Since Broadcom has taken over VMware, they’ve been attempting to gouge corporate customers to the point that AT&T was suing them (I believe they worked out a deal). They’ve adjusted some pricing and trying to address those migrating away, but a positive was they did away with the free VMware Player and made VMware Workstation free for personal use. And now it’s free for commercial or any use. Consequently, I use VMware Workstation to run my Linux virtual machines on this Window 10 desktop machine (Linux is a protection for accessing the internet and much more enjoyable) , and it’s had the best 3D graphics support, though not with the newest Linux distributions. But, they’re missing the mark on the server free offering, as home lab tinkerers and IT professionals use it for testing and improving their skills (I use Proxmox on my server). As they use other offerings and improve those skills they’ll further drive businesses to the other products which will likely be more economical as well.
By Sergiu Gatlan
VMware has announced that its VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation desktop hypervisors are now free to everyone for commercial, educational, and personal use.
In May, the company also made VMware Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro free for personal use, allowing students and home users to set up virtualized test labs and experiment with other OSs by running virtual machines and Kubernetes clusters on Windows, Linux, and macOS devices.
Starting this week, the Pro versions and the two products will no longer be available under a paid subscription model.
“Effective immediately, both VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation will transition away from the paid subscription model, meaning you can now utilize these tools without any cost. The paid versions of these offerings – Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro – are no longer available for purchase,” said Broadcom product marketing director Himanshu Singh.
“If you’re currently under a commercial contract, you can rest easy knowing that your agreement will remain in effect until the end of your term. You will continue to receive the full level of service and enterprise-grade support as per your contract.”
While the free versions will include all the features available in the paid products, Broadcom will no longer provide users with support ticketing for troubleshooting.
Broadcom plans to continue developing new features and improvements and ensure that updates are rolled out promptly.
“We’re actively investing in new features, usability improvements, and other valuable enhancements,” Singh added. “Our engineering teams are committed to maintaining our high standards for stability, with timely updates and reliable performance.”
After signing into your Broadcom account, you can download VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation on this page.
This comes after Broadcom announced the end of perpetual licensing, the discontinuation of the free vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) offering, and the divestiture of the End-User Computing Division after acquiring VMware one year ago.