Unisphere Research surveyed 269 executives, managers and professionals at VMware user organizations between December 2025 and February 2026. Ninety percent said higher licensing costs were prompting them to consider alternatives, and 54 percent cited the end of perpetual license support. Cost remains the leading driver of virtualization roadmap decisions: 73 percent said savings were a top priority. Barriers to change were operational complexity (40 percent), multi-vendor management (38 percent), securing the increased attack surface (37 percent) and team skills (37 percent).
The study also found 60 percent considering a multi-hypervisor strategy and 48 percent saying they had no current plans to move any assets to VMware Cloud Foundation, Broadcom’s subscription platform and preferred migration path. The survey was commissioned by Rimini Street, which sells third-party support for VMware, a sponsorship worth noting when weighing the framing.
The finding matches the broader churn pattern: the European Cloud Competition Observatory and CISPE claimed in May 2025 that Broadcom had raised VMware licensing costs to between eight and 15 times previous levels, UK retailer Tesco said in June it was replacing VMware while pressing ahead with a licensing lawsuit against Broadcom with a High Court trial no earlier than November 2027, and Gartner predicted last month that 55 percent of enterprises will start proofs of concept for VMware alternatives by 2029, up from 25 percent in 2026.