Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials)
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@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.
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@msimanyi said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
@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.
For one thing you'll be supporting the development of future updates to XCP-ng and XOA from a human size company. With both XCP-ng and XOA being open source, also the Vates company is willing to work with and collaborate on fixes and new features if required.
By the way that perpetual license you have currently is the last one you'll be able to get for VMware's software stack as Broadcom has terminated this form of licensing on its product lines. This happened following Broadcom taking over and acquiring VMWare. Broadcom's changed VMware's licensing terms to a subscription.
This means you'll need to keep paying the subscription fee in order to keep using the software. As well we all know subscription fees tend to go up and rarely stay the same or even more so rarely go down. Other user's on this forum have had their licensing cost's of the VMware virtualisation stack increase significantly following the Broadcom acquisition (hey guys chime in here)!
With the Broadcom subscription of the new vSphere Standard the fee is per core, so for each core in each socket of each virtualisation host per year you will be paying likely much higher fees, while with Vates's fee it's per year (on Essential and Essential+), with none of this ridiculous per core or per socket pricing. Then with the higher plans it becomes per host per year still without this ridiculous per core or per socket pricing.
So the price of $4000 dollars per year for Vates's Essential+ given Broadcom's. Also if you pay for 3 or 5 years of Vate's support plans the amount per year will go down. Also the Essential and Essential+ support plans are for up to 3 hosts, so your paying one fee which covers up to 3 hosts.
This is especially true when you consider the high number of cores which servers have now (can reach as many as 21-22 cores per CPU) and up to 4 sockets (CPUs) per server.
Check out the user stories and try a trial of Vate's software (XCP-ng and XOA) if you need convincing. Plus on the pricing page of Vates there's further down a feature comparison of their support plans. In addition to Vates you also have the community here to aid you with help (Technical Support), Tom of Lawrance Systems is regularly posting here and video content on Youtube.
By paying for Technical Support from Vates you'll be able to open support tickets, they are pretty responsive (especially during normal business hours - weekdays) and you'll have an SLA for a response time to those tickets based on the plan chosen.
https://vates.tech/user-stories/
https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2024/01/22/vmware-end-of-availability-of-perpetual-licensing-and-saas-services/
https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/docs/vmw-datasheet-vsphere-product-line-comparison.pdf -
To be really fair here i think you should compate XCP-NG with XenServer.
You can get a XenServer License (including Support) for 400-900$/year/socket depending on the version. The Standard-Edition is about 400 and has nearly all features you need. 900 for the premium also is quite cheap.
i cannot say anything about the support-quality you get from XenServer.
XenServer also has the more current Xen version with XenServer-8 and a thin-provisioned shared fs (GFS)
i really like what vates does and i like the community but i also think that they should be cheaper in regards to their xcp-ng subscription. also that the bundle xcp-ng and xoa in there subscription is not the way i would like it to be to be fair.
400 per host would be a very reasonable price and would put pressure on Citrix/XenServer.
XOA should really be a seperate product and as oliver said (as i understood it) most of the support-requests are related to xcp-ng anyway.
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@rfx77 said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
To be really fair here i think you should compate XCP-NG with XenServer.
You can get a XenServer License (including Support) for 400-900$/year/socket depending on the version. The Standard-Edition is about 400 and has nearly all features you need. 900 for the premium also is quite cheap.
i cannot say anything about the support-quality you get from XenServer.
XenServer also has the more current Xen version with XenServer-8 and a thin-provisioned shared fs (GFS)
i really like what vates does and i like the community but i also think that they should be cheaper in regards to their xcp-ng subscription. also that the bundle xcp-ng and xoa in there subscription is not the way i would like it to be to be fair.
400 per host would be a very reasonable price and would put pressure on Citrix/XenServer.
XOA should really be a seperate product and as oliver said (as i understood it) most of the support-requests are related to xcp-ng anyway.
The XOA and XCP-ng being separate products isn't a good idea as until 8.3 goes stable but best for next LTS as 8.2 currently isn't usable without XOA. Though if have XenServer can still get XOA separately, just so you know. Though there's some unique features which can only be used through XCP-ng and not XenServer.
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@msimanyi said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
@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.
Hi,
You need to compare and similar service. Essential Plus provides XCP-ng + XOA Premium, with all features of XOA Premium (with features that aren't far from VEEAM or other backup providers). See the "Compare Plan" at https://vates.tech/pricing-and-support/ to learn about all features. If you add VMware+VEEAM, I'm sure this $4000 is VERY attractive
If you don't wall ALL XOA features, go for Essential only ($2000/y) which still provides backup options. IMHO, Essential Plus is really a killer in terms of value, because it brings everything for a reasonable price.
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Note that we will have a plan for XenServer users, but it will be also per host and probably more $$$ than the combo XCP-ng+XO. Since our XS users are only now large VDI deployments paying already a lot of $$$ for Citrix desktops and such.
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@olivierlambert said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
@msimanyi said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
@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.
