@john-c said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):

It does NOT require three licensed servers (on Essential or Essential+), it allows up to (max) 3 hosts so you have room to grow.

Yes, on those packages. I was specifically talking about the Enterprise version for 24/7 support, which requires licensing at least three hosts. (I'm sure I could ignore implementing the third host, but I'd still have to pay the $1,800 / year basic host license fee for it.)

Again, thank you for all your effort discussing this.

@john-c Circling around on this subject again. Frankly I am still debating my best path forward, and leaning towards sticking with our VMware subscription and Veeam, the latter of which costs all of $428 per year for our system.

Support, in my mind, is the big unknown. I don't know that I'll need any support for VMware, but that's where Broadcom could really drop the ball.

On the other hand, if I want the premium support with Vates, it's $1,800 per server - very reasonable - but that also requires three licensed servers, and I only have two for an HA configuration, making the price far less reasonable... for my specific situation. (I think it's a GREAT, TREMENDOUS, HUGE deal for anyone running larger systems than we need.)

If I could buy the $1800 / server license for two servers, I'd do that in a heartbeat, knowing that sets us up for the least inconvenience if we need any support.

I do appreciate all the dialog here. Thank you for engaging.

@olivierlambert I don't want to sound rude with this comment, so please know that I have deep respect for your product, your efforts and your support here.

I work in a very small business. We have a VMware license for two hosts, solely to support HA. We have five guest OS installations. A single host - other than HA - would be more than sufficient for us.

For VMware, under the "new" packages from Broadcom, a five year license will cost about $1,200 per year, at least at the current prices. (I have a perpetual license with support through August 2026.)

If I want to run XCP-ng and XOA, it sounds like the likely best option is Essentials+, which is $4,000 per year if I recall correctly.

For such a small business as mine, what are the relative merits of your system vs VMware's "standard" package? I'm trying to understand what the extra $2800 per year buys, to assess if the value justifies the expense in my end-user case.

I'll add that we are very, very tight for budget given current industry and economic conditions. Yes, the $2,800 extra per year is material for us.