Broadcom is making its VMware desktop hypervisors free to everyone, including commercial and home users.

VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation are now completely free. Broadcom let us know. The hypervisors for the desktop no longer cost users any money. Private use has been free since the beginning of the year, but anyone who needs Fusion and Workstation in a professional or school context no longer has to open their wallet.

Broadcom has repeatedly shown that it is only interested in its largest customers. Almost the entire offering is now tailored to the largest players, which usually leads to inadequate packages and significantly higher bills for other customers. It’s now somewhat surprising that Broadcom offers part of its offering for free.

Road support

We can find part of the explanation by looking at what the announcement means for paying (and mostly smaller) customers. Your subscription will continue until your regular renewal date, including all modalities such as support. If you then switch to the free version, nothing changes functionally. What is disappearing is that support. Broadcom and VMware will continue to offer the software, but anyone who has problems is referred to online forums.

That doesn’t mean Broadcom is no longer interested in VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation. The company promises to continue investing in new features and improvements for now. If you want to get started with virtualization on Windows or Mac and run other operating systems or containers, you can get started for free. Please note: To download the software you need an account/