HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software vs Kion
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software
hpe.comKion
kion.ioSide by side
| Figure | HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software | Kion |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $50/mo | $3,333.33/mo |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 1 |
| Spec score · FinOps Software | 7.9 (#2) | 7.5 (#5) |
| Spec score · Cloud Automation Software | 8.1 (#7) | 7.7 (#16) |
| Founded | 2020 | 2018 |
| Governance | VM Essentials includes core access control for users and VM-level permissions. | Kion lets teams define financial and operational policies once and enforce them across cloud accounts and environments. |
| Headquarters | Spring, Texas, United States | Columbia, Maryland, United States |
| Integrations | HPE says the product supports 90+ integrations; its VM Essentials ecosystem includes HVM and VMware vSphere, among other listed integrations. | Listed integrations include ServiceNow, Jira, Tenable.sc, Terraform Cloud, Splunk, Slack, AWS Security Hub, and AWS Control Tower. |
| Support | HPE says VM Essentials is backed by its global enterprise support. | The FAQ says the license term includes basic email support with a two-business-day response time, software updates, and access to the Kion Success Center and community forums. |
| What it does | HPE Morpheus Software unifies provisioning and automation across VMs, containers, clouds, and AI-era infrastructure in one governed control plane. | Kion is a FinOps+ platform for visibility, optimization, and governance of cloud, AI, SaaS, and on-premises spending. |
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
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.