According to Gartner’s A Guide to Choosing a VMware Alternative in the Wake of Broadcom Acquisition, alternative options to VMware vSphere include open-source hypervisors like Xen, KVM, LXD, etc., and hypervisors sold and supported by specific vendors like Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, etc.

Besides replacing vSphere with other hypervisors, Gartner also suggests Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) as an available option as it provides all the resources (e.g., compute and storage) required for virtualized (and containerized) workloads. Sample vendors and products include Arcfra Enterprise Cloud Platform (AECP) and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI).

For instance, AECP provides the Arcfra Virtualization Engine (AVE), a KVM-based virtualization platform that offers complete VM life cycle management functionalities as well as advanced features including SPDK vhost I/O acceleration, Dynamic Resource Scheduling, GPU passthrough and vGPU, and Intelligent Placement Groups. Additionally, enterprise users can leverage Arcfra Migration Tools to implement a smooth VM migration from VMware ESXi to AVE.

For more information on using HCI for vSphere replacement, please refer to our previous blog: Exploring VMware Alternatives? Tips for Enterprises with Varying Levels of VMware Dependency