, as forced bundles (VCF) include components they never use. Large enterprises that negotiated ELAs (Enterprise License Agreements) are relatively less impacted, but still see 2x to 4x increases at renewal.

Is Proxmox suitable for critical production environments?

Yes. Proxmox VE is used in production by thousands of companies worldwide, including in the banking, healthcare and industrial sectors. With HA clustering, replicated Ceph storage and PBS backups, Proxmox delivers reliability on par with VMware. RDEM Systems has been running Proxmox clusters in production since 2018 with a 99.9% SLA.

How long does a VMware to Proxmox migration take?

For a 3 to 6 node cluster with 30 to 80 VMs, expect 2 to 4 weeks on average. The preparation phase (audit, planning) takes about 1 week. The technical VM migration takes 1 to 2 weeks depending on data volumes. The final week is devoted to validation testing and optimization. For large infrastructures (20+ nodes), plan for 6 to 12 weeks with progressive migration waves.

Is Proxmox support reliable without VMware GSS?

Proxmox offers enterprise support subscriptions with clear SLAs (Community, Basic, Standard, Premium). Additionally, RDEM Systems provides Level 1 and Level 2 support, with escalation to Proxmox for advanced cases. Our experience shows that the Proxmox community (official forum) resolves the majority of issues within 24 hours.

Is Ceph really as performant as vSAN?

Benchmarks show comparable performance in IOPS and latency, especially with NVMe SSDs. Ceph offers more flexibility (replica count, erasure coding, mixed SSD/HDD pools) and better scalability. However, Ceph requires specific expertise for advanced tuning. RDEM Systems configures and optimizes Ceph on every deployed cluster.

What are the risks of a VMware to Proxmox migration?

The main risks are: incompatibility of certain VMware-only third-party tools (vRealize, Horizon VDI), ops team learning curve, and conversion of certain VMDK disk formats. All these risks are mitigated by a preliminary audit, a detailed migration plan and a coexistence phase during the transition. RDEM Systems has migrated over 500 VMs without any data loss.

TCO VMware vs Proxmox 2026: Detailed Cost Analysis

Broadcom changes the game: TCO becomes the #1 criterion

For over 20 years, VMware was the default choice for enterprise virtualization. Ops teams were trained on vSphere, ITIL processes validated, third-party tools integrated. License costs, while significant, were considered the price of peace of mind.

Everything changed on November 22, 2023, when Broadcom finalized its acquisition of VMware for $61 billion. Within months, the new owner radically altered the commercial model, sending shockwaves through the industry. Thousands of IT leaders received renewal quotes with increases of 300% to 1,000%.

Faced with this situation, total cost of ownership (TCO) shifted from a secondary criterion to the decisive factor. This article gives you the concrete figures to make an informed decision.

Key figure

According to our VMware migration case study (fr) , a client with 100 VMs saved 88,000 EUR/year (-42%) by migrating from VMware to a Proxmox infrastructure managed by RDEM Systems.

The Broadcom shock in detail

To understand the scale of the disruption, we need to detail the changes imposed by Broadcom since late 2023:

End of perpetual licenses

Before Broadcom, you could purchase a perpetual vSphere license (~3,000 EUR per CPU) and use it indefinitely. Only the annual maintenance (~20% of price) was recurring. Now, all licenses are subscription-based. If you stop paying, you lose the right to use the software. The perpetual investment you made is now worthless.

Forced bundles: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)

Broadcom eliminated individual product sales. You can no longer purchase vSphere alone. You must subscribe to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), a bundle that includes vSphere, vSAN, NSX, Aria (formerly vRealize), and Tanzu. Even if you only use vSphere and vSAN, you pay for the entire package.

Direct impact

The switch to the VCF bundle causes costs to skyrocket because you pay for components you never used before. NSX alone cost ~2,000 EUR/CPU/year. Tanzu ~1,500 EUR/CPU/year. These components are now included... and billed as part of the bundle price.

