Crossplane vs HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software
Crossplane
crossplane.ioHPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software
hpe.comSide by side
| Figure | Crossplane | HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $50/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 10 |
| Spec score · Cloud Management Software | 7.6 (#18) | 8.1 (#10) |
| Spec score · Multi-Cloud Management Software | 7.7 (#13) | 8.1 (#7) |
| Integrations | The community extension list includes providers for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, GitHub, GitLab, Argo CD, and other services. | HPE says the product supports 90+ integrations; its VM Essentials ecosystem includes HVM and VMware vSphere, among other listed integrations. |
| Security | Crossplane is built on Kubernetes and uses Kubernetes RBAC; its website describes RBAC as a security feature used to control access. | HPE describes role-based access policies and governance controls for managing access to IT resources. |
| Support | The commercial page lists Upbound as offering security, support, official providers, and a platform for managing infrastructure with Crossplane. | HPE says VM Essentials is backed by its global enterprise support. |
Plans
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software
- 1-year E-LTUPriced on request
- Enterprise Software per Socket — 1-year New InstallPriced on request
- 3-year E-LTUPriced on request
- Enterprise Software per Socket — 3-year New InstallPriced on request
- 5-year E-LTUPriced on request
- Enterprise Software per Socket — 5-year New InstallPriced on request
- Enterprise Software per Socket — 1-year RenewalPriced on request
- Enterprise Software per Socket — 3-year RenewalPriced on request
- Enterprise Software per Socket — 5-year RenewalPriced on request
- VM Essentials$600 a year
In their own words
Crossplane
Crossplane is a free, open-source CNCF framework for building control planes that manage cloud-native software. Its Composition feature lets teams define custom APIs with pipelines of functions instead of maintaining controllers. Managed resources are Kubernetes custom resources that can represent external services such as AWS RDS instances. Community providers cover AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, GitHub, GitLab and Argo CD, among others. A package manager installs managed resources and composition functions and can distribute configurations across control planes. Crossplane installs into an existing Kubernetes cluster with a Helm chart; the guide requires an actively supported Kubernetes version and Helm v3.2.0 or later. Operations support one-time, scheduled and resource-change-triggered pipelines, but are marked alpha in Crossplane v2. The framework uses Kubernetes RBAC. Its default crossplane-admin ClusterRole has full access to secrets and namespaces and can bind roles to other entities. The project is Apache 2.0 licensed and identifies as vendor neutral.
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software manages virtual machines across HPE’s HVM hypervisor and VMware, with provisioning and automation in a governed control plane. It is aimed at lower-cost virtualization and VMware coexistence: guided workflows support moving VMs from VMware to HVM, and both environments can operate side by side during a phased transition. VM features include high availability, live migration within HVM clusters, workload placement, policy-driven provisioning, and external storage support for NFS, iSCSI, and Fibre Channel. Basic scripting covers VM lifecycle tasks, while access controls include user access and VM-level permissions. An MCP server extends automation workflows with AI integration. HPE lists more than 90 integrations, including HVM and VMware vSphere, and describes role-based access policies and governance controls. VM Essentials runs on Linux, web, and self-hosted deployments. The listed VM Essentials plan is $600 a year per CPU socket, including support, with 1-, 3-, or 5-year licensing options; actual end-user price may vary.