Rimini Street released its “2026 IT Virtualization Survey – What’s Next for VMware Users,” analyzing responses from 300 organizations worldwide that utilize VMware. The survey was conducted in partnership with third-party research firm Unisphere Research.
The findings indicate significant momentum toward VMware alternatives, with 90 percent of respondents exploring other options primarily because of elevated licensing costs. Additionally, 54 percent cited Broadcom’s decision to discontinue support for perpetual license holders as a factor in their evaluation. Since Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, customers have reported cost increases ranging from 100 to over 1,000 percent. Among survey participants, 73 percent prioritized cost savings as a key consideration in their virtualization strategy decisions.
Organizations pursuing changes face several obstacles, with the most prominent being operational complexity (40 percent), multi-vendor management challenges (38 percent), expanded security concerns (37 percent), and insufficient team expertise (37 percent). Despite these challenges, respondents indicated they aim to balance modernization efforts with risk reduction and operational continuity.
The survey revealed growing interest in diversified virtualization approaches. Sixty percent of respondents are considering multi-hypervisor strategies, while 47 percent favor hybrid IT environments combining hypervisors and containers. However, 48 percent do not plan to adopt VMware’s Cloud Foundation hybrid platform. These trends suggest a shift toward customized, multi-platform environments incorporating on-premises infrastructure, private cloud, public cloud, and alternative hypervisors.
Analyst Joe McKendrick from Unisphere Research characterized the broader shift as enterprises seeking to reduce single-vendor dependency while maintaining system continuity and modernizing at their own pace. Separately, Gartner projected that 55 percent of enterprises will pilot alternative distributed hybrid infrastructure solutions by 2029, up from 25 percent earlier this year.
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