# HPE OpenVMS Reviews **Vendor:** HP Development Company **Category:** [Operating Systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/operating-system) **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 19 ## About HPE OpenVMS HPE OpenVMS is a robust, multi-user, and multiprocessing operating system designed to deliver exceptional reliability, availability, scalability, and security. Originally developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for VAX systems, OpenVMS has evolved to support Alpha, Itanium, and x86-64 architectures. It is engineered to handle time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing, and real-time applications, making it suitable for mission-critical environments. Key Features and Functionality: - High Availability Clustering: OpenVMS supports clustering of up to 96 nodes, enabling the distribution of workloads across multiple physical machines. This ensures continuous operation during both planned maintenance and unexpected outages, with some clusters achieving uptimes measured in years. - Advanced Security Mechanisms: The operating system incorporates comprehensive security features, including access control lists (ACLs), intrusion detection, and detailed auditing capabilities, ensuring robust protection for sensitive data and applications. - Broad Platform Support: OpenVMS has been ported to various hardware platforms, including VAX, Alpha, Itanium, and x86-64 systems, providing flexibility and longevity for diverse IT infrastructures. - Comprehensive Networking Capabilities: It offers integrated support for DECnet and TCP/IP protocols, facilitating seamless communication and resource sharing across networks. - Rich Development Environment: OpenVMS provides a common language environment that supports multiple programming languages, allowing developers to create and maintain applications efficiently. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: OpenVMS addresses the critical need for an operating system that ensures continuous availability and reliability, particularly in sectors where downtime is not an option, such as banking, healthcare, telecommunications, and manufacturing. Its clustering capabilities allow for seamless hardware and software maintenance without disrupting operations, while its robust security features protect against unauthorized access and data breaches. By supporting multiple hardware platforms and offering a stable development environment, OpenVMS provides organizations with a scalable and secure foundation for their mission-critical applications. ## HPE OpenVMS Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **effective cloud functions** of HPE OpenVMS, complemented by responsive customer support for advanced needs. (1 reviews) - Users value the **fast performance** of HPE OpenVMS, ensuring quick data accessibility with zero downtime. (1 reviews) - Users enjoy the **easy storage management** with zero downtime, ensuring excellent performance and data accessibility. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **limited software** of HPE OpenVMS restricts functionality, as it's mainly for managing storage devices. (1 reviews) - Users find HPE OpenVMS to have a **steep learning curve** , making everyday usage quite complicated. (1 reviews) ## HPE OpenVMS Reviews ### 1. Legendary Stability and Reliability with HPE OpenVMS **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 14, 2026 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** What I like best about HPE OpenVMS is its legendary stability and reliability—systems can run for years without reboot while still delivering strong security and predictable performance. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** What I dislike about HPE OpenVMS is its aging ecosystem—limited modern application support and a shrinking skills pool make it difficult to integrate with today’s cloud‑native and DevOps‑oriented environments. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** HPE OpenVMS solves the problem of mission‑critical system availability and data integrity, particularly in environments where downtime, data loss, or inconsistent behavior is simply unacceptable. This benefits me by providing a platform I can trust for 24/7 operations, with built‑in clustering, strong security, and predictable behavior that significantly reduce operational risk and the need for constant intervention, especially for legacy or industrial workloads that must run reliably for decades. ### 2. OpenVMS: Rock-Solid Reliability, Strong Security, and Legacy Compatibility **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 16, 2026 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** OpenVMS is very reliable and can run long without stopping. It keeps data safe and has strong built-in security. It can handle multiple systems together and still run old programs without changes. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** not many people know to use hpe open vms and it does not support newer apps or systems. Its harder to maintain and upgrade in line with other OS **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** OpenVMS from Hewlett Packard Enterprise helps address issues such as system crashes, data loss, and downtime. It keeps critical systems running continuously, which reduces the risk of business losses and service interruptions. For me, that translates into stable performance, secure data, and dependable operations for important applications. ### 3. highlights key features, Reliability with HPE OpenVMS **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Haji M. | Associate Consultant, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 23, 2026 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** HPE OpenVMS is best known for its legendary, mission-critical reliability **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** a shrinking skilled talent pool, limited modern application support, and difficulty integrating with cloud-native or DevOps-oriented environments. Users also experience a steep learning curve and find it overly complicated for day-to-day operations. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** high-stakes, mission-critical operational downtime and data integrity in environments (like healthcare, manufacturing, and finance) where system failure is unacceptable. ### 4. HPE > Not simple but works well **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 14, 2025 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** The cloud functions work well and the detailed platform is good for more advanced users. Customer support was prompt when we've reached out in the past. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** Feels very complicated to use in the day to day. Very big learning curve. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is currently managing our network equipment. ### 5. Robust security features **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** YUSUF P. | Recruitment Coordinator, Education Management, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 19, 2024 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** In my experience managing a number of OpenVMS servers for a healthcare company, I have never come across a system failure or system crash situation. The strong coupling with the legacy systems makes is easy for migrating older applications. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** It becomes even more challenging to recruit professionals, who are conversant with the application to solve problems or fine-tune the system. The poor compatibility with different hardware hinders upgrades and connections with new technology types. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** The current installations of old generation application programs in the OpenVMS environment are safest in their tenure. The exceptional uptime reduce the danger of downtime for critical healthcare chores. ### 6. HPE VMS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dhiren P. | SAS Programmer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 05, 2024 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Easy to manage storage and zero downtime and good performance for data accessibilty. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** its only for manage stroge device and any addition software install. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is auto generated email when hardware failure and software bug. ### 7. HPE OpenVMS Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raiffeisen R. | Unix Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 06, 2024 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Solid Application Many Functionalities Professional Support **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** The cost of the application is a little hight - not for a regular client, but more for business **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Use for QA and test some of the functionalities of the application ### 8. Multipurpose Application For All Needs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pradeep T. | Senior Software Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 07, 2022 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** I want to say that I have been using open HPE open VMS for the last 2 years and it has helped me while working with the project to support jobs and their batch application concurrently. