A Nutanix, OpenShift, VMware alternative that coexists
Rising costs, complex licensing, and vendor lock-in are draining resources and limiting innovation. HPE Morpheus VM Essentials is more than just a VMware alternative—it’s a modern, enterprise-grade virtualization platform with unified management for VMware and HVM clusters.
With simple per‑socket pricing, HA, live migration, and policy‑driven provisioning, you have the features you need to simplify operations, cuts costs by up to 90%
Looking for a VMware replacement?
Ready to simplify your virtualization strategy? In under 3 minutes, see how HPE Morpheus VM Essentials helps you manage both VMware vSphere and HVM workloads side-by-side—and migrate at your own pace to HPE’s enterprise-grade HVM hypervisor.
Feature comparison: VMware vs HPE Morpheus VM Essentials
Unlike virtualization products that get more expensive with today's high core count CPUs, HPE Morpheus VM Essentials delivers enterprise-grade features, flexible workload management, and one of the market’s most competitive pricing models—at a suggested US list price of $600 per CPU socket per year, including support
Category | Feature | HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software | VMware vSphere Standard | VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus | Nutanix AHV | Proxmox VE | Microsoft HyperV | RedHat OpenShift virtualization |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solution Pricing & Options | Licensing model | Per core | Per core | AOS tier (per node/core) | 4 tiers, Per Socket | Included w/ Windows Server; Per core for Azure Stack HCI | Core-pair / Socket-pair | |
| Duration | 1,3,5 years | 1,3,5 years | 1,3,5 years | 1 - 5 years | Per year | Perpetual or per core monthly (HCI) | 1 - 3 years | |
| Pricing | $ | $$$ | $$$$ | $$ | $ | $$ | $$ | |
| Upgrade to hybrid cloud management |
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| Online purchase | | | | | | | ||
| Global enterprise services |  |  | | |  | | | |
Migration and Replication | Migration from VMware to HVM | | | | | | | |
| Live migration of VMs (like to like) | |
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| Live migration of VM storage | |
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| Virtualization and Resource Management | Virtual Symmetric Multiprocessing | |
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| High Availability for automatic failover | |
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| Automated workload balancing | | |
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| Affinity / Anti-Affinity with auto placement | |
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| Single Root I/O Virtualization for improved network performance | | |
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| Built in KVM based hypervisor | | | | | | | | |
| Multi hypervisor management |
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| Storage and Data Management | High availability for management server | | | | | | | |
| Data protection for management server | |
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| Data Protection and Disaster Recovery | Stretch clusters for metropolitan areas | | |
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| Synchronous array replication | | | | | | | | |
| External storage support: FC, iSCSI, NFS v3 | | | |  | | | | |
| Native VM snapshots | |
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| Native VM backup and recovery | | | | | | | | |
| Backup and recovery partners | | | | | | | | |
| Infrastructure Management | Centralized repository for VM templates and more | | | | | | | |
| Identity and Access Management Federation | |
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| Automation (scripting) | | | | | | | | |
| Security
| Secure Communication Protocols (TLS 1.2/1.3) | | | | | | | |
| Cypher Store | | | | | | | ||
| Virtual Machine Encryption | | |
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| Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) 2.0 | |
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| Network Management | External IP Address Management (IPAM) integration | | | | | | | |
| External Domain Name System (DNS) integration | | | | | | | | |
| Distributed virtual switch | | |
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| Micro segmentation | | | | | Add on | Add on |
Feature comparison completed as of Oct 2025. This is not intended to be an exhaustive feature comparison. For most current features, refer to HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software Quickspecs and release notes. Certain 3rd party features are identified by name for illustrative purposes only, and are not indicative of relative capability, performance or service levels. Features discussed indicate an approximate comparison of equivalent features. The exact implementation of the features will vary between the products.
VMware, VMware vSphere, vMotion, Storage vMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler, MetroCluster and vApp(s) are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions.
VMware ESXi to HVM migration Feature
Step-by-step technical guide explains how to use the built in migration feature to move VMs from VMware ESXi to HVM. Includes Linux (Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and Microsoft Windows Operating System.
Migration Services can take care of the complexity
HPE Cloud Platform Services help transfer data, applications, and assets from one platform to another. Successful platform migration involves a thorough assessment of the current platform, selecting the right target, testing for compatibility and performance, implementing, and validating to help ensure all systems are functioning properly.
Workloads
Explore workloads that have been validated with HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software.
FAQs about VMware alternatives and migration
What is HPE Morpheus VM Essentials, and is it a full VMware replacement?
It’s a modern, enterprise‑grade virtualization platform with a built‑in HVM hypervisor and unified management that allows you to manage VMware ESXi and HVM clusters from one console and migrate when you’re ready.
How is licensing different from VMware?
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials uses per‑socket licensing (suggested US list price $600 per CPU socket/year)
What core features should I expect with VM Essentials vs VMware?
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials supports high availability, live migration, intelligent placement, and integrations for IPAM/DNS and automation—covering the day‑to‑day capabilities most teams rely on.
Can I migrate existing VMs from VMware to VM Essentials while limiting downtime?
You can follow our step‑by‑step migration guide for Linux and Windows based workloads. Downtime depends on your chosen method, workload requirements, and maintenance window policies—plan and test per the guide, or contact HPE Services for virtualization migration assistance.
Do I need to switch everything on day one?
No. A common pattern is coexistence, not wholesale VMware replacement: keep VMware for current workloads, deploy new workloads on HVM, and migrate in waves as you validate. The unified console simplifies operating both during the transition.
How do I estimate savings for my environment?
Run an assessment to compare per‑socket vs per‑core licensing against your actual hardware and VM inventory, then include support, migration, and ops efficiency in the model. HPE CloudPhysics helps you quantify this quickly.
What about support and future growth?
VM Essentials is backed by HPE’s global enterprise support with more than 20 years experience managing VMware deployments. If/when you need broader hybrid‑cloud and container capabilities, you can upgrade to HPE Morpheus Enterprise to extend across more runtimes and clouds.
