VMware Broadcom Licensing Changes: What Changed and What the Options Are

Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware on 22 November 2023. The VMware Broadcom licensing changes that followed have reshaped budgets and renewal plans for many businesses that run their virtualization on VMware: perpetual license sales stopped, the portfolio was consolidated into subscription bundles, licensing was tied to physical core counts and the partner programs were reorganized.

This guide lists the changes with their dates, based on primary sources, and compares four main paths for businesses in Turkey. What VMware is and how its core components fit together is covered separately in our what is VMware guide.

Timeline after the acquisition

The changes came in steps over roughly two years. The dates below come from Broadcom’s announcements and trade press:

• 22 November 2023: Broadcom announced the completion of the VMware acquisition and named VMware Cloud Foundation as the core of its investment (Broadcom press release).
• 11 December 2023: Sales of perpetual licenses and of Support and Subscription (SnS) renewals for perpetual offerings ended; products became available only as subscriptions or term licenses (Broadcom announcement).
• 5 February 2024: VMware resellers moved by invitation into the Broadcom Advantage partner program; Broadcom said it had invited more than 18,000 active resell partners (Broadcom partner article).
• 12 February 2024: The free ESXi hypervisor was marked end of general availability in a knowledge base article (The Register).
• 10 April 2025: With ESXi 8.0 Update 3e, a free, unsupported vSphere Hypervisor 8 intended for non-production use became downloadable again (ESXi 8.0 U3e release notes).
• 31 October 2025: Outside the European Economic Area, the VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program ended and was replaced by an invitation-only model (heise / iX).

From perpetual licenses to a vSphere subscription

With the 11 December 2023 announcement, the VMware Cloud Foundation division’s products were consolidated into two primary offers. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is positioned for enterprise-scale private and hybrid cloud, and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) for mid-sized and smaller businesses. Capabilities such as storage, ransomware protection and disaster recovery are offered as add-ons on top of these.

For businesses holding perpetual licenses, Broadcom’s statement is clear: perpetual licenses with an active support contract can continue to be used, and support continues as defined in the contract. Once support expires, no new SnS renewal can be bought for the perpetual license. Broadcom also announced a trade-in approach for exchanging perpetual products for the new subscription products.

In the February 2024 partner article, the reseller price list was described as four bundles: VMware Cloud Foundation, vSphere Foundation, vSphere Standard and vSphere Essentials Plus. The availability of the smaller bundles has since varied by region and version. The current lineup is something to confirm with an authorized reseller at the time of purchase.

Per-core licensing and VMware pricing

In the subscription model the unit of measure is the physical processor core. According to Broadcom’s knowledge base, VCF and VVF licensing is based on the total physical cores across all ESXi hosts to be licensed, with a minimum of 16 cores licensed per physical CPU (Broadcom KB 313548). vSAN capacity is calculated separately, per TiB of raw storage.

This rule has a noticeable effect on small environments. A host with two 8-core processors physically has 16 cores but is licensed as 32 cores. For businesses that keep older, low-core-count servers in service for a long time, the license calculation belongs together with the hardware refresh plan.

This guide does not quote VMware prices. Per-core pricing differs by bundle, term, reseller and region, and could not be verified as a current public list price. The sound starting point for budgeting is the core count taken from the host and CPU inventory.

Free ESXi: withdrawn, then back in a limited form

Free ESXi was long used for test labs and small installations. Its withdrawal in February 2024 pushed those users toward a paid license or a different hypervisor.

With ESXi 8.0 Update 3e, released in April 2025, the free vSphere Hypervisor 8 became downloadable again. According to Broadcom’s release notes and the related knowledge base article, this edition has no official support, is recommended for non-production use, cannot be connected to vCenter and is limited to 8 vCPUs per virtual machine. Features such as vMotion, DRS and HA are not included. These limits rule the free edition out for production workloads.

VMware alternatives and four paths for businesses in Turkey

The VMware Broadcom licensing changes do not lead to the same outcome for every business. The right path depends on the age of the hardware, the number of virtual machines, the team’s skills and the structure of the applications.

1. Move to a subscription and stay on VMware

For businesses whose applications, backup tools and team knowledge are tied to VMware, moving to a subscription is the least disruptive path. The new cost is calculated by core count; if a hardware refresh is coming up, consolidating onto fewer but more powerful hosts can change the number of cores to be licensed. If platform operations are to be outsourced, our VMware management service covers that scope.

