Evaluating alternatives for your Equinix Metal workloads?
With OpenMetal, you get dedicated infrastructure designed explicitly for long-term workloads.
As Equinix Metal approaches its June 2026 end of life, teams running production workloads on the platform may still be facing the need to identify a stable, long-term alternative. While there is no universal replacement, there are several credible paths forward, each with different tradeoffs.
Rather than ranking providers or declaring a single “best” option, this article is organized by infrastructure philosophy:
- What problem the platform is designed to solve
- Where Equinix Metal users tend to feel alignment… or friction
- Which types of teams each option fits best
The goal is to help teams narrow the field thoughtfully, not rush a decision.
Bare Metal Cloud Platforms
Bare metal cloud providers emphasize API-driven provisioning, rapid instance turnover, and cloud-like workflows on physical hardware. For Equinix Metal users, this category often feels the most familiar at first glance.
Commitment model: Hourly to monthly billing
Migration complexity: Low to medium
Typical timeline: 2-6 weeks
Strengths:
- Fast provisioning and automation
- Minimal operational overhead
- Familiar developer experience
Considerations:
- Bare metal may not be the provider’s primary strategic focus
- Hardware lifecycle control can be limited
- Pricing and product direction may evolve as business priorities shift
These platforms can work well for teams prioritizing speed and flexibility, particularly for shorter-lived or experimental workloads. For long-term infrastructure foundations, teams should evaluate product durability carefully.
Dedicated Private Infrastructure Providers
Dedicated infrastructure providers focus on long-lived hardware, predictable performance, and direct customer ownership of the environment. Rather than abstracting physical infrastructure away, they emphasize clarity and control.
Commitment model: Annual contracts with defined hardware lifecycles
Migration complexity: Medium
Typical timeline: 4-8 weeks
Strengths:
- Clear hardware ownership and lifecycle expectations
- Predictable networking and bandwidth models
- Lower risk of forced product changes
Considerations:
- Requires more upfront planning
- Less “instant” than fully abstracted cloud platforms
- Assumes teams value stability over ephemerality
This model tends to appeal to teams running core production systems, data-intensive workloads, or platforms that benefit from consistency over time.
Hyperscaler Bare Metal Options
Major public cloud providers offer bare metal or dedicated host options that integrate tightly with their broader ecosystems.
Commitment model: Consumption-based with reserved or dedicated options
Migration complexity: Low to medium (if already in ecosystem)
Typical timeline: 2-8 weeks depending on existing footprint
Strengths:
- Native integration with existing cloud services
- Unified identity, billing, and tooling
- Familiar procurement paths for cloud-native teams
Considerations:
- Pricing can be opaque and difficult to forecast
- Strong ecosystem coupling increases lock-in
- Bare metal offerings may be optimized for specific internal use cases
These options often make sense for teams already deeply invested in a hyperscaler’s platform and willing to accept tighter coupling in exchange for convenience.
Hosted Private Cloud and OpenStack-Based Solutions
Hosted private cloud platforms provide cloud-like control planes—often based on OpenStack—on dedicated hardware. The key differentiator here is the open-source control plane rather than proprietary cloud APIs, giving teams portability without sacrificing automation.
Commitment model: Monthly to annual, depending on provider
Migration complexity: Medium
Typical timeline: 4-10 weeks
Strengths:
- Strong balance between automation and control
- Dedicated environments with cloud semantics
- Suitable for teams migrating from public or bare metal clouds
- Open-source foundations reduce vendor lock-in
Considerations:
- Requires comfort with private cloud concepts
- Operational model differs from fully managed public cloud
- Long-term success depends on provider expertise with OpenStack
This approach is often chosen by teams that want to retain flexibility while reducing exposure to multi-tenant risk and unpredictable pricing.
Why OpenMetal Could Be a Strong Fit After Equinix Metal
Among the options teams evaluate after Equinix Metal, OpenMetal represents a specific approach worth highlighting: dedicated infrastructure designed explicitly for long-term workloads.
What OpenMetal Provides
OpenMetal delivers private cloud and bare metal environments on fully dedicated hardware. Unlike multi-tenant cloud platforms or providers where bare metal is a secondary offering, OpenMetal’s entire business model centers on providing dedicated infrastructure with predictable performance characteristics.
