VMware Fusion and Workstation Are Now Free for All Users

[ngetchell]

Nice try Broadcom! I gave virt-manager a try and am happy to have made the switch.

I'll never install a VMware product again.

[veidr]

Please elaborate. Are these products likely dead now that Broadcom bought VMWare?

I still use both, but only for VMs on Mac and Windows, which is not how I normally run VMs. (That being KVM/QEMU on Linux.)

[evanjrowley]

virt-manager is amazing and yet it kind of boggles my mind that its 1) depreciated in RHEL8, and 2) hasn't had an official release since 2022.

[miah_]

Instead of waiting for the rug pull, just use something open source.

[_mlbt]

UTM is an excellent macOS Qemu frontend and it’s open source.

https://mac.getutm.app/

[gosub100]

I gave up on VirtualBox because their sound broke one day and never got fixed. Switching to qemu wasn't a breeze but it wasn't a debacle either. Just found the right args and saved it as a script

[burnt-resistor]

After endless PR blunders, they're trying to lure back customers probably with a spam platform or freemium nonsense. Nope, they shat the bed and now they have to sleep in it.

[ksec]

Even their Pro version are free. So are they basically abandoning the project and giving it away?

[RantyDave]

Yep.

[tech234a]

Workstation Pro/Fusion Pro were made free for personal users in May: https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2024/05/vmware-workstat...

[evanjrowley]

Literally a few days ago I was on their website trying to figure out how I could possibly get a commercial license just to test an OVA. Going through sales, convincing my manager to make a PO, and going through the expense reimbursement process is a lot of hoops to jump through just to test a virtual machine.

[onoke]

I am using VirtualBox. Who will be happy about this? Server Hosting providers?

[weikju]

Server hosts are already using vsphere or some other products. The produced being made free are intended for desktop usage.

[self_awareness]

> I am using VirtualBox. Who will be happy about this? Server Hosting providers?

One group would be macOS users who want to virtualize ARM64.

[delsarto]

See also VMware Workstation Shifting from Proprietary Code to Using Upstream KVM (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42013032) which I'm sure plays into this too ...

A while ago (like ~10 years ago) VMWare workstation, or some of the things virtualbox graphics drivers did, seemed to be the only reasonable ways to run a virtualised desktop with 3d or at more than 5fps. But these days virtio and spice seems to work just fine.

[completelylegit]

What a nice trap to set

[egberts1]

After Broadcom's incredible zeal at killing their prized goose that lays golden eggs, they are killing it to a point of beating a dead horse.

[evoke4908]

Can we kill the goose again? Maybe harder this time

[exsomet]

My number one choice for desktop hypervisor on Linux would be virtualbox, except that unity mode hasn’t worked in years and that’s my most needed feature.

It feels like a weird spot to be in that there’s a bunch of competing options and all of them have weirdness or broken features (no slight to the people building these - far be it from me to complain about free stuff).

[pjmlp]

VMware Workstation was my go to for "Desktop Linux", nowadays I use WSL, and most likely this is the main reason it is now free, before getting the axe eventually.

[self_awareness]

Each time you run WSL, you help MS with the first "E" in embrace-extend-extinguish sequence.

[tiffanyh]

What's the best alternative?

(since so many people in this thread think this is the end of VMware)

[486sx33]

“The paid versions of these offerings – Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro – are no longer available for purchase. ”

[486sx33]

…”Once your current contract concludes, you can continue using the product. However, please note that support ticketing for troubleshooting will no longer be available.”