Gartner forecasts that 55% of enterprises will begin testing alternatives to VMware by 2029, up from 25% in 2026, as customers express growing frustration with Broadcom’s pricing, licensing requirements and technical support.

Put bluntly, Gartner said that Broadcom’s changes to VMware have been a “massive catalyst” for customers to look at competing choices.

The forecast, published in Gartner’s 2026 Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure, reveals significant customer concerns about VMware’s pricing and licensing requirements. Yet the research firm continues to recognize VMware as a leading provider of enterprise virtualization and hybrid cloud infrastructure.

To be clear, Gartner expects more enterprises to investigate competing platforms, but that does not necessarily mean they will abandon VMware.

Since Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023, it has made dramatic changes to its commercial model, including shifting customers toward per-core subscription licensing. Given that some customers faced higher renewal costs or limited contract flexibility, many have reconsidered their reliance on VMware.

The complaints have been loud: Gartner reported that VMware customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s communication, business practices and support delays.

But the challenge for unhappy customers is that replacing VMware is a highly complex undertaking. Enterprises need to evaluate application compatibility, retrain IT staff, migrate workloads and ensure that new infrastructure meets their performance and security requirements. In particular, large organizations with extensive VMware deployments may need several years to complete the transition.

This lengthy migration process helps explain Gartner’s 2029 forecast. Organizations beginning technical evaluations in 2026 could spend the next three years testing alternatives, moving selected workloads and deciding whether to renew their VMware subscriptions.

Competitors Face Their Own Challenges

Gartner identified five Leaders in its Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure Magic Quadrant: VMware, Nutanix, AWS, Microsoft and Oracle.

Nutanix, a longtime VMware competitor, offers an alternative virtualization platform, but Gartner cautioned that its licensing arrangements can be difficult to navigate and that customers may encounter higher costs than anticipated.

Microsoft offers Azure Local for hybrid cloud deployments, though Gartner noted that admins may need to work across several management tools, including Azure Portal, Windows Admin Center and System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

AWS offers a managed infrastructure model that reduces customers’ responsibility for hardware provisioning and hypervisor maintenance. But its on-premises Local Zones can carry price premiums of 15% to 35% over parent cloud regions in expensive metropolitan markets.

In other words, moving away from VMware will not automatically reduce infrastructure costs or simplify IT operations.

Gartner also evaluated emerging virtualization competitors in a separate Magic Quadrant for Server Virtualization Platforms. HPE received Challenger status, while open-source virtualization provider Proxmox was categorized as a Niche Player. Gartner cited concerns about enterprise application support and the availability of technical assistance for Proxmox.

VMware Retains Key Strengths

Despite customer dissatisfaction, Gartner spotlighted VMware’s technical capabilities, particularly its VMware Cloud Foundation platform. The product integrates computing, networking and storage into a unified infrastructure offering built for enterprise hybrid cloud.

Gartner also highlighted VMware’s sovereign cloud capabilities, which enable companies to maintain greater control over data location and infrastructure operations. Its VMware Cloud Provider ecosystem includes approximately 50 independent local providers worldwide, supporting customers in industries with strict data governance requirements.

VMware also received recognition for its AI infrastructure capabilities, although Gartner identified limitations in Cloud Foundation’s advanced file and object storage services.

Bottom line, Gartner’s forecast points to a major rethink of virtualization spending and infrastructure strategy. The difficult question for customers is whether competing platforms can deliver enough improvements in cost and performance to justify the expense and disruption of migration.