Price increases: 3x to 10x

Market feedback is unequivocal. Here are the ranges observed by customer profile:

Customer profile	Before Broadcom	After Broadcom	Multiplier
SMB (3-6 CPUs)	3,000-8,000 EUR/year	25,000-60,000 EUR/year	5x to 10x
Mid-market (12-24 CPUs)	15,000-40,000 EUR/year	80,000-200,000 EUR/year	3x to 5x
Enterprise (40+ CPUs)	80,000-200,000 EUR/year	300,000-800,000 EUR/year	3x to 4x

End of the free ESXi edition

VMware ESXi Free, which allowed thousands of SMBs and labs to virtualize at no cost, has been discontinued entirely. No free version exists anymore. Organizations that used ESXi Free in production (a common practice despite its limitations) are left without a solution.

End of partnerships

Broadcom reduced the number of reseller partners by over 80%. Only the largest distributors retain direct access. Smaller integrators and MSPs lose their margins and ability to offer VMware to their clients. For these players, offering Proxmox becomes an economic no-brainer.

TCO comparison with figures: 3 scenarios

We present 3 representative scenarios. VMware prices are based on VCF 2025-2026 price lists. Proxmox prices include Proxmox Community support and RDEM Systems managed services for a fair comparison (support included on both sides).

For an even more detailed analysis, see our detailed outsourcing comparison (fr) .

Often-overlooked TCO costs

A rigorous TCO calculation must include hidden costs:

Training: a VMware engineer takes on average 2-4 weeks to master Proxmox VE. Cost: ~2,000-5,000 EUR per person (training + ramp-up).
Technical migration: VM conversion, re-validation of network and storage configurations. Allow 1-2 days per batch of 10 VMs.
Third-party tools: certain VMware-only tools (vRealize, Horizon) must be replaced. Open-source alternatives: Grafana/Prometheus for monitoring, PBS for backup.
Opportunity cost: staying on VMware means accepting unpredictable increases at every renewal. The financial risk grows over time.

To discover our Proxmox pricing and estimate your real savings, visit our dedicated page. If you are considering a transition, our VMware to Proxmox migration guide details every step of the process, from the initial audit to ESXi decommissioning.

Performance: KVM vs ESXi — a virtual tie

A legitimate question from IT leaders: "Is Proxmox as performant as VMware?". The short answer is yes. Both solutions use Type 1 (bare-metal) hypervisors with minimal overhead. Here are the detailed benchmarks.

CPU

KVM (used by Proxmox) and ESXi both provide near-native processor access. Measured overhead is below 2% in both cases. Hardware virtualization instructions (Intel VT-x, AMD-V) are leveraged equivalently. On CPU-intensive workloads (compilation, scientific computing, rendering), the difference is indistinguishable.

Memory (RAM)

Both hypervisors support ballooning (dynamic allocation), huge pages and memory overcommit. VMware historically offered "Transparent Page Sharing" (TPS), disabled by default since 2015 for security reasons. KVM offers KSM (Kernel Same-page Merging) with equivalent performance. In practice, memory management is comparable.

Disk I/O

With paravirtualized drivers (virtio-scsi for KVM, pvscsi for ESXi), performance is nearly identical. fio benchmarks on NVMe SSDs show gaps below 5% in both IOPS and latency. The choice of storage backend (local, Ceph, iSCSI) has a far more significant impact than the choice of hypervisor.

Network

With virtio-net (KVM) and vmxnet3 (ESXi), both solutions achieve line rate at 10 Gbps and 25 Gbps with ease. Throughput and latency are equivalent. SR-IOV is supported on both sides for workloads requiring a complete hypervisor bypass.

Metric	KVM (Proxmox)	ESXi (VMware)	Verdict
CPU overhead	<2%	<2%	Tie
NVMe IOPS (4K random)	~650K	~680K	~Tie
I/O latency (p99)	~0.12 ms	~0.11 ms	~Tie
Network throughput (25G)	24.8 Gbps	24.9 Gbps	Tie
Live Migration	<500 ms downtime	<500 ms downtime	Tie

Verdict: Performance is virtually identical. The decision between VMware and Proxmox should not be based on performance, but on cost, ecosystem and strategy. To learn more, see our full Proxmox vs VMware 2025 comparison.

