VMware After Broadcom. $135 per core for VVF, $350 for VCF, and a sixteen core minimum that rewrote everyone's bill.

After the Broadcom acquisition, VMware collapsed dozens of standalone products and editions into two bundles. VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is the full private cloud stack: vSphere Enterprise Plus capability, vSAN Enterprise, NSX Enterprise, Aria Suite, and Tanzu, sold per core. VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) is the lighter bundle: vSphere capability plus vSAN at 100 GB per core entitlement plus Aria Operations and Aria Operations for Logs, also per core. Standalone products are mostly retired.

List pricing settled around $135 per core per year for VVF and $350 per core per year for VCF in the post acquisition reset, with negotiated reality lower at enterprise scale. The minimum subscription is sixteen cores per CPU and a seventy two core minimum per order. The economic shock for most customers was that the new per core pricing, combined with the minimum core counting, produced two to three times the prior ELA cost.

This paper sets out the actual VCF and VVF pricing, the minimum core math, the VCF over commit trap (Broadcom often pushes VCF when VVF is sufficient), the Hyper V, Nutanix, OpenShift Virtualization, and Proxmox alternatives realistically, and the eleven move buyer side playbook. Read the related Broadcom VMware services practice, the Broadcom VMware knowledge hub, and the VMware negotiation playbook.

What you will learn

• The VCF versus VVF bundle map. What is in each, what is no longer available standalone (NSX, vSAN, Aria Suite, Tanzu cannot be purchased separately at most enterprise tiers), and which bundle the customer actually needs.
• Per core pricing in 2026. VVF at approximately $135 per core per year list and VCF at approximately $350 per core per year list, with negotiated bands at enterprise scale ten to thirty percent below.
• The sixteen core per CPU minimum and the seventy two core per order minimum. Broadcom enforces these rigorously. Older small workloads on twin socket servers now pay for thirty two cores even if six are deployed.
• The vSAN per core entitlement math. VVF includes 100 GB per core of vSAN. VCF includes full vSAN Enterprise. Storage heavy workloads frequently force the VCF upgrade or a separate vSAN add on purchase.
• The NSX trap inside VCF. Customers who do not use NSX still pay for it inside VCF. NSX cannot be removed from the bundle at the standard tiers.
• The credible alternatives. Microsoft Hyper V plus Azure Stack HCI, Nutanix AHV, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Proxmox, and AWS Outposts. Where each wins, where each does not.
• The third party support play. Spinnaker, Rimini Street, US PRO, and others offering VMware support at 50 to 60 percent of Broadcom maintenance cost.
• The eleven move buyer side playbook. Sequenced from core count audit through bundle right sizing, competitive RFP, and the negotiated discount band.

Table of contents

Who this is for

CIOs, VPs of Infrastructure, VPs of IT Procurement, Virtualization Center of Excellence leaders, and procurement leaders facing a Broadcom VMware renewal.

Particularly useful for:

• Customers whose three year VVF or VCF renewal is approaching.
• Customers running a hypervisor migration evaluation (Hyper V, Nutanix, OpenShift Virtualization, or Proxmox).
• Customers considering third party support as a bridge between renewals.