Broadcom changed the rules: per-core licensing, bundled subscriptions, multi-year commitments, rising renewals, and add-on SKUs for capabilities that used to be standard. If your team is evaluating its next VMware renewal, Starlight gives you a cleaner path forward.
Your existing Windows and Linux VMs boot unmodified. Import standard disk formats directly, then snapshot, clone, resize, and live migrate workloads through a single API and unified control plane.
One subscription, the full stack
Storage, networking, runtime security, identity, observability, and policy are included together. No separate procurement for gateways, object storage, runtime protection, secrets management, or compliance tooling. One per-node subscription with the platform capabilities already included.
Preserve your existing operational ecosystem
Replacing VMware should not require replacing everything around it. Starlight interoperates with the infrastructure tooling enterprises already rely on for backup, monitoring, storage, networking, automation, identity, and operational management. Existing workflows and operational processes remain intact while the underlying platform changes.
This allows teams to modernize virtualization infrastructure without rebuilding the surrounding ecosystem that already supports production operations. Migration becomes a controlled infrastructure transition instead of a full-stack operational reset.
Built-in security
UEFI Secure Boot, post-quantum cryptography, hardware-rooted entropy, and confidential computing support for AMD and Intel platforms ship by default. Security is part of the platform, not an upgraded edition.
Hardware acceleration without edition lock-in
SR-IOV, PCI passthrough, and GPU passthrough are first-class VM capabilities. High-performance workloads get direct access to the hardware they need without moving into a higher licensing tier.
Priced by the node
One node, one price. No core counting. No socket-based licensing. No vCPU multipliers. No feature tiers gating critical functionality.
Whether you run a 16-core system at a remote branch or a 128-core dual-socket server in a data center, the subscription cost is the same per node. Add infrastructure capacity and you immediately know what it will cost. No procurement surprises, no licensing recalculations, and no renewal-driven feature creep.
Starlight is software you install on your own infrastructure: bare metal, edge sites, private data centers, and cloud environments.