Storage: Ceph vs vSAN

Distributed storage is often the main friction point in a migration. vSAN (VMware) and Ceph (Proxmox) are two hyper-converged storage (HCI) solutions with different philosophies.

Architecture

Ceph is an open-source distributed storage system designed to run on commodity hardware. It uses the CRUSH algorithm to distribute data without a single point of failure. Proxmox VE integrates Ceph natively with a management interface in the GUI.

vSAN is VMware's proprietary hyper-converged storage solution. It aggregates local disks from ESXi nodes into a shared datastore. Since the switch to VCF, vSAN is included in the bundle, but cannot be used outside the VMware ecosystem.

Criterion	Ceph (Proxmox)	vSAN (VMware)
License	Free (open-source)	Included in VCF (~5,000 EUR/CPU/year)
Proxmox integration	Native (GUI + CLI)	Not compatible
Replication	2x or 3x replicas, Erasure Coding	RAID 1/5/6 equivalent (FTT=1,2,3)
Minimum nodes	3 (recommended)	3 (minimum)
Scalability	Near-linear (tested up to 1,000+ OSDs)	Good (limited to 64 nodes per cluster)
Mixed pools (SSD + HDD)	Native (device classes)	Yes (disk groups)
Operational complexity	Medium to high (tuning required)	Low (simplified GUI)
Performance (NVMe SSD)	Excellent	Excellent
Vendor lock-in	None (open standard)	Total (VMware only)

Our take: Ceph is technically superior in terms of flexibility and scalability, but requires specific expertise. This is exactly the kind of added value a managed Proxmox service provides: we configure and optimize Ceph so you don't have to worry about it. For backing up Ceph volumes, see our 3-2-1 backup strategy.

Migration: RDEM Systems field experience

RDEM Systems has migrated over 500 VMs from VMware to Proxmox since 2023. Here is our proven methodology and the most common pitfalls.

Our 5-step methodology

Audit and inventory (3-5 days)

Comprehensive VM inventory, network dependency mapping, current performance analysis, identification of specific configurations (affinities, DRS rules, GPU passthrough). Deliverable: detailed migration plan with timeline.

Proxmox infrastructure setup (3-5 days)

Proxmox VE installation, cluster configuration (HA, Ceph, SDN), PBS setup for backups, monitoring configuration. Validation testing of the target infrastructure.

VM migration in waves (1-3 weeks)

Progressive migration in batches of 10-20 VMs. Use of the Proxmox 8.x Import Wizard for direct import from ESXi/vCenter. VMDK to qcow2/raw conversion. VMware Tools replacement with QEMU Guest Agent. Functional validation after each wave.

Validation and optimization (3-5 days)

Full performance testing, PBS backup validation, HA failover testing, CPU/RAM configuration optimization (CPU type, NUMA, hugepages). SLA validation with the client.

VMware decommissioning (1-2 days)

Final shutdown of ESXi hosts and vCenter. VMware configuration archive retained for 3 months. VMware license cancellation.

Proxmox 8.x Import Wizard

Since Proxmox VE 8.2, the new Import Wizard allows you to import VMs directly from an ESXi server or vCenter via the web interface. No more manual OVF conversion scripts. The wizard automatically handles:

Connection to vCenter or ESXi host
VMDK selection and transfer
Automatic disk format conversion
Hardware configuration adaptation (SCSI bus, network card)

For a complete step-by-step guide, see our VMware to Proxmox migration guide.

Common pitfalls

Key considerations

VMware Tools: They must be replaced with QEMU Guest Agent and virtio drivers. Without this, I/O performance will be degraded and PBS backups will not perform fsfreeze.
RDM disks (Raw Device Mapping): VMware RDMs must be converted to Proxmox disk passthrough or Ceph volumes. Plan a dedicated maintenance window.
Windows licenses: Windows licenses tied to the VMware hardware ID may require reactivation after migration. Have activation keys ready.
Complex network configurations: Distributed vSwitch port groups must be recreated in the Proxmox SDN. Document all VLANs before migration.

