Price Increases
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@olivierlambert said in Price Increases:
Comparing us to VMware feels unfair given our dedication to an open-source approach, a stark contrast to closed, proprietary systems. We’ve always strived to support smaller organizations while advancing open-source innovation in virtualization.
Actually it's more than just unfair
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I always strive to carefully choose my words to focus on the content and avoid triggering emotions when discussing facts. This approach makes it easier to address incorrect statements while keeping the dialogue open and constructive—something we prioritize here.
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@manilx said in Price Increases:
@olivierlambert said in Price Increases:
Comparing us to VMware feels unfair given our dedication to an open-source approach, a stark contrast to closed, proprietary systems. We’ve always strived to support smaller organizations while advancing open-source innovation in virtualization.
Actually it's more than just unfair
Only because VMWare's lowest tier so much worse than any edition of XO with XCP-ng, and it (VMware) doesn't (or didn't include any support) and that all pricing models going forwards are way more expensive for the bare basic hypervisors. If you require some additional feature of ESXi at different tiers, you wouldn't even be considering any other hypervisor platforms, because ESXi does this specific thing and nothing else does.
Even using XCP-ng and XO(CE) with community support gets you more for literally free.
So yeah, I guess it's really unfair, free and open source with the option for paid support, or Forced subscription at the lowest tier and no official support.....
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@olivierlambert
Thank you for clarifying everything. By the way, I meant no disrespect to your product. I setup XCP-NG 8.2 and Orchestra in a lab environment about a year and a half ago (I think) and I loved it.
In fact, we have spoken through chat before about getting over that 2TB vm disk image. I think it’s been addressed in 8.3 but I really have not had time to tinker with 8.3. I believe it was SMAPI version 3 that fixes it. I may have botched the name - sorry - my memory isn’t the greatest.
Anyway, I have 12 servers running in a cabinet at a datacenter that I am getting a killer deal on. My MSP is very small and we are not making that much above our cost and I also have a full time programmer who works for me so there’s just not a lot of extra money coming in.
I have seventy two VMs running on VMware based hypervisors. The were licensed using three sets of VMWare essentials license allowing for 3 nodes each so I had to maintain 3 different VCenters instances. The other three servers were Linux based fileservers where I ran Nakivo to back everything up.
It all has to go somewhere because has screwed everybody since the Broadcom merger.
Anyway, I was thinking XCP was the way to go and as soon as it could break through the 2TB vm image barrier then I would start converting VMs.
The thing that changed was when the pricing changed, that scared me. In my mind I’m thinking, I know I could go at this alone and do everything my self but If I did, I would have no support with your backup system. I currently pay Nakivo 2.75 per VM per month for backup and support services. I have had to call them in the past for several very important issues and had I not had their support I might have really been in hot water.
In all the years I ran VMWare essentials, I never had to call them for support because their stuff just worked and I knew how to set it up.
I feel that XCP would be the same in that regard but since I can’t just get support on the backup portion of Orchestra, your new pricing model leaves me with an all or none option when it comes to support and I just can’t afford 9 thousand dollars per year. I could afford a third of that and only get support on the Hypervisors running Orcgestra and maybe one or two others with the most important VMs. I just can’t swing them them all.
If I do KVM then I will do everything myself using Cockpit and Virt Manager which I’m okay with. That’s nothing new. However, I would backuping everything up using using BDRSuite for $3.00 per VM per month. The bill would be $250 per month.
It’s a smidge more than I’m paying Nakivo but I would continue being supported as I am now.
Maybe if you had a per VM with a low monthly rate option then I’d be able to afford running everything in XCP-NG and pay as I go and only pay for what I actually use. If you had such an option then I could swing paying $4 per month per VM if that gave me backup support and the ability to add as many hypervisor hosts as I feel that I needed and also kept everything patched via updates. -
I really don't understand what the problem is here. The price is what it is. Everything is free with the use of your brain. We don't know your need for system availability, but for $2000 you can set it up not 3-2-1-1-0 but 9-4-5-3-1. At least the disks are cheap.
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@dariosplit
The problem is that I need (and required to have) enterprise level support for the backup system and since that’s handled through Orchestra then the current support model puts me in an all or none situation. I could run the Hypervisors for free and manage them plus orchestra all myself - no problem there. However, Vates isn’t going to help me with a backup and restore issue unless I’m paying them nine grand per year (9 hypervisors at $1,000 each yearly) and we just can’t afford that with all my other operating costs. A $4 per VM per month MSP option would solve this for me. Pay for what you use month to month. I really wish they would consider an MSP monthly option like many of backup solutions offer such as Veeam, Nakivo, and BDRSuite.
As a small MSP owner, I am willing to pay what I can afford. If we are willing to do most of the work ourselves, isn’t some money better than no money?
There are probably a lot of other folks in the same boat I’m in. It sure seems like there’s a whole other market Vates could tap into if they just add more flexibility in their pricing models. A $4 or $5 dollar VM per month MSP option would solve all my problems. -
@olivierlambert
Would you consider an MSP style licensing model where customers would pay $4 or $5 per VM monthly with a 20 VM minimum? I could swing that and have enterprise backup support via XO on all my hypervisors.
By paying it monthly on what I actually use is a much more attractive model. -
No. I didn't say never (can't tell in like 2 or 3 years from now), but at this price we're clearly just losing money.
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@olivierlambert
I understand and I thank you for at least hearing me out.
If I go with KVM, I know that I’m not going to have all the fancy bells and whistles that XCP-NG offers. Believe me I know, I used your product and loved it. However, I will be able to operate and have an enterprise level backup fully supported via BDR Suite for $3 per VM.
I can have as many hypervisors and file servers as my heart desires and never pay a penny more. It’s all based around the VM count and it’s all paid monthly. I can scale up or down as needed and only pay for the Qty that’s used during that month.
Again, I would prefer to use XCP-NG but many of my customers require that I use a fully supported enterprise backup system. The only way I could afford to do it under your current model would be if your $1000 plan (pro) was $500 per hypervisor and that’s still almost double of what I’d be paying if I went with KVM and BDR Suite and never pay more when adding additional servers. I completely get your point about making enough but I wonder If you wouldn’t get a lot more people in my boat if you did come down or offer an MSP per month model that we could afford. Again, I thank you for at least hearing me out. Thank you.
