Why VMWare’s strengths no longer justify modern complexity

While VMware has long been a cornerstone of IT infrastructure, it is becoming increasingly clear that it poses a number of challenges that should not be overlooked. Let’s start with the financial consequences. VMware’s licensing and subscription fees are significant to say the least, and the complexity of the licensing structure doesn’t help matters. It often feels like navigating a maze to find the right package, and recurring maintenance costs only add to the burden. Then there is the problem of ‘vendor lock-in’. When we commit to VMware, we commit to its entire ecosystem, which limits our flexibility. As multi-cloud strategies and open source solutions become more prevalent, the risk of being boxed in by a single provider’s roadmap grows. The dependency is real, and so is the challenge of migrating to other platforms: it is complex and expensive.

From a performance perspective, VMware’s architecture is starting to show its age. It may not be the best solution for modern cloud-native workloads such as containerized environments or latency-sensitive applications such as AI. The overhead and scalability limitations inherent in VMware’s design mean that we don’t always optimize every byte of memory or every watt of power, which is a concern in today’s performance-driven world. Additionally, when considering innovation, we must recognize that VMware, despite its dominance, has lagged behind in adopting new technologies such as edge computing, containerization, and advanced AI automation. It feels like the market is moving faster than VMware’s ability to keep pace.

Risk of exposure