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Proxmox VE vs VMware ESXi comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Proxmox VE users often utilize community resources and documentation over paid support, though improved direct communication is desired.
Sentiment score
7.6
VMware ESXi support is generally reliable but faces occasional delays and quality issues post-Broadcom acquisition, especially initially.
In the last three or four years, we did not require any support from VMware engineers, indicating its high reliability.
I rate the technical support from VMware as nine or ten out of ten.
Customer service and support are good; they are reachable, and at times remote support suffices.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.9
Proxmox VE faces challenges with performance, interface complexity, support, and lacks effective monitoring, documentation, and scalability features.
Sentiment score
5.0
VMware ESXi is criticized post-Broadcom acquisition for high costs, complex setup, licensing challenges, and insufficient tech support.
The cost of VMware ESXi is very high, especially after the acquisition by Broadcom, which led to price increases.
Providing a mobile application for remote access to ESXi servers would be beneficial.
It's not cost-effective for small users and creates a gap for alternatives, while favoring larger clients.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Proxmox VE is praised for its scalability, ease of resource addition, and seamless migrations, though vertical scaling could improve.
Sentiment score
7.9
VMware ESXi is praised for vertical scalability and supports many virtual machines, though horizontal scalability needs improvement.
My customers are highly satisfied with its scalability.
The solution is scalable, allowing us to scale up or down regardless of infrastructure size.
vCenter Server can manage up to 1,000 ESXi servers within a single UI interface, allowing extensive deployment and management capabilities.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
7.0
Proxmox VE is an open-source, cost-effective virtualization solution with optional support, valued for its affordability against competitors.
Sentiment score
5.0
VMware ESXi is costly with high initial and annual fees, exacerbated by pricing changes and subscription model challenges.
The product is very cost-effective, though not fixed, as pricing tends to fluctuate over time.
The pricing is expensive, with the cost for customers ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 yearly.
The solution is moderately priced, not exactly cheap yet not overly expensive either.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Proxmox VE is highly stable and reliable, performing well on older hardware with minimal performance issues.
Sentiment score
8.5
VMware ESXi is valued for its stability and reliability, with minor issues reported, making it ideal for business operations.
ESXi is stable, and our business operations depend on it year after year.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.3
Proxmox VE provides a user-friendly, scalable, and affordable virtualization solution with strong community support and feature-rich environment.
Sentiment score
8.2
VMware ESXi offers cost savings, high availability, seamless migration, easy integration, and centralized management with reliability and stability.
Its capability to move virtual machines to physical machines is very efficient for our live environment.
As a level one or bare metal hypervisor, its unmatched scalability depends on underlying hardware, capable of managing large numbers of physical servers with one management platform.
ESXi is a virtualization platform that allows multiple applications to run on the same physical hardware, reducing costs significantly by transforming physical servers into virtual environments.
 

Categories and Ranking

Proxmox VE
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware ESXi
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Toby Champion - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures a robust, user-friendly virtualization platform with seamless VM management, efficient resource allocation and a strong community for support
Improvements are needed for the API. Currently, there are several features inaccessible through the API, necessitating the use of either the WebUI or the command line interface. While the command line interface suffices, it's apparent that efforts are underway to enhance this aspect. In future releases, one potential feature enhancement could be improved remote screen access, allowing users to connect to the screen of another machine more seamlessly. Additionally, integrating with Terraform or providing better support for Terraform workflows might be beneficial, as there seems to be some lacking in that area. There's a minor inconvenience where you have to switch the license file from the open-source community license to an enterprise license.
Syed Shahid Hasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable, is not affected by network issues, and provides good support
Most people do not know why VMware is more stable than Hyper-V. Our clients use Webex after version 6.5. Before, we installed VMware Client and connected to the vCenter server. The vCenter server was connected to the vCenter host. There were a lot of version and service issues with vCenter. Things have been better after we installed Webex. The cost is very important. We have to buy the latest hardware and licenses. The license is very costly. The vendor might discontinue the perpetual license. The tool will become more costly. Customers will leave VMware and choose Hyper-V. The vendor must rethink the price. We can learn to use the solution through YouTube videos. Beginners can use the tool, but we must learn and better know the product. It is a very good product. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same features as with the more well-known products. Proxmox VE is very easy to deploy - it...
Proxmox VE or KVM?
I use Proxmox VE and have been very happy with it. In my opinion, it is a complete and stable solution with excellent tools for managing servers. It has a lot of different features, and I also love...
What do you like most about VMware ESXi?
My customers are satisfied with the solution’s performance.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware ESXi?
The pricing is expensive, with the cost for customers ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 yearly. The price rating is nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with VMware ESXi?
We often face issues with ESXi that require us to change resources by shutting down the VMs. Improving the efficiency of this feature for better scalability would enhance the product. Additionally,...
 

Comparisons

 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Municipality of Trento, SwitchMIA, inDenova, Valmeita City Council, Alpha IT AS, Grupo Inversor Veracruzano S.A.P.I. de C.V. (GRIVER), Laut und Schoen, IT-Services - Hamburg e.K., KMI Learning, Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., Serwise AG
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Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox VE vs. VMware ESXi and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.