The platform offers both OpenStack-based private clouds and standalone bare metal servers, all deployed on hardware that belongs exclusively to your environment. This means no noisy neighbors, no shared network paths that congest unexpectedly, and no performance variability from multi-tenant resource contention.
Infrastructure Philosophy and Long-Term Stability
OpenMetal’s approach differs from typical cloud providers in a few fundamental ways:
- Hardware ownership clarity: When you deploy on OpenMetal, you know exactly which physical hardware your workloads run on. Hardware refresh cycles are transparent and customer-controlled rather than forced by provider convenience.
- Networking predictability: Bandwidth is unmetered within your private cloud, and external bandwidth follows predictable, flat-rate pricing rather than consumption-based surprises. For teams moving large amounts of data or running bandwidth-intensive applications, this removes a significant source of cost uncertainty.
- Private cloud as core competency: OpenMetal specializes in hosted OpenStack environments. This isn’t a side product or complementary offering, it’s what the company does. For teams concerned about another EOL event, choosing a provider where your use case is the primary business focus reduces strategic risk.
- Open-source foundation: Because OpenMetal’s private clouds run on OpenStack, you’re not locked into proprietary APIs. Workloads can be architected for portability, and teams retain the option to eventually run their own OpenStack deployment if business needs change.
Who OpenMetal Works Best For
OpenMetal resonates most strongly with organizations that:
Want to avoid another forced migration in the near future
Teams that have been burned by Equinix Metal’s EOL are understandably cautious about product stability. OpenMetal’s business model depends on long-term customer relationships rather than driving migration to higher-margin services.
Value pricing and bandwidth predictability over burst economics
If your infrastructure costs need to be forecastable rather than variable, OpenMetal’s flat-rate networking and transparent pricing model provides clearer financial planning.
Need control over networking and hardware configurations
Teams running complex networking topologies, requiring specific hardware specifications, or needing direct hardware access benefit from OpenMetal’s dedicated model.
Want cloud-like automation without hyperscaler lock-in
OpenStack provides full cloud orchestration: instance management, software-defined networking, block and object storage, all without tying you to a proprietary ecosystem.
Run workloads that benefit from consistent, dedicated performance
Applications sensitive to noisy neighbor effects, latency variability, or network congestion perform better on dedicated infrastructure.
Ready to consider OpenMetal as an Equinix Metal alternative?
OpenMetal’s team has worked closer with us than any other infrastructure provider we have ever had. Their technology is great, but their superpower is a culture of aligning their team with our goals.
Chris Ueland, CEO @ Hunt Intelligence
Illustrative Scenarios Where OpenMetal’s Model Typically Fits
The following examples represent the types of use cases where dedicated infrastructure with cloud automation often provides the best alignment:
- SaaS platforms with predictable growth trajectories
Organizations running Kubernetes across dozens of nodes that need cost predictability and the ability to scale infrastructure on annual planning cycles rather than responding to sudden pricing changes. - Data-intensive workloads with high throughput requirements
Teams processing large data volumes daily that need dedicated networking without metered bandwidth charges, eliminating surprise costs during processing spikes. - Gaming and real-time infrastructure
Infrastructure providers requiring bare metal performance with private cloud orchestration for rapid instance turnover, balancing dedicated hardware performance with cloud-style management. - Hybrid environments migrating from VMware
Organizations moving away from VMware that need OpenStack-based alternatives providing enterprise virtualization capabilities on dedicated hardware without hyperscaler coupling.
What OpenMetal Doesn’t Optimize For
It’s worth being direct about where OpenMetal may not be the best fit:
- Instant, on-demand elasticity at massive scale: If your workloads require provisioning hundreds of instances within minutes and deprovisioning them hours later, multi-tenant public cloud platforms are optimized for that pattern.
- Global presence requirements at massive scale: OpenMetal offers considerable global coverage through it’s four data center locations in North America, Europe, and Asia. However, teams needing infrastructure in dozens of regions worldwide will find hyperscalers better suited to that requirement.
