VMware licensing has changed several times since late 2023, and some changes have been reversed or adjusted since. This post records what can be confirmed from Broadcom’s own pages or from reputable trade reporting, with dates, as of October 2026. It leaves out prices: Broadcom does not publish a public price list, and the figures that circulate are mostly second-hand. Your reseller quote is the only number that matters for your renewal.

If something here differs from your quote or contract, the quote and contract win. Treat this as a checklist of questions to ask, not as licensing advice.

Timeline at a glance#

Date Change Source
22 Nov 2023 Broadcom completes its acquisition of VMware Broadcom press release
11–12 Dec 2023 End of sale of perpetual licenses and of new support contracts for them; portfolio consolidated around VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) The Register, 12 Dec 2023
Dec 2023 – Feb 2024 VMware partner programs end; the invitation-only Broadcom Advantage Partner Program takes over from 5 Feb 2024 The Register, 28 Dec 2023
Feb 2024 Free ESXi (vSphere Hypervisor) marked End of General Availability The Register, 13 Feb 2024
Oct–Nov 2024 vSphere Enterprise Plus reintroduced; vSphere Essentials Plus discontinued; VVF’s vSAN entitlement raised TechTarget, Oct 2024
28 Mar 2025 Distributor notice of a 72-core minimum per order line from 10 Apr 2025, and a 20% penalty for late renewal The Register, 28 Mar 2025
10 Apr 2025 ESXi 8.0 Update 3e released; a free, limited vSphere Hypervisor 8 is downloadable again Broadcom release notes
2025 vSphere 9 ships with VCF 9, with no new vSphere Standard release The Register, 2 Sep 2026
Dec 2025 VVF withdrawn from sale in parts of EMEA Techzine, Dec 2025
26 Jan 2026 Broadcom closes the current VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) partner program and stops renewing many VCSP contracts The Register, 31 Jan 2026
Sep 2026 Broadcom says an updated vSphere Standard is coming; no published version, date or pricing The Register, 2 Sep 2026

The sections below cover each change in more detail.

The acquisition and the end of perpetual licenses#

Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware on 22 November 2023. In mid-December 2023 it announced what it called a simplified offer lineup. As The Register reported on 12 December 2023, it stopped selling perpetual licenses with immediate effect and stopped selling new support contracts (SnS) for existing perpetual licenses. VMware products would be sold only as subscriptions or term licenses. Broadcom also offered a trade-in path that let perpetual license holders move to subscriptions with upgrade pricing incentives.

Perpetual licenses you already own don’t stop working. What ended was the ability to renew support on them. Once a perpetual license’s support contract expires, you lose access to support and to new versions and patches under that contract. That is why many organizations are being asked to move to subscription at their support renewal date.

The subscription bundles#

The December 2023 announcement consolidated the portfolio around two main bundles:

  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), the flagship private cloud stack. Broadcom said at the time that it was halving VCF’s subscription list price and adding higher support service levels.
  • VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF), positioned for smaller and mid-sized deployments.

vSphere Standard and vSphere Essentials Plus stayed on sale at that point for deployments with more limited needs.

The lower end of the lineup has changed several times since then:

  • October–November 2024. TechTarget reported that Broadcom was reintroducing vSphere Enterprise Plus as a subscription and discontinuing vSphere Essentials Plus once Enterprise Plus launched. It also reported that the vSAN capacity included with VVF was being raised from 100 GiB to 250 GiB per core.
  • 2025. vSphere 9 shipped as part of VCF 9 without a new vSphere Standard release (The Register, September 2026).
  • December 2025. Techzine reported that Broadcom had withdrawn VVF from sale in parts of EMEA. Broadcom said availability varies by region and that customers should ask their sales rep or partner. Broadcom also said it had no plans at that time to discontinue vSphere Standard in EMEA.
  • September 2026. At VMware Explore, Broadcom’s Paul Turner, chief product officer for the VCF division, told The Register that an updated vSphere Standard is coming and that Broadcom had changed sales incentives that had pushed customers toward VCF. As of early October 2026 there is no published version, ship date or pricing.

The practical point is that the editions available to you depend on your region and when you buy. Ask your reseller for the current list of editions in your region, in writing, before you decide which bundle to renew.

Per-core licensing and minimums#

VCF and VVF are licensed per physical CPU core. Broadcom’s knowledge base article on counting cores (KB 313548) sets the rule:

  • Count the physical cores on every CPU in every ESXi host you license.
  • License at least 16 cores per CPU, even if a CPU has fewer than 16.
  • vSAN capacity is licensed per TiB of raw storage. VCF includes 1 TiB of vSAN per licensed core. VVF includes 0.25 TiB per core, rounded up to the next TiB.

For example, a host with two 8-core CPUs counts as 32 licensed cores, not 16. Small, low-core-count hosts are where this rule changes costs the most.