2. Move to a provider’s VMware-based cloud

When virtual machines move to a service provider’s VMware-based infrastructure, the business largely keeps its VMware disk format, tools and operating habits. In typical IaaS models, licensing responsibility for the hypervisor layer moves to the provider, and the business pays for the vCPU, RAM and disk it uses. Because this split can differ between providers, it should be stated explicitly in the quote.

MAV Cloud’s cloud servers run on VMware-based infrastructure in the Equinix Istanbul data center. Resources allocated to virtual machines are isolated, the platform runs with high availability and data is kept on central storage. Details are on the cloud server rental page.

The entry configuration is 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM and 100 GB SSD, with a monthly price starting from approximately 60–100 USD depending on the customer and the services selected. The final price, and how licensing items are handled, are confirmed at the quote stage.

3. Migrate to another hypervisor

Microsoft Hyper-V ships with Windows Server and is widely used in Windows-heavy environments. Proxmox VE is an open-source virtualization platform based on KVM, with optional paid support subscriptions. Nutanix AHV comes as part of Nutanix’s hyperconverged infrastructure platform.

All three are mature options, but the cost of switching is not only the license difference. Converting virtual disks, checking that backup and monitoring tools are compatible, rebuilding the network configuration and training the team on the new platform all belong in the project.

4. Refactor applications into containers

For applications that are still developed in-house, moving to a container platform such as Kubernetes is a long-term option. This makes the application independent of the underlying infrastructure. For packaged software, ERP systems and legacy applications it is often not realistic.

The options are not mutually exclusive. Many businesses keep critical systems in a VMware-compatible environment while moving test environments to a different platform.

Migration checklist

Whichever path is chosen, the same inventory and risk work comes first:

1. License inventory: list the type of each current license, SnS end dates and contract terms.
2. Hardware inventory: record the number of CPUs per host, cores per CPU and the end date of the hardware maintenance contract.
3. Virtual machine list: record each VM’s operating system, vCPU, RAM, disk and owning department.
4. Usage data: measure CPU, memory, disk and network usage during peak periods; sizing is based on this data.
5. Dependencies: map connections between VMs, license servers and external integrations.
6. Backup and disaster recovery: check that the current backup tool works with the target platform.
7. Downtime window: set the acceptable downtime and migration time for each system.
8. Testing and rollback: run a pilot migration and document the rollback steps.
9. Contract items: ask for licensing responsibility, SLA, data location and exit terms as separate lines in the provider’s quote.

For a quick start on the inventory, the cloud migration readiness assessment measures how ready the current infrastructure is for the cloud with a few questions.

Migration and operations at MAV Cloud

Moving from VMware to a VMware-based cloud involves fewer conversion steps than a platform change. The target configuration, downtime window and rollback steps are defined before the move.

Erler Otomotiv’s on-premises systems and Lets Club’s systems were each moved to the cloud over a weekend so that working days were not affected. The process is described on our cloud migration services page.

After the migration, MAV Cloud’s service level agreement applies to operations. First response targets are 15 minutes for critical priority, 1 hour for high, 4 hours for medium and 1 business day for low priority.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can perpetual VMware licenses still be used?

According to Broadcom’s December 2023 statement, perpetual licenses with an active support contract can continue to be used, and support continues as defined in the contract. Once support expires, no new SnS renewal is sold for the perpetual license.

How is a vSphere subscription calculated?

VCF and VVF subscriptions are calculated from the total physical cores on the hosts to be licensed, counting at least 16 cores per CPU. Definitions of the vSphere components are in our cloud computing terms glossary.

Can free ESXi be used in production?

The free vSphere Hypervisor 8 that returned in April 2025 is positioned by Broadcom as unsupported and for non-production use. Without vCenter management, vMotion or HA, it is not suitable for production workloads.

Who is responsible for VMware licensing on a cloud server?

In typical IaaS models, licensing responsibility for the hypervisor layer sits with the provider, and the business pays for virtual machine resources. How operating system and application licenses inside the VM are handled is clarified separately in the quote.

How long does a move from VMware to another hypervisor take?

It depends on the number of VMs, dependencies, backup tooling and acceptable downtime. A phased plan that starts with a pilot migration allows the schedule to be set realistically.