End of perpetual licenses
Perpetual licenses have been discontinued. The software can only be run with an active subscription – once it expires, the right to use it ends.
TCO analysis · July 2026
Proxmox VE vs. VMware vSphere
A business comparison: licensing costs and the return on switching
Model cluster: 5 nodes 160 cores 1.28 TB RAM 5 TB storage ~50 VMs
Why look at an alternative right now
After acquiring VMware, Broadcom fundamentally changed its licensing
Billed per core, not per socket
The new model charges for every physical core, with a minimum of 16 cores per CPU and 72 cores per order.
End of affordable editions
vSphere Standard has been discontinued with no renewal path. Customers must move to the more expensive VVF or VCF bundles.
2–5×
higher renewal quotes reported by VMware customers after moving to the new model
Source: licensing advisory analyses, 2025–2026
The model environment for the comparison
A typical production virtualization cluster of a mid-sized company
5
virtualization nodes
1 CPU socket per node
160
physical cores
32 cores per socket
1.28 TB
total RAM
256 GB per node
5 TB
usable storage
shared storage capacity
~50
virtual servers
production workload
3
years – typical horizon
TCO computed for 1 / 3 / 5 years
Identical hardware in both scenarios – only software and support costs are compared.
Three licensing worlds
What customers used to pay, what they pay today, and what Proxmox offers
VMware before (perpetual)
- One-time license per CPU socket
- vSphere Ent+ ~$3,600 / CPU
- vSAN and vCenter licensed separately
- Annual SnS support ~20–25% of list price
Our cluster: ~€9,600 / year (SnS)
VMware today (subscription)
- Subscription for every physical core
- VVF: $135–190 / core / year
- VCF: ~$350 / core / year
- Minimums: 16 cores / CPU, 72 / order
Our cluster: €26.6–48.9k / year
Proxmox VE
- Subscription per CPU socket (unlimited cores, RAM and VMs)
- 3 tiers: €370–1,100 / socket / year
- Ceph, HA, SDN and backup included
- Open source – no vendor lock-in
Our cluster: €1.9–5.5k / year
Annual license and support costs
Model cluster (160 cores / 5 sockets), list prices, thousand EUR per year
VMware VCF 48.9
VMware VVF 26.6
Legacy perpetual – SnS only* 9.6
Proxmox Premium 5.5
Proxmox Standard 2.8
Proxmox Basic 1.9
k€ / year
5–9×
lower annual costs with Proxmox VE Premium compared to VMware VVF / VCF
In CZK: 133k CZK vs. 645k–1.19M CZK per year
* SnS = annual support for previously purchased perpetual licenses (Ent+ / vSAN Adv. / vCenter). FX: 1 USD = 0.874 EUR, 1 EUR = 24.27 CZK.
Proxmox VE support tiers
Price per CPU socket per year (excl. VAT) – the software is identical across all tiers
| Tier | € / socket / year | Cluster / year (5 sockets) | Tickets / year | Response time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | €370 | €1,850 | 3 | 1 business day |
| Standard | €550 | €2,750 | 10 | 4 hours on business days + SSH support |
| Premium | €1,100 | €5,500 | unlimited | 2 hours on business days + SSH support |
Recommendation for production: Standard or Premium – access to the stable enterprise repository and guaranteed response times. Even the top Premium tier is ~5× cheaper than the VMware VVF list price.
Storage: VMware vSAN vs. Proxmox Ceph
Both solutions are hyper-converged (HCI) – disks live directly in the nodes, no external array
| Aspect | VMware vSAN | Proxmox Ceph |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing | Only partially included: VVF 0.25 TiB / core, VCF 1 TiB / core; beyond that ~$350 / TiB / year | Fully part of the solution, no capacity-based licensing |
| Our scenario (5 TB) | Covered by the entitlement (40 TiB with VVF) | Covered, €0 extra |
| Hardware | Certified vSAN ReadyNodes / HCL | Commodity servers and SSD/NVMe of your choice |
| Redundancy | RAID-1 / erasure coding (RAID-5/6) | 3× replication / erasure coding |
| Scaling and repairs | By adding nodes, managed by vCenter | By adding nodes / disks, self-healing |
Other supported storage options: VMware – FC/iSCSI SAN, NFS, NVMe-oF (external array required). Proxmox – ZFS with replication, LVM-thin, NFS/iSCSI/FC SAN, GlusterFS. An existing storage array can therefore also be used with Proxmox.
TCO over 1, 3 and 5 years
List prices; Proxmox includes a one-time migration – an indicative €20,000 (services and training)
| 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | 5 years (CZK) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VMware VVF | €26,570 | €79,709 | €132,848 | CZK 3.22M |
| VMware VCF | €48,944 | €146,832 | €244,720 | CZK 5.94M |
| Proxmox Premium (incl. migration) | €25,500 | €36,500 | €47,500 | CZK 1.15M |
| Proxmox Standard (incl. migration) | €22,750 | €28,250 | €33,750 | CZK 0.82M |
| Proxmox Basic (incl. migration) | €21,850 | €25,550 | €29,250 | CZK 0.71M |
5-year savings depending on the chosen support tier: €85–104k vs. VVF (CZK 2.1–2.5M) and €197–215k vs. VCF (CZK 4.8–5.2M).