The 72-core per-order minimum. On 28 March 2025, The Register reported an email from Arrow, a VMware distributor, saying that from 10 April 2025 the minimum purchase would rise from 16 to 72 cores per order line. The same email said Broadcom would add a 20% penalty on renewals not completed by the subscription’s anniversary date. Some later trade commentary says the 72-core minimum was withdrawn soon after. We could not confirm either the rule or its withdrawal on a Broadcom page. KB 313548 states only the 16-core-per-CPU rule. Ask your reseller directly whether a per-order minimum applies to your order and whether there is a late-renewal penalty.

Free ESXi#

On 13 February 2024, The Register reported a Broadcom knowledge base article that marked the free ESXi hypervisor (vSphere Hypervisor) as End of General Availability, “along with the termination of perpetual licensing.”

It came back with limits. ESXi 8.0 Update 3e, released on 10 April 2025, came with a free vSphere Hypervisor 8 that can be downloaded from the Broadcom Support Portal (KB 399823). According to the release notes, the free version:

  • can’t be managed by vCenter,
  • comes with no Broadcom support,
  • is for non-production use only,
  • allows at most 8 vCPUs per VM.

KB 399823 adds that it has no access to vMotion, DRS, HA or VADP-based backups. It is useful for labs, but it doesn’t replace a licensed production host.

Partner and channel changes#

  • December 2023 – February 2024. Broadcom told VMware partners that their existing partner programs would end. From 5 February 2024, partners moved to the invitation-only Broadcom Advantage Partner Program (The Register, 28 December 2023). Not every former VMware reseller was invited, so some customers had to change who they buy through.
  • January 2026. The Register reported a Broadcom notice saying that it had closed the current Broadcom Advantage program for VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) partners and would not renew many VCSP contracts after 26 January 2026. Only a focused set of partners would be retained. Affected providers were told to close open opportunities by 31 March 2026, though they could keep serving existing customers through their current contract terms. The same report said the white-label model was being phased out in the European Economic Area.

If you buy VMware through a reseller or consume it from a hosting provider, confirm that they are still authorized for your renewal term. Their status may have changed since your last renewal.

What to do before your renewal#

Start at least two quarters before the renewal date. Many of the steps below take longer than people expect, and a late renewal may carry a penalty.

1. Inventory cores, not sockets#

Collect the physical CPU and core count of every host you license, and apply the 16-core-per-CPU floor. With PowerCLI:

Get-VMHost | ForEach-Object {
  $cpu = $_.ExtensionData.Hardware.CpuInfo
  $perSocket = $cpu.NumCpuCores / $cpu.NumCpuPackages
  [pscustomobject]@{
    Host          = $_.Name
    Sockets       = $cpu.NumCpuPackages
    CoresPerCpu   = $perSocket
    LicensedCores = [math]::Max($perSocket, 16) * $cpu.NumCpuPackages
  }
}

NumCpuCores is the host’s total physical core count, so the script divides by the socket count before applying the 16-core floor. Do the same for raw vSAN capacity in TiB. Compare the totals with the core counts on your quote. RVTools’ vHost tab gives the same CPU data if you prefer a spreadsheet.

2. Map the features you actually use#

Bundles include many products. List what you actually run: vCenter, vMotion, DRS, HA, distributed switches, vSAN, NSX, Aria (vRealize) Operations or Automation, Tanzu, Site Recovery Manager, host profiles, VM encryption. Note which teams depend on each one. That list tells you which edition you need. It also tells you what any alternative platform has to replace, and which features are bundled but unused.

3. Build a timeline#

Write down:

  • the renewal date and any notice period;
  • support end dates for the vSphere versions you run;
  • hardware refresh dates, which change core counts;
  • change freezes and peak business periods.

If you are not sure yet what you will do next, a shorter renewal term buys time to evaluate alternatives or to finish a migration without locking in a long commitment. Ask whether your reseller can offer one.

4. Get the quote early and in writing#

Ask for the quote with the edition, core count per product, term, any minimums and any late-renewal terms stated explicitly. Also ask which editions are available in your region. As shown above, that has varied by country.

5. Run a real evaluation#

Whether you renew, reduce your footprint or move workloads, base the decision on evidence from your own environment:

  • Export a full inventory (RVTools or a vCenter scan): VMs, guest operating systems, disks, NICs, snapshots and dependencies.
  • Pick a representative pilot group: a Linux VM, a Windows VM, something with static IPs, something licensed against hardware identity, and something with strict uptime needs.
  • Test backup, monitoring, identity and network integration on any candidate platform, not just whether VMs boot.
  • Measure migration downtime per VM. Cold migration time grows with disk size.

Even if you end up renewing, the inventory and dependency map make the renewal conversation more accurate.

See Victor's migration path