A method for allocating virtual machines (VMs) to run within a non-uniform memory access (NUMA) system includes a first processing node and a second processing node. A request is received at the first processing node for additional capacity for at least one of (a) establishing an additional VM and (b) increasing processing resources to an existing VM on the first processing node. In response to receiving the request, a migration manager identifies whether the first processing node has the additional capacity requested. In response to identifying that the first processing node does not have the additional capacity requested, at least one VM is selected from an ordered array of the multiple VMs executing on the first processing node. The selected VM has low processor and memory usage relative to the other VMs. The selected VM is migrated from the first processing node to the second processing node for execution.