FX: 1 USD = 0.874 EUR; 1 EUR = 24.27 CZK (Czech National Bank, 07/2026). Detailed calculation for your own environment: online TCO calculator ↗
Total cost development over time
Cumulative costs in thousand EUR (Proxmox includes the migration in year 1)
The gap widens every year – a VMware subscription is paid again and again, the Proxmox migration only once.
Return on the migration investment
Indicative one-time investment of €20,000 (analysis, cluster build, moving 50 VMs, training) – the exact price comes from a quote
10–12 months
payback vs. VMware VVF (depending on the Basic–Premium support tier)
5–6 months
payback vs. VMware VCF (depending on the Basic–Premium support tier)
CZK 2.1–5.2M
saved over 5 years depending on the support tier and VMware variant
How to read these numbers
The annual subscription savings (€21–47k depending on the support tier and VMware variant) pay back the one-time migration cost in 5–12 months. Every following year of operation is pure savings. A negotiated VMware discount extends the payback – yet even with a 40% discount off VVF it stays under 2 years.
Technical comparison for operations
Both platforms cover the key enterprise features
| Feature | VMware vSphere / VCF | Proxmox VE |
|---|---|---|
| High availability (HA) and live VM migration | ||
| Software-defined storage | vSAN (capacity-based licensing) | Ceph, ZFS – included |
| Software-defined networking (SDN) | NSX (VCF only) | SDN module included |
| Containers | Tanzu / vSphere IaaS | LXC natively + VMs for Kubernetes |
| Backup | 3rd party (Veeam etc.) | Built-in + Proxmox Backup Server; Veeam supports PVE |
| Central multi-cluster management | vCenter (bundled) | Datacenter Manager (free) |
| API and automation (Ansible, Terraform) | ||
| Source code and independence | Proprietary | Open source (AGPL), no lock-in |
For ~50 VMs on 5 nodes, Proxmox VE covers 100% of everyday operational requirements.
Migration risks and how to address them
Openly: what needs to be handled so the migration has no impact on operations
Team know-how
Administrator training is part of the migration budget; the PVE web UI is simpler than vCenter and the concepts (HA, migration, snapshots) are the same.
Third-party ecosystem
Veeam, Zabbix, Ansible and Terraform officially support Proxmox. Specific integrations are verified during the pilot.
Enterprise support
A subscription with an SLA (response from 2 h) directly from the vendor + a network of local partners for 24/7 monitoring.
The VM migration itself
Built-in import from ESXi; VMs are moved gradually with minimal downtime (minutes per VM), with a rollback option.
Migration plan: ~3 months
A gradual transition without big-bang risk – VMware runs in parallel until the very end
- 1 2–3 weeks
Analysis and design
VM inventory, dependencies, cluster and Ceph design, migration plan
- 2 3–4 weeks
Pilot
Proxmox cluster build, test migration of selected VMs, backups, monitoring
- 3 4–6 weeks
Production migration
Gradual migration of ~50 VMs in waves, downtime of minutes per VM
- 4 1–2 weeks
Stabilization
Monitoring, training, switching VMware off = no more payments to Broadcom
Ideal timing: 3–6 months before your current VMware support / subscription expires.
Summary and recommendation
65–80% savings
on annual virtualization software costs compared to current VMware prices
Payback < 12 months
the one-time migration investment pays for itself within a year, even against the cheapest VMware option
No operational compromises
HA, live migration, shared storage (Ceph), backups and SLA-backed support all remain
Recommended next steps
- 1
Request a current renewal quote from Broadcom (real numbers instead of list prices).
- 2
Calculate your own scenario in the online TCO calculator ↗ .
- 3
Approve a Proxmox VE pilot (3 nodes, test VMs, 1 month).
Appendix: assumptions and sources
Calculation assumptions
- VMware list prices without negotiated discounts: VVF $190, VCF $350 per core/year; billed for 160 cores (min. 16 cores/CPU, 72 per order).
- vSAN: VVF includes 0.25 TiB/core, VCF 1 TiB/core; the required 5 TB is covered, add-on ~$350/TiB/year.
- Legacy VMware perpetual model: vSphere Ent+ $3,595/CPU + vSAN Adv. $3,995/CPU + vCenter $5,995; annual SnS ~$10,989 (€9,600). No longer available.
- Proxmox VE: Basic €370 / Standard €550 / Premium €1,100 per socket/year; TCO computed for all tiers (€1,850–5,500/year per cluster), conservative headline scenario = Premium.
- Migration: one-time €20,000 – an indicative estimate (analysis, implementation, moving 50 VMs, training); the exact price comes from an implementation partner's quote, parameters adjustable in the calculator.
- Czech National Bank FX rates as of 14 Jul 2026: 1 EUR = 24.27 CZK; 1 USD = 21.22 CZK (USD ≈ 0.874 EUR). Prices excl. VAT.