Buyer’s guide to VMware Alternatives

Updated version for 2025: Compare Platform9 Private Cloud Director, VMware vSphere, Proxmox VE, Nutanix AHV, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization across 34 virtualization management capabilities

Detailed analysis and side-by-side comparison of critical features across popular VMware alternatives:

Core virtualization capabilities
Management tools
Virtual machine operations
Networking & storage features
Scalability and upgrades
Enterprise support & licensing options

High-level summary of the alternatives

Alternatives

Pros

Cons

Proxmox VE

Open-source, cost-effective

Flexible, supports multiple virtualization technologies

Community-driven support

Upgradeability can be complex

Scalability issues for very large environments

Limited enterprise support options

Nutanix AHV

Strong clustering and high availability

Comprehensive management features

Integrated storage and networking solutions

Higher cost

Complexity in scaling beyond initial deployments

Potential vendor lock-in with Nutanix hardware, particularly storage.

Microsoft Hyper-V

Seamless integration with Windows Server

Comprehensive enterprise support

Robust feature set for Windows-centric environments

Complex clustering and HA setup

Less flexible compared to open-source alternatives

Additional licensing costs

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization

Manage VMs alongside containers

Red Hat Enterprise Linux guest OS entitlements

Kubernetes-native operations

Learning curve

Storage complexity

Subscription-based pricing

VMware vSphere

Product flexibility & familiarity

Proven high-availability and resource management

De facto standard for many enterprises

Unexpected cost increases

Long-term subscription-based contracts

Proprietary, closed source

Platform9 Private Cloud Director: Your enterprise VMware alternative today and modern private cloud for the future

Get the simplest private cloud experience with all the enterprise-grade features of VMware, including HA, DRS, advanced networking, scale, and reliability. Enterprises including Cloudera, Yext, Ebsco, HPE, Allen Institute, and a major global food retailer have relied on our certified expertise and guaranteed SLAs since 2016.

Capability	VMware vSphere	Platform9 Private Cloud Director
High Availability (HA) for VMs
Live migration of virtual machines
Automatic Resource Rebalancing
Identity Management & Federation
Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
Block, file, and object storage
VM snapshots
VM templates
Backup integrations