VMware to Proxmox migration · for small & mid-sized business

VMware to Proxmox migration — same hardware, no per-core bill.

Broadcom now sells VMware only as per-core subscription bundles, with core minimums you pay for whether you use them or not. We move your VMs to Proxmox VE on the servers you already own — on a fixed price and date, cut over outside business hours, with a way back at every step.

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Fixed price & date
Cutover off-hours
Rollback at every wave
No lock-in

Why now

The licence changed. Your servers didn't.

72cores — the minimum Broadcom bills per order since April 2025, on top of 16 per CPU

16cores billed per CPU, even if the CPU has 8 or 12

8.2the Proxmox VE release that added a built-in importer for ESXi and vCenter VMs (April 2024)

0 €licence for Proxmox VE (AGPLv3); optional vendor support from €120 per socket per year

Sources: partner-reported VMware pricing (Redress Compliance, AceMQ 2026 renewal research), Proxmox VE subscription price list, Proxmox VE 8.2 release announcement.

Savings calculator

What would you keep?

Enter what you run today. The calculator applies the vendor's real licensing rules — core minimums included — and compares three years.

Today · per year—

After the move—

You keep over 3 years—before a one-off, fixed-price migration

Turn this into a migration plan →

Exchange rate used: 1 € = US$ (ECB reference rate, Sep 2026). Everything is calculated in your browser — nothing you enter is sent anywhere.

How we move it

Every VM, network and backup — moved and proven.

Inventory and dependency map

Every host, VM, datastore, network and backup job, and what talks to what. The plan says which VMs move in which wave.

VM conversion

VMs are imported with Proxmox's built-in ESXi/vCenter importer — disks, CPU, memory and NICs carried over. Large disks can be live-imported to keep downtime short.

Windows guests

VirtIO drivers installed and the boot disk switched to VirtIO SCSI — proven on non-critical machines in the pilot first.

Networks and storage

Port groups become Linux bridges and VLANs one-to-one; datastores map to ZFS, Ceph, NFS or your existing SAN.

Backups that restore

Proxmox Backup Server with deduplication and verification. Restores are tested before cutover, not after.

High availability

A Proxmox cluster with HA and live migration where you had vSphere HA and vMotion.

Straight talk

What doesn't move one-to-one

NSX micro-segmentation. Proxmox has a firewall and SDN, but not NSX's feature set. We design the equivalent where one exists — and say so where it doesn't.
vSAN. The natural replacements are Ceph (three nodes or more) or ZFS replication. Different trade-offs, chosen in the assessment.
Appliances certified only for VMware. They stay on a small VMware footprint or move only with the vendor's approval.
A multi-year term you just signed. Don't break it — we plan the exit for the renewal date.

How a migration runs

Five steps. The old platform stays intact until you sign off.

1
Assess
Inventory, written plan, fixed quote and date — before any work starts.
2
Pilot
Non-critical systems move first; performance and restores proven on your workloads.
3
Plan the cutover
A runbook per wave, agreed windows, a written way back for every step.
4
Cut over
Wave by wave, outside your business hours. Anything wrong rolls back.
5
Hand over
Documentation, runbooks, full admin access — or StayPatched keeps it patched.

Questions

What people ask before this move.

Can we keep running VMware during the migration?

Yes. Both platforms run side by side; VMs move in waves, and nothing on VMware is deleted until you confirm.

Do our Windows VMs need to be reinstalled?

No. They are imported as they are; VirtIO drivers are added during the conversion. The procedure is proven in the pilot first.

Do we need new hardware?

Usually not — Proxmox VE runs on standard x86 servers. Controllers, NICs and storage are checked in the assessment.

What does Proxmox support cost?

The software is free. Optional vendor subscriptions are priced per CPU socket per year: Community €120, Basic €370, Standard €550, Premium €1,100 (net).

How long does a VMware to Proxmox migration take?

For a few hosts and a few dozen VMs it is typically weeks rather than months. The completion date is fixed in the quote.

Get a migration plan

Tell us what you run. Get a fixed plan back.

A short call, then a written assessment: what moves as-is, what needs care, what should stay — with a fixed price and a fixed date. No obligation.

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If migrating isn't worth it for you, we'll say so

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