VMware after the Broadcom acquisition: Proxmox VE or Hyper-V?

What changed in VMware licensing

Broadcom closed the VMware acquisition on 22 November 2023 and rebuilt the product line within a few months. The key changes from a customer's point of view:

• no more perpetual licences: new licences and renewals are term subscriptions only,
• bundles instead of individual products: dozens of price list items were replaced by a few bundles, mainly VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and vSphere Foundation (VVF), so you often pay for features you do not use,
• per-core pricing: licences count CPU cores with a minimum of 16 cores per CPU, so a server with two 8-core CPUs pays for 32 cores,
• partner programme changes: many smaller partners lost the right to resell, so many organisations had to find a new supplier at renewal.

Perpetual licences keep working, but without an active support contract you get no new versions or vendor help, and access to patches is limited. On top of that, vSphere 7 reached the end of general support in October 2025, so environments still on it need a decision anyway: upgrade with a new subscription or change platform.

Not everyone has to leave VMware. Large environments that rely on NSX, vSAN or Aria often stay because the cost and risk of rebuilding are high. For small and mid-sized organisations that mainly use vSphere with vCenter and backups, switching platforms usually pays for itself quickly.

Proxmox VE and Hyper-V at a glance

Proxmox subscription prices from the vendor's price list as of November 2026. Plans: Community, Basic, Standard and Premium; they differ in support tickets and response times.

How to compare costs

The most common mistake in comparisons is leaving out Windows Server licences. Windows Server is licensed by the physical cores of the host a virtual machine runs on, whether the host runs VMware, Proxmox or Hyper-V. Standard edition covers two Windows VMs on a fully licensed host, Datacenter covers unlimited VMs. If most of your VMs run Windows, you need Datacenter licences for the hosts anyway.

Example: 3 hosts, about 30 VMs, mostly Windows Server

Each host has 2 CPUs with 16 cores, 96 cores in total. Windows VMs need Windows Server Datacenter licences for 96 cores on any of the platforms. The difference is only the hypervisor itself:

When most VMs run Linux the picture flips: with Hyper-V you buy Windows Server licences for the hosts just to run the hypervisor, while with Proxmox VE you pay at most the subscription.

Add one-off and hidden costs: migration work, admin training, possible changes to backup and monitoring, and software licensed per host. Under certain conditions Windows Server can also be licensed per virtual machine (virtual core licences with Software Assurance or a subscription), which can make sense for a handful of Windows VMs on a Linux-based platform.

When to choose Proxmox VE

• you run many Linux VMs or a mix of Linux and Windows,
• you want a platform without licence fees and without depending on a single vendor,
• you want a hyperconverged Ceph cluster on three or more servers, without a separate storage array,
• your team or your provider has Linux skills.

Watch out for

• Shared SAN storage (iSCSI, FC). It works through LVM, but VM snapshots on such storage only arrived in Proxmox VE 9 as a technology preview. Think through the storage design before buying hardware.
• VirtIO drivers for Windows. Without them Windows cannot see its disk after migration and will not boot. Install them while still on VMware.
• Software vendor requirements. Some line-of-business systems and virtual appliances are supported only on VMware or Hyper-V. Check before you decide.
• Support. A production environment without a subscription uses the repository without vendor support. The subscription is cheap compared with VMware and worth having.

When to choose Hyper-V

• most VMs run Windows Server and the hosts already have Datacenter licences,
• your admins know Windows, Active Directory and PowerShell well,
• you have a SAN you want to keep using, or you plan Storage Spaces Direct,
• your applications or their vendors require a platform officially supported by Microsoft.

Watch out for

• Several management tools. Hyper-V Manager, Failover Cluster Manager, Windows Admin Center, PowerShell and, in larger environments, paid System Center VMM. Decide early which tools the team will use day to day.
• Storage Spaces Direct requires Datacenter edition and certified hardware. On older servers a storage array is the safer choice.
• Host patching. Clusters need patching with VMs moved between nodes (Cluster-Aware Updating), which is worth setting up from day one.
• Free Hyper-V Server is gone. The last standalone version was 2019; newer versions require Windows Server.

Migration step by step

Whatever the target platform, the process is similar. We move VMs in waves during maintenance windows, and each wave has a plan for rolling back to VMware.

1. InventoryA list of VMs with operating systems, resources, disks and dependencies. It also reveals VMs nobody uses any more and software licences tied to hardware (UUID, MAC address).
2. Target platform designHosts, storage, networks (the same VLANs as on VMware), backup and monitoring. We check there is enough capacity to survive the loss of one node.
3. Preparing the VMsFresh backups, consolidated snapshots, VirtIO drivers for Proxmox, and a record of network settings (static IP addresses will need to be set on the new network adapter).
4. PilotTwo or three less important VMs. Testing performance, backup and restore on the new platform.
5. Migration in wavesThe Proxmox VE import wizard, a Veeam restore to the new platform or conversion in Windows Admin Center. Downtime per VM is usually from a few minutes to an hour.
6. Post-migration testsApplications, Windows and software activation, time sync, DNS and Active Directory.
7. Backup and monitoring from day oneThe first full backup on the new platform and a restore test while the migration is still running.
8. Decommissioning VMwareThe old environment is switched off but kept for a few weeks. Then documentation and licences are tidied up.

Common pitfalls

• A new network adapter. After migration Windows sees a new adapter and loses its static IP, and the old hidden adapter can still hold the same address. Record network settings before migrating.
• Missing drivers. Windows without VirtIO drivers (Proxmox) ends in a blue screen with a boot device error.
• Firmware type. A VM with UEFI and Secure Boot must land on a UEFI VM, and systems that need a TPM require a virtual TPM.
• Snapshots and backups. Unconsolidated VMware snapshots slow migration down or break it. Backup jobs have to be set up again.
• Software licences. Some software checks the hardware ID and needs reactivation after migration. Warn the vendor in advance.
• Waves that are too big. Moving everything in one weekend is tempting, but if something goes wrong the cause is hard to find. Smaller waves are safer.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Proxmox VE: subscription pricing
• Proxmox VE 8.2: VMware ESXi import wizard
• Veeam Backup & Replication 12.2 release notes (Proxmox VE support)
• Microsoft Learn: VM Conversion extension in Windows Admin Center

Prices and licensing terms change. Stated as at 6 November 2026; check the vendors' current offers before deciding.