VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) are licensed per physical CPU core. The bill is a function of the silicon inside each server: number of hosts, sockets per host and cores per socket. As servers get denser, the same workload costs more, because there are more cores to license even if utilisation is unchanged.

Vates VMS is licensed per host. A subscription covers a physical server regardless of how many sockets, cores, virtual machines or vCPUs it runs. Consolidating onto fewer, denser hosts lowers the Vates bill rather than raising it, which is the opposite of how per-core models behave. The Essential plans are a flat fee for small estates of up to three hosts; the Pro and Enterprise plans are priced per host and scale linearly.

Under per-core licensing, each populated CPU socket is billed at a minimum of 16 cores, even when the physical processor has fewer. A host with two 8-core CPUs is therefore licensed as if it had 32 cores, not 16. On top of the per-CPU floor, Broadcom applies a minimum billable quantity of 72 cores per new order, which mainly affects small deployments. Both rules are modelled explicitly in the calculator so you can see how many cores you are billed for versus how many you physically own, and toggle the order minimum on or off.

XCP-ng and Xen Orchestra are free and open source, so a paid plan does not buy the right to run the software. It buys vendor support with defined response times, the pre-built Xen Orchestra appliance and its updates, and the product entitlements tied to the plan. XOSTOR (hyper-converged shared storage) and EasyVirt (capacity planning and Green IT) are optional add-ons and are included in the estimate only when you select them, so that the comparison against a VCF stack that bundles vSAN and Aria-style operations is like for like.

The figures are estimates for licensing and support only. Hardware, power, cooling, network, third-party backup targets, migration effort and internal staff time are excluded on both sides. VMware list prices are publicly reported figures rather than a Broadcom quotation; use the negotiated-discount slider to model your own renewal quote. Vates list prices are taken from the published pricing page and were last reviewed in August 2026.