Why HCI Fell Short for Midsize IT, and What a VMware Alternative Needs Instead
StorageSwiss.com, Thursday, October 29th, 2026
StorageSwiss says HCI failed midsize IT on simplicity and cost, so a VMware alternative needs one code base on servers it already owns.
With Broadcom's licensing changes forcing platform decisions, the article says HCI looks like the obvious VMware alternative but already disappointed many midsize teams.
Vendors put separate code bases behind a single management GUI, and strict hardware compatibility lists and turnkey appliances forced new hardware purchases, so many went back to three-tier architectures.
It says evaluations focus on Day 1 migration while small teams live in Day 2 upgrades, patches, drive failures, capacity additions and DR tests.
For a team of three to five, it argues the replacement needs a single unified code base delivered as an infrastructure operating system running on existing servers.