VMware Alternative Comparison: Proxmox vs. Red Hat Openshift

Are you wondering: What are the best alternatives for VMware?

After Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023, many companies and IT leaders started looking for a viable VMware alternative for their virtualization needs.

Between skyrocketing VMware subscription prices, higher minimum licensing commitments,  degrading service quality, and high-profile lawsuits against Broadcom, it’s easy to understand why CIOs and IT directors want to decrease their dependence on VMware.

CloudFirst recommends open virtualization options like Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) or Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE). This article is your guide to picking the right one.

What Is Open Virtualization?

Virtualization, a technology that creates logically separate virtual environments from a single physical machine, is the bedrock of many modern IT stacks. This technology is essential for cloud computing.

VMware has long dominated the virtualization market, but cracks have been appearing. Open virtualization technologies are proving to be viable VMware alternatives.

Open virtualization emphasizes open-source, open-standard, and interoperability. Not only does this prevent the vendor-lock issue that many VMware shops are currently struggling with, but it’s also significantly cheaper and more transparent.

It’s not uncommon for companies to save around 80% per year by choosing open virtualization over VMware.

What Is Proxmox Virtual Environment?

According to CloudFirst’s own analysis and current customer performance, running Proxmox VE instead of VMware can result in an 84% cost reduction. There is no licensing cost for Proxmox VE, though many users opt to subscribe for enterprise support.

We recommend Proxmox VE for smaller, single-tenant, or physically isolated clusters in our cloud. The primary value points are cost efficiency, simplicity, fast provisioning, and predictable operations.

Now let’s dive into some of the technical details.

Proxmox VE Technology Overview

Proxmox Virtual Environment “is a complete, open-source server management platform for enterprise virtualization.” 

By tightly integrating the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor and Linux Containers (LXC) alongside software-defined storage and networking, Proxmox VE provides users with a web-based user interface for managing VMs, containers, high availability (HA) for clusters, and disaster recovery tools.

Based on Debian GNU/Linux and using a custom Linux Kernel, Proxmox VE’s source cost is free to view, use, and alter under the GNU Affero General Public License v3. 

KVM is an industry-leading Linux virtualization technology that runs with near-native performance on all x86 hardware that supports virtualization. This means users can run both Windows and Linux instances in private, logically partitioned environments. 

CloudFirst customers also benefit from tight cloud integration with IBM Power Systems like IBM i and AIX.

Top Technical Features of Proxmox VE

• Centralized management: Key features include easy and comprehensive management from a web-based interface, as well as task automation with command line interface (CLI) and RESTful API.
• Clustering: Unique Proxmox Cluster File System (pmxcfs), live/online migration, and multi-master design enable scale-out to large sets of clustered nodes.
• Authentication: Role-based administration for controlling object access and authentication realms supports sources like Active Director, Linux PAM, and LDAP.
• High Availability: Built-in HA Manager and HA Simulator enable the creation and verification of highly available virtual servers for businesses that need stability and reliability.
• Networking: Software-defined networking (SDN) and the Linux networking stack enable responsiveness and adaptability to meet unique and dynamic business needs.
• Storage: Flexible options support both local and network storage across a variety of storage types. If you can use it on Debian GNU/Linux, you can use it on Proxmox. Proxmox also supports software-defined storage with Ceph.
• Cybersecurity: Built-in firewall is completely customizable, provides full isolation between virtual machines, and supports both IPv4 and IPv6.
• Business Continuity: Fully integrated and automatable backup/restore solution protects both VM/container data and configuration data.

What Is Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine?

CloudFirst’s analysis found that customers who switch from VMware to Red Hat OVE may save up to 78%. 

While the price may be higher than switching to Proxmox VE, largely because Red Hat OVE requires purchasing a license whereas Proxmox VE does not, it’s still significantly cheaper than VMware products.

Red Hat OVE is often the best fit for enterprise-class hosting and multi-tenant platforms that require premium vendor support and strong governance. The main value points are standardized platform operations, lifecycle control aligned to OpenShift operational patterns, and a VM-focused subscription model.

Red Hat OVE Technology Overview

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine is designed for deploying, managing, and scaling virtual machines within Red Hat OpenShift’s larger containerization platform. 

By combining VMs with container orchestration via Kubernetes and infrastructure automation via the complimentary Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, users who choose OVE and the broader Red Hat ecosystem gain access to a suite of IT tools that are extensible and open-source yet ready for the enterprise.

Red Hat OVE won CRN’s 2025 Tech Innovator Award in the Virtualization/Virtual Desktop Infrastructure category for its ability to deploy virtualization alongside containerization in the same platform.

Subscribers get unlimited VMs, a migration toolkit for virtualization, and access to key features like an admin console, user workload monitoring, and platform logging.

Red Hat OpenShift vs. Kubernetes

You may be wondering: What is the difference between OpenShift and Kubernetes? Essentially, OpenShift is built on top of Kubernetes, adding build-related artifacts as first-class Kubernetes resources. 

For instance, OpenShift’s oc client offers a subset of the standard kubectl capabilities, such as direction integration with build resources through new subcommands like new-build or start-build.

Other key differences include a plug-and-play integrated container image registry, support for multiple infrastructure platforms, and an embedded web GUI.

Remember, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine is for virtual machines, not containers. It can be deployed alongside Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, which, as the name implies, has more container functionality.

Top Technical Features of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine

• Migration toolkit for virtualization: Especially relevant for users moving off VMware; helps minimize the downtime and operational impact of migration.
• Bare-metal performance: VMs with performance specs comparable to running on bare metal.
• Scalability: Quickly scales up to thousands of nodes or scales down if necessary.
• Monitoring and logging: Complete visibility for benchmarking, auditing, and more.
• Enterprise support: Red Hat’s main value proposition—providing open-source, Linux-based IT alongside reliable, enterprise-ready service.
• Integration: Not only with the full stack of Red Hat products but also with an extensive partner and independent software vendor ecosystem.
• CI/CD: Ideal for DevOps teams.

How to Move from VMware to Proxmox VE or Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine

Many companies want to migrate off VMware, but the barriers to switching seem too high. From operational disruptions to migration costs to compatibility concerns, there are a lot of reasons to put it off for another quarter.

The good news is that you don’t need to wait any longer. CloudFirst has your back.

Because we combine cloud infrastructure hosting with comprehensive managed services, we have a migration playbook that just works: minimum downtime, minimum cost. We go through the full process of discovery, sizing, compatibility, method selection, cutover with rollback, validation, and baselining. We then go one step further to provide monthly progress reports against VMware core reduction and platform adoption.

From there, we layer disaster recovery, data protection, and cybersecurity solutions as a standard baseline for all virtualization environments. That means that not only is your infrastructure set up on a new platform, but it’s also protected from ransomware, natural disasters, and any other worst-case scenario you can think of.