DataCore challenges Nutanix as an expensive VMware alternative

The software-defined storage vendor argues that partners can offer customers a more flexible and potentially cheaper route away from VMware by separating their hardware, storage and hypervisor decisions

DataCore is urging VMware customers assessing their options to look beyond a move to another integrated infrastructure platform, arguing that partners can reduce costs by allowing organisations to retain existing hardware and choose their own virtualisation stack.

The US-headquartered software-defined storage company is positioning its hardware-independent approach as an alternative for customers reassessing their infrastructure following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.

DataCore said it was seeing particularly strong interest in Proxmox, its open-source virtualisation platform, alongside customer evaluations of Microsoft Hyper-V, XCP-ng and other KVM-based platforms.

Said Boukhizou, VP of product at DataCore, says some customers could cut the cost of an infrastructure refresh substantially compared with a Nutanix deployment.

Speaking at an IT Press Tour event in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Boukhizou points to configurations where customers can reuse existing servers or source equipment through the refurbished hardware market to generate significant savings.

“In these scenarios, customers can avoid replacing perfectly usable hardware as part of a full HCI refresh.

“They can also select cost-effective standard servers and storage components rather than purchasing a complete, integrated appliance stack,” he says.

Boukhizou said the resulting total infrastructure cost could be close to 50 per cent lower than a comparable Nutanix-based refresh in some cases.

“The key driver is therefore not simply software licensing.

"It is the ability to extend the life of existing infrastructure, use refurbished equipment where appropriate, and decouple the storage, server and hypervisor purchasing decisions,” he tells CRN UK.

Nutanix points to customer choice

Responding to DataCore’s argument, Thomas Cornely, EVP of product management at Nutanix, says the company offered an open platform that allowed customers to choose where and how they ran applications, data and AI.

“Customers can combine Nutanix capabilities with technologies from a broad and growing partner ecosystem across silicon, servers, storage, public cloud, neoclouds, and service providers to build the environment that best fits their needs, with choice and flexibility in licensing and packaging,” he says.

Cornely says customers could manage workloads consistently across these environments and adapt their infrastructure as requirements changed, helping to improve operational efficiency and total cost of ownership.

For channel partners, he said that flexibility created opportunities to help customers migrate and modernise, as well as build services across the customer lifecycle.

Service providers could also develop differentiated infrastructure, cloud-native and AI services and generate recurring revenue.

Nutanix added more than 3,000 customers during its 2026 financial year, according to Cornely.

More VMware customers test alternatives

DataCore’s claims come amid wider evidence that VMware customers are examining their options.

Gartner predicts that by 2029, 55 per cent of enterprises will initiate proofs of concept for alternative distributed hybrid infrastructure products to replace their VMware-based deployments. That compares with 25 per cent in 2026.

The forecast doesn’t mean that more than half of VMware customers will necessarily complete a migration.

But it points to a growing evaluation cycle and a potentially larger market for partners able to assess competing platforms, run proofs of concept and manage phased transitions.

DataCore says this was reflected in the growing number of its customers testing or adopting Proxmox.

Boukhizou says the number of customers sharing telemetry with DataCore from Proxmox environments had grown from around a dozen at the beginning of the year to several hundred.

He describes it as the strongest growth among the hypervisors monitored by the company.

“One year ago, more than 95 per cent of our customers were running VMware.

“We are now seeing a clear increase in Proxmox adoption and evaluation,” says Boukhizou.

“This does not necessarily mean that there is a mass exodus from VMware, since some customers are still in the evaluation or transition phase, but it does demonstrate a genuine willingness to consider a change and to assess alternatives seriously.”

DataCore said Proxmox’s proposition is that customers can change their compute and virtualisation layers while retaining their storage services and, in many cases, their existing hardware.

This also reduces the need to commit to a single hypervisor over the long term, according to Boukhizou.

Migration creates services opportunity

Boukhizou said partners would be central to these projects because moving away from VMware generally involved more than replacing one software product.

Customers could require infrastructure assessments, architectural design, migration planning, virtual-to-virtual migration, implementation and testing.

A change of virtualisation platform could also require them to reconsider their backup and disaster recovery arrangements.

“That creates a significant services opportunity for partners,” says Boukhizou.

“Rather than simply reselling infrastructure, they can provide assessment, design, migration and managed services.

“It also gives them more freedom to select the hardware and hypervisor combination that makes the most sense for each customer instead of being locked into a single vendor stack.”