- Teams wanting zero infrastructure visibility: If your preference is complete abstraction from underlying hardware and networking, fully managed cloud services may align better with your operational philosophy.
Technical Considerations for Migration to OpenMetal
For teams moving from Equinix Metal to OpenMetal, the migration path typically involves:
- Initial infrastructure assessment: Understanding current hardware specifications, networking requirements, and workload characteristics to properly size the OpenMetal deployment.
- Network architecture planning: Mapping existing network topologies to OpenMetal’s private cloud networking model, including VLANs, routing, and external connectivity requirements.
- Provisioning timeline: Full private cloud environments are typically Day 2 operation ready. Bare metal servers can be available almost on-demand for straightforward deployments.
- Migration execution: Most teams use a phased approach: standing up the new environment, testing thoroughly, then migrating workloads in stages to minimize risk.
OpenMetal’s support team works directly with migrating customers throughout this process, which differs from the self-service model common with bare metal cloud platforms.
Choosing an Alternative You Won’t Have to Leave Again
The most important question teams can ask during this transition isn’t “Which provider looks most similar?” It’s “Which option minimizes the chance that we’ll be doing this again in a few years?”
Bare metal EOLs tend to happen when products drift away from a provider’s strategic center. Choosing an alternative where infrastructure is core.. not peripheral… reduces that risk.
Three Questions to Ask Potential Providers
- Is bare metal infrastructure central to your business model, or is it a supporting product?
Providers where infrastructure is the core business are less likely to discontinue offerings due to strategic shifts. - What does your hardware refresh cycle look like, and who controls the timeline?
Clarity on hardware lifecycle prevents surprises and forced migrations. - How transparent is your pricing model, and what protections exist against unexpected cost changes?
Predictable economics matter as much as technical capabilities for long-term planning.
Red Flags That Signal Another EOL Risk
- Infrastructure offerings described as “complementary” to other services
- Frequent product rebranding or consolidation announcements
- Opaque hardware lifecycle policies
- Limited public commitment to long-term support
Equinix Metal’s sunset is disruptive, but it also creates a moment to reset infrastructure foundations intentionally. Teams that use this window to choose stability over convenience often find themselves better positioned long after the migration is complete.
Next Steps: From Evaluation to Migration
If you’ve read this far, you’re likely past the “awareness” stage and into serious evaluation. Here’s how to move forward efficiently:
1. Map Your Workloads to Categories
Take your current Equinix Metal inventory and categorize workloads by their actual requirements:
- Which workloads need cloud-native integration vs. dedicated performance?
- Which are cost-sensitive vs. performance-critical?
- Which require frequent reprovisioning vs. long-lived stability?
This exercise often reveals that not all workloads belong on the same platform. Some teams split infrastructure across multiple providers based on workload characteristics.
2. Narrow to 2-3 Providers Per Category
Don’t try to evaluate every option. Pick the top 2-3 providers in your target category and focus your due diligence there. Use the questions outlined earlier to filter quickly.
3. Run a Technical Proof of Concept
Before committing to a full migration, validate technical assumptions:
- Deploy a representative subset of your workload
- Test networking performance and configuration flexibility
- Verify that your tooling and automation integrates as expected
- Measure actual costs against projections
A two-week proof of concept can prevent months of regret.
4. Build a Phased Migration Plan
Avoid “big bang” migrations. Instead:
- Start with non-critical workloads to validate your approach
- Document lessons learned and adjust the process
- Migrate progressively based on workload interdependencies
- Keep Equinix Metal available as a fallback during early phases
Talk to OpenMetal About Your Migration
If dedicated infrastructure with long-term stability aligns with your priorities, OpenMetal can help you evaluate whether the platform fits your specific requirements.
Schedule a technical consultation
OpenMetal’s solutions architects can review your current Equinix Metal deployment and provide a detailed assessment of migration feasibility, timeline, and cost structure.
Get transparent fixed-cost pricing
No opaque calculators or surprise fees. OpenMetal provides clear, flat-rate pricing so you can forecast infrastructure costs accurately.
Explore proof of concept options
For teams that want to validate performance and workflows before committing, OpenMetal offers POC environments to test your specific use cases.
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