XCP-ng
French open-source Xen hypervisor backed by Vates, with Xen Orchestra for management and commercial support from within the EU
Quick Overview
| Company | Vates SAS |
|---|---|
| Category | Virtualization |
| Headquarters | Grenoble, France |
| Founded | 2018 |
| EU Presence | Yes - France (EU) |
| Data Location | Your own infrastructure |
| Open Source | Yes (GPLv2 and others) |
| GDPR Compliant | Yes |
| Self-Hosting | Yes - self-hosted only |
| Main Features | Xen hypervisor, Xen Orchestra management, live migration, continuous replication, V2V from VMware, backup, REST API |
| Pricing | Free / Vates support from about EUR 950/host/year |
| Best For | Teams wanting a Xen-based platform with EU commercial support and a separate management plane |
| Replaces | VMware vSphere, Citrix Hypervisor, Nutanix AHV |
Detailed Review
XCP-ng is the community and commercial continuation of the Xen-based platform that Citrix used to sell as XenServer. Vates, a French company based near Grenoble, maintains both the hypervisor and Xen Orchestra, the web management plane, and sells support from within the EU.
Its architecture differs usefully from Proxmox VE: the management layer is a separate application rather than part of each host, which is closer to the vCenter model that VMware administrators already understand.
Xen Orchestra
Xen Orchestra is where the platform is actually operated: pools, VMs, backup jobs, replication, self-service portals and the REST API all live there. Because it is separate from the hosts, upgrading management does not mean touching the hypervisors, and a single console can manage multiple pools across sites.
The backup engine is a genuine strength — delta backups, continuous replication to another site and backup verification are built in rather than bought separately.
Migration from VMware
Vates has invested specifically in V2V tooling, and Xen Orchestra can import from VMware directly. The company has been vocal about targeting VMware migrations and publishes migration documentation aimed at that audience, which in practice means the path is better trodden than it was a few years ago.
European Support
For organisations that need someone to call, Vates sells tiered support contracts from France. That matters in public sector and regulated procurement, where "community supported open source" is often not an acceptable answer regardless of the software's quality.
Limitations to Consider
The community around XCP-ng is smaller than Proxmox's, so there are fewer third-party tutorials and integrations to fall back on. Xen Orchestra's convenient pre-built appliance is a paid product — the free path requires building it from source, which is documented but is extra work. And Xen itself has a smaller hardware compatibility ecosystem than KVM.
Who Should Use XCP-ng
Organisations leaving VMware that prefer a separate management plane and want a European vendor with a support contract. It is also the natural home for teams already running Citrix XenServer, where the concepts and terminology carry over directly.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Separate management plane, close to the vCenter model
- Strong built-in backup and replication
- Commercial support from a French vendor
- Documented V2V path from VMware
- Fully open source
Cons
- Smaller community than Proxmox
- Xen Orchestra appliance is a paid convenience
- Narrower hardware ecosystem than KVM
Alternatives to XCP-ng
Other European virtualization worth comparing before you decide:
Proxmox VE
Austria · Open-source KVM and LXC virtualisation with built-in clustering
OpenNebula
Spain · Open-source cloud and edge virtualisation platform
SUSE Virtualization
Germany · Hyperconverged infrastructure built on Kubernetes and KubeVirt
Canonical OpenStack
United Kingdom · Fully supported OpenStack private cloud
See all European virtualization or compare them directly against VMware vSphere on our alternatives page.
Frequently Asked Questions
XCP-ng is Xen-based with a separate management application (Xen Orchestra); Proxmox is KVM-based with management built into each host. XCP-ng feels closer to the vCenter model, Proxmox has the larger community and bundles Ceph storage.
The hypervisor is free and open source. Xen Orchestra can be built from source for free, or bought as a supported appliance. Vates sells support contracts from around EUR 950 per host per year.
Yes. Xen Orchestra includes V2V import from VMware, and Vates publishes migration documentation specifically aimed at organisations leaving vSphere.
It descends from the same Xen-based lineage that Citrix commercialised as XenServer. Teams with XenServer experience will find the concepts and terminology familiar.