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2025 is a transformative year for VMware customers, marked by sweeping licensing changes, significant product retirements, and a new approach to software downloads. Whether running a small lab or a global enterprise, these updates will impact your virtualization strategy. Here’s a breakdown of the most critical changes to VMware in 2025.
VMware’s parent company, Broadcom, has accelerated the shift from perpetual licenses to a subscription-only model. This means all new VMware licenses are now subscription-based, and perpetual licenses are no longer available for purchase. This change is designed to align with industry trends but brings higher long-term costs and new budgeting considerations for IT teams.
The Essentials Plus Kit, a staple for small and midsize businesses, has been discontinued. This kit offered affordable access to features like High Availability (HA), vMotion, and vSphere Replication for up to three hosts. With its retirement, smaller organizations face higher costs and fewer tailored options, often needing to upgrade to more expensive SKUs to maintain core functionality.
Broadcom has reintroduced the Enterprise Plus license, which provides advanced features (DRS, Distributed Switching, VM encryption) but is often excessive and costly for smaller environments. This SKU is positioned for organizations with robust, enterprise-grade needs.
All licensing tiers now use a per-core model with at least 16 cores per CPU. Even if your CPU has fewer than 16 cores, you’ll be billed as if it has 16. This increases the cost for environments with lower-core CPUs and reduces flexibility for smaller deployments.
October 2, 2025, will mark the end of support for vSphere 7.x (including ESXi and vCenter) and vSAN 7.x. Organizations must upgrade to 8.x to remain supported and secure. This is a pivotal deadline for anyone running VMware’s core virtualization stack.
Several other VMware products hit end-of-support in 2025, including:
Organizations must plan upgrades or migrations to newer versions or alternative solutions to maintain support, security, and compliance.
On March 24, 2025, VMware software binaries (including updates and patches for VCF, vCenter, ESX, and vSAN) became distributed from a single, centralized download site. Downloads now require a unique, embedded token for authorization, improving security and tracking.
VMware’s new subscription model has led to substantial price hikes, with some organizations seeing long-term costs rise by over 1,000% compared to previous perpetual licenses.
Broadcom has also accelerated compliance audits, making it essential for organizations to track their VMware deployments and licensing usage closely.
Broadcom has reduced the number of VMware product SKUs and is consolidating offerings. This streamlines procurement but may force customers into larger, more expensive bundles with features they may not need.
| Change | Impact |
| Subscription-only Licensing | No new perpetual licenses; ongoing costs rise |
| Essentials Plus Kit Retired | Higher entry costs for small deployments |
| Per-Core Licensing (16-core min) | Increases cost for low-core CPUs |
| Major Product EOLs | vSphere 7.x, vSAN 7.x, and other require urgent upgrades |
| Centralized Downloads | Secure, tokenized downloads; old URLs expired on April 24, 2025 |
| Price Increases | Substantial cost hikes for many organizations |
| Product SKU Consolidation | Fewer choices, more bundled features |
2025 is a year of significant transition for VMware customers. The end of affordable entry-level kits, a new licensing model, critical product retirements, and a revamped download process mean organizations must review their VMware strategies now. Proactive planning, especially around licensing and product upgrades, is essential to avoid disruptions, manage costs, and stay compliant in the new VMware landscape.
If your business is exploring how to address the VMware changes, let’s talk. Request a consultation with Bluewave Technology Group today!
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