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** I don't dislike any of its features. There is no opposing when multiple features allow constant time sharing. It has jobs that support batch in efficient time. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am solving my project work-related problem where I ran my report order, and some jobs take care of it. It has great support in transaction management. It has optimize solution. ### 9. Best multi user application in the market **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Saurabh S. | Digital Marketing Intern, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 12, 2022 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** It is virtual based memory platform which makes processing even faster. It is versy to learn and adopt application interactions. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** It is bit costlier. And it has capacity to run only small software, heavy software cannot be run in this OS. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is easy to learn to use this software. I used this for software testing. ### 10. A multi user platform at it's best **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dragos G. | EMEA Proactive Order Management Control Tower and Revenue Assessment Lead, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 01, 2021 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** I think the strongest feature of this OS is the integration of multiple users into a single closed environment. Second, reliability has become a significant factor for these platforms so HPEs OpenVMS is now one of the best platforms. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** I believe that from a setup perspective, things could be improved as it can become cumbersome. I would allow better customer registration in bulk. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** In this everchanging market, the solution has allowed us to move to a single manufacturer approach. We have relied more and more on HPE's Greenlake solution, it was natural that we resorted to their OS as well. ### 11. Decent OS **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sumant S. | S, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2022 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** multiprocessing virtual memory-based operating system designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** I do not think so. It is fine the way it is. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. ### 12. User friendly interface and reliable **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** AMITESH S. | Linux Administrator, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 01, 2022 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Application interaction is very easy to learn and adopt. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** It is little bit costly rather than other VMs providers. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** As we checked it is so reliable and easy to adopt ### 13. HPE Open VMs - Yayy or Nayy **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 09, 2022 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Best part is their security and availability, infact some VMs availability can measure in years! **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** Not sure if the product is viable and if HP wants to see this as a product of future! **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** HPE Open VMs being multi user and multi processing widely used in mainframes for our insurance and banking Clients ### 14. HPE OpenVMS lightweight operating system **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Praveen Kumar M. | DevOps, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 21, 2021 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** It's straightforward to use and manage. OpenVMS is a very compact and lightweight operating system. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** We cannot run heavy applications and tools on OpenVMS. It's mainly suitable to run small softwares. **Recommendations to others considering HPE OpenVMS:** Suppose you are looking for a lightweight operating system equivalent to Docker. OpenVMS is the operating system that you can try and use. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are running all our small applications on HPE OpenVMS. We considered Docker for the application, but the image size is getting huge, so we have to use OpenVMS. ### 15. Perfect usage to manage OS **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hasan O. | Network and Security Team Leader, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 05, 2021 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Straightforward and flexible to use, manage and administrate OS **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** Mainly used for lightweight; other than that not much have we encountered **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Used for development systems and testing applications ### 16. Good to manage OS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Harshil S. | IT Operations Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 05, 2021 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Very flexible to manage and administrator OS **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** Nothing as far as I know I have encoutered **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are using OS on daily basis ### 17. Good to use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 22, 2021 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** It provides flexibility to the users. Can be used for large scale SMP systems **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** I feel nothing so far. Seems good as a basic user **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Using it as Primary OS ### 18. OpenVMS is Back! **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Aviation & Aerospace | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 04, 2020 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** OpenVMS has the best clustering technology - have used this when Digital Equipment owned the product **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** It's not as popular and you don't see the OS used in too many technologies anymore **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Perfect for a cluster of engineering workstations to communicate in a private network. Allowed groups to share CAD files and transfer data on a high speed backplane ### 19. 38 years and counting - still useful **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ned F. | Senior Principal Engineer, Information Technology and Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 25, 2018 **What do you like best about HPE OpenVMS?** Although the language support is dated, the debugging environment is still one of the best. I use it routinely when more modern IDEs fail to get the job done. **What do you dislike about HPE OpenVMS?** The lack of support for modern hardware is a real problem. The good news is that this is being worked on, and there's a good chance it will be rectified in the near future. **Recommendations to others considering HPE OpenVMS:** If it ever makes it to Intel hardware, it's a serious contender for secure applications. **What problems is HPE OpenVMS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I still provide some limited support for email applications people still run on OpenVMS. Aside from that, I routinely use it as a development system. ## HPE OpenVMS Discussions - [What is HPE OpenVMS used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-hpe-openvms-used-for) - [View HPE OpenVMS pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/hpe-openvms/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-30+20%3A10%3A21+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=cfd9e534-3c55-4a0b-8dd1-6e83fdacc7a9&secure%5Btoken%5D=508b84ae5a502c4f5dd43c1089a28f94f7247a50ae7ca506409efa9ca8e7fc8b&format=llm_user) ## HPE OpenVMS Features **Memory Management - Operating System** - RAM management **Device Management - Operating System** - I/O management **Backup and Recovery - Operating System** - Data backup **Error Detection - Operating System** - System operations monitoring ## Top HPE OpenVMS Alternatives - [Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (931 reviews) - [Ubuntu](https://www.g2.com/products/ubuntu/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (2,337 reviews) - [Windows 11](https://www.g2.com/products/windows-11/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (4,086 reviews)