What Proxmox does better (and worse)

We believe in transparency. Here is an honest assessment of Proxmox VE's strengths and weaknesses compared to VMware.

Proxmox strengths

Cost: This is the decisive advantage. All enterprise features are included without additional licensing. Savings range from 90% to 98% on license costs.
LXC containers: Proxmox is the only enterprise hypervisor to natively offer Linux containers (LXC) alongside VMs. For lightweight workloads (web servers, microservices, DNS), an LXC container uses 5x to 10x fewer resources than a VM.
Full REST API: The Proxmox API covers 100% of web interface features. Native automation with Terraform, Ansible, or Python scripts. No need for proprietary PowerCLI.
Community and transparency: Open source code, active community forum, no black box. You know exactly what your hypervisor does.
No vendor lock-in: KVM, QEMU, Ceph and LXC are open-source projects maintained by independent communities. If Proxmox disappeared tomorrow, your VMs would keep running.
Sovereignty: Proxmox is a European company (Austrian). Combined with a French host like RDEM Systems , you get a 100% European stack.

Proxmox weaknesses (and our answers)

Narrower third-party ecosystem: VMware has a massive ecosystem of partners and third-party tools (Veeam, Zerto, Commvault, etc.). The Proxmox ecosystem is younger, but growing rapidly. Our answer: PBS replaces Veeam, Grafana/Prometheus replaces vRealize, and our Nimbus platform provides enterprise backup.
Enterprise vGPU: NVIDIA vGPU support on Proxmox requires manual configuration and is not officially certified by NVIDIA (unlike ESXi). For VDI environments with vGPU, VMware remains simpler to deploy. Our answer: hardware GPU passthrough works perfectly for 1:1 GPU assignment.
Less "enterprise" interface: The Proxmox web interface is functional but austere compared to vSphere Client. No built-in executive dashboards, no drag-and-drop. Our answer: this is a non-issue for ops teams who primarily use the API and CLI.
Linux learning curve: Proxmox VE is based on Debian Linux. Teams accustomed exclusively to the VMware/Windows ecosystem will need training. Our answer: we provide training and our managed services handle day-to-day management.

Our approach at RDEM Systems

RDEM Systems specializes in VMware to Proxmox migration and Proxmox infrastructure managed services since 2018. Our approach covers the entire lifecycle.

Turnkey migration

We handle the entire migration end-to-end: audit, planning, execution, validation. You do not need to build Proxmox expertise in-house. Our team manages VMware/Proxmox coexistence during the transition for zero service interruption.

Managed Proxmox

After migration, we manage your Proxmox cluster on a daily basis: 24/7 monitoring, security updates, incident management, performance optimization. You benefit from full Proxmox expertise without hiring in-house.

Discover our full offering Managed Proxmox.

Nimbus: enterprise backup

Our Nimbus solution provides enterprise Proxmox backup: 3-2-1 rule across multiple datacenters, PBS deduplication, long-term retention, self-service restore. Nimbus can also back up your existing VMware infrastructure during the transition phase.

To understand our backup strategy in detail, see our article 3-2-1 backup strategy.

DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan)

Every migration must include a DRP. We design and test disaster recovery plans tailored to your Proxmox infrastructure. See our guide Proxmox DRP: disaster recovery plan.

Our pricing

Our managed Proxmox service starts at 150 EUR excl. VAT/month per hypervisor, including 24/7 monitoring, maintenance, backup and support. For migration projects, we offer packages tailored to your infrastructure size.

View our detailed pricing

Frequently asked questions

Official documentation

To explore the topics covered in this article further, consult the official resources:

Ready to cut your VMware bill by 90%?

RDEM Systems supports you through your VMware to Proxmox migration. Free infrastructure audit, target TCO estimate, and detailed migration plan within 5 business days.