Hi,
You need to compare and similar service. Essential Plus provides XCP-ng + XOA Premium, with all features of XOA Premium (with features that aren't far from VEEAM or other backup providers). See the "Compare Plan" at https://vates.tech/pricing-and-support/ to learn about all features. If you add VMware+VEEAM, I'm sure this $4000 is VERY attractive
If you don't wall ALL XOA features, go for Essential only ($2000/y) which still provides backup options. IMHO, Essential Plus is really a killer in terms of value, because it brings everything for a reasonable price.
@msimanyi If the XOA Premium is anything like the one from when it was separate (not bundled with XCP-ng), then you're getting all of its features from its top end edition of XOA.
That includes the Corporate or Enterprise grade backup functionality which is pretty high end, so you won't be needing something like VEEAM to back up the VMs, which will save you money as you won't need to also maintain licenses for both VMware vSphere Standard and also the VEEAM backup software. At least the VM hypervisor host and VM backup product or module from VEEAM won't be needed with the Vates Essential+ and Vates Essential support plans.
Also the XOA Premium allows you to do a file level restore from the VM backups, so if you need a specific file then its possible to do so (within certain requirements - see feature documentation). To aid you in protecting your backups its also capable of encrypting them and providing immutable backups functionality.
Additionally integration with NetBox and also deployment as well as automation technologies and finally Single Sign On (SSO) capabilities.
So the $4000/year (as 1 year) or $3400/year (as 5 year) for Essentials+ is a pretty good deal wouldn't you say? If you don't want all of XOA's features then you can go with Essentials for $2000/year (as 1 year) or $1700/year (as 5 years)!
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@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.
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@msimanyi said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
@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.
@msimanyi It does NOT require three licensed servers (on Essential or Essential+), it allows up to (max) 3 hosts so you have room to grow. So you can stick with the 2 hosts currently, but then get 1 more when the time is right. Having three hosts, is really great it allows for more resilience. So if you lose (or have maintenance) on 1-2 hosts you can still have VMs live. Also is useful as a strong base for when running XOA and VMs in pool. Also useful as part of the load balancing feature, so that the hosts don't get too overloaded, especially when paired with HA!
Though with 2 or more members will require some form of shared storage. Through NFS, SMB or iSCSI, its recommended to use NFS as its most resilient and also thus very similar to what would have been used to hold the VMs for live migration on HA, when running on VMware vSphere ESXi and VMware vCenter.
So its recommended to use XCP-ng with XOA via Vates's Essential or Essential+ plans.
Vates's typical response time with support and support tickets is around 1 day (at severity 1). The support is provided during working days (Monday to Friday) on these plans.
They are extremely fast for their support ticket customers, some people have on this forum remarked that they are impressed with their speed of response. Even those who have subscribed to the support and have opened tickets have remarked as such here on the forums. Likely faster than Broadcom with their support and you won't have to deal with a labyrinthian phone support service or chat system.
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@msimanyi Also you can get the $1700/year option of Vates's Essential+ support plan, if you are willing to get the 5 Year support option. With which you can save up to 15% (in just 5 Years).
When you contact their sales team make sure to ask for their "5 Years Support" option! This will get you their best savings, as well as in under your $1800 price. Their higher offerings require you to have 3 or more hosts (on Pro and Enterprise) support subscription plans, as well as priced per host and per year. If you run into issues with your hosts or the VMs running on them you can open support tickets with them, and be able to draw upon their expertise (as the main developer) to fix the problem. If any bugs are present fixes for them as a subscriber to their support plans, will get priority in sorting out and the same for feature requests!
@olivierlambert An optional addon addition to the Essential and/or Essential+ support plans, may be a possibility to upgrade the response time and/or period of when support can occur to any combination of the following:-
- 1 hour response time (on working days)
- 1 day response time (in a 24/7 period)
- 1 hour response time (in a 24/7 period)
Can you please consider this feedback on your support subscriptions following my conversation with @msimanyi? Is it a possibility for it to be swapped in on the Essential or Essential+ plans?
The reason being the delay and when support can respond during is apparently a big issue. They find the faster response times from the higher plans, better for them. However the 3 hosts minimum is an extremely big issue for them due to cost of acquiring the necessary extra match hardware for the 3rd required host and the total cost of the Enterprise plan combined.
This is due to the long response time and restrictions when support can occur (when on Essential or Essential+) will cause them and their customers, inconvenience if or when they need support from Vates.
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@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.
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@msimanyi said in Confused re: pricing (XOA vs. Vates Essentials):
@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.
@msimanyi The Enterprise plan isn't just per year but also per host, so you would be paying on that plan per host and per year. With that minimum requirement you would be paying $4590 for 3 hosts every year (for 5 Years of Support), then for just a 1 year $5400 each year for 3 hosts.
The price per host per year is for each individual host on the higher plans, but the 3 host minimum is just a threshold for eligibility. So once you have 3 (or more) hosts, then you can choose to be on those plans.
So Essential+ plan is around that amount of $1,800 / year, if going for the 5 Years Support (with $1700). Anyway I left a feedback note for @olivierlambert to see if he can add options on the SMB plans, to enable upgrading the response times to be closer to the 24/7 ones (from Enterprise level).
Maybe worth talking to Vates directly to see if an exception can be granted in your case so you can be 24/7, any way worth contacting them to see - yes?
