Higher licensing costs are prompting 90% of respondents in a new survey of VMware user organizations to consider alternatives—but the figure measures consideration, not completed departures. The survey, commissioned by VMware third-party support provider Rimini Street and conducted by Unisphere Research, also points to operational and skills hurdles that can make a change difficult.
What does the 90% figure mean?
In the 2026 IT Virtualization Survey, “What’s Next for VMware Users”, 90% of respondents said higher licensing costs were a reason they were considering alternatives to VMware. Another 54% cited the end of perpetual license support as a reason to evaluate options, while 73% named cost savings as a top priority for their virtualization roadmaps.
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These are reported reasons and priorities among survey respondents. They do not mean that 90% have migrated, decided to leave, or will leave VMware. The announcement does not establish the rate of completed departures or the savings organizations might realize.
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Cost pressure is central, but the survey also shows why organizations may weigh a wider set of trade-offs before changing their infrastructure. Respondents reported these barriers to progress:
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- Operational complexity: 40%.
- Multi-vendor management challenges: 38%.
- Security concerns associated with an increased attack surface: 37%.
- Team skills requirements: 37%.
A lower-cost license is only one part of the decision. Companies also need to assess whether applications and workloads will run as required, what support and security coverage they will have, and whether their teams can manage a different or more varied environment. Migration disruption and continuity for mission-critical systems matter too. Those considerations help explain why interest in alternatives does not necessarily translate into an immediate move.
What paths are surveyed organizations considering?
The survey describes a range of reported preferences, rather than confirmed deployments:
- Multiple hypervisors: 60% were considering a multiple-hypervisor strategy, which can reduce dependence on a single provider but may add management complexity.
- Hybrid hypervisor and container environments: 47% favored combining the two approaches. That preference does not establish which workloads respondents would place in containers or how they would implement the mix.
- VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF): 48% said they did not currently plan to move any assets to VCF. This is a statement of current plans, not a forecast of what those organizations will ultimately deploy.
The announcement does not compare specific competing platforms or recommend one. A company evaluating options needs to compare total licensing and support costs, workload compatibility, migration effort, security and support coverage, staff capability, and the degree of vendor dependence for its own environment.
What does the survey say about third-party support?
According to the announcement, 66% of respondents were already using or considering third-party support. Among the reasons cited for support were security (60%), installation and implementation assistance (57%), and service and support concerns (54%).
Third-party support is one possible way to address support needs, but it is not the same as choosing a replacement hypervisor. Organizations should verify which products and versions a provider covers, what services are included, and how the arrangement fits their security and operational requirements. Rimini Street, which commissioned the survey, sells third-party support for VMware and other enterprise software; that commercial interest is relevant context for these findings.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How was the survey conducted, and what can it establish?
Unisphere Research conducted the survey in partnership with Rimini Street. It surveyed 269 executives, managers, and professionals at organizations using VMware solutions. Responses were collected from December 2025 through February 2026, and all respondents were current VMware users at the time.
The results describe this surveyed group; they are not a census of VMware customers. The announcement’s accessible methodology does not report a sampling frame or margin of error, so the figures should not be treated as statistically representative of all VMware users. Nor do they establish why a particular company will choose a platform or whether a planned change will deliver savings.
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Unisphere Research lead analyst Joe McKendrick described the shift as more than a vendor replacement: “The shift for current VMware users is not simply about replacing one vendor with another. It reflects a broader effort by enterprises to reduce dependency on a single provider, maintain continuity for mission-critical systems and modernize at a pace that fits their own business requirements.”
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