I can enter Proxmox VE on VPN. Proxmox VE is very lightweight, and it doesn't take a lot of memory on the device. I can import OVA files inside Proxmox VE. I love Proxmox VE's backup, which is very, very powerful. Also, we can directly install a container inside Proxmox VE.
CEO Founder at Kitech
A lightweight solution with a very powerful backup
Pros and Cons
- "Proxmox VE is very lightweight, and it doesn't take a lot of memory on the device."
- "Since I face issues importing Windows OVA inside Proxmox VE, a clickable button should be added to select the OVA format and import it inside Proxmox VE."
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
Since I face issues importing Windows OVA inside Proxmox VE, a clickable button should be added to select the OVA format and import it inside Proxmox VE. It would also be beneficial to view the import and import of the VM inside Proxmox VE.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Proxmox VE for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Proxmox VE is a stable solution. I rate Proxmox VE a seven out of ten for stability.
Buyer's Guide
Proxmox VE
February 2025
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Two people are using Proxmox VE on my site.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Proxmox VE, I used VMware. I switched to Proxmox VE because I love Linux. I can install online logs and automate some stuff on Proxmox VE. Also, people recommended I use Proxmox VE.
What about the implementation team?
Since I do not deploy Proxmox VE in a production environment, I do the installation and maintenance myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I cannot subscribe to Proxmox VE's support because it is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I am using the latest version of Proxmox VE. Proxmox VE is a very, very good solution with good features.
It would be good if you could make a cloud image of Proxmox VE for Amazon, Azure, or Google.
Overall, I rate Proxmox VE an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Manager at Vertical Garden
A stable solution that provides excellent documentation and many other features completely free of cost
Pros and Cons
- "The ability to back up a host and keep it running is valuable."
- "It is difficult to remove a virtual machine."
What is most valuable?
The ability to back up a host and keep it running is valuable. For a free solution, it provides plenty of features that we find on VWware. We can test networks with the solution. We cannot do these tasks on consumer-grade virtualization services like Openbox or Windows Hyper-V. I found the documentation pretty complete. I was able to find pretty much everything.
What needs improvement?
It is difficult to remove a virtual machine. Also, it should be easier to find what we remove.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward and pretty easy. It took us an hour to deploy the first VM. It was pretty fast.
What about the implementation team?
The solution does not require any maintenance yet.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool is free.
What other advice do I have?
I just started to configure the product. I will set up the second server next week, so I’ll see how scalable the solution is. I do not know it yet. I didn’t have time to use the full solution to see what could be improved. Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Proxmox VE
February 2025
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Learn what your peers think about Proxmox VE. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior IT Specialist at Uczelnia Techniczno-Handlowa im. Heleny Chodkowskiej w Warszawie
There is no cost, it is stable, and easy to set up
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is stable."
- "The solution can be improved by making it more secure and scalable."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is used for virtualization, web servers, databases, and S3 storage spaces.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is that the solution is free of cost.
What needs improvement?
The solution can be improved by making it more secure and scalable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for several years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. I have not had any issues in the last two years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is only one node, so it is not scalable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no subscription required for Proxmox VE.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution an eight out of ten.
We require 15 people for the deployment and maintenance of the solution including two developers.
We have around 400 web visitors that are supported by the solution per day.
We have two environments. We run one with Proxmox VE and the other with VMware.
I recommend the solution to others.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Highly stable and good option for beginners
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Proxmox VE is the linked clone."
- "The solution is not good at upgrading and this is why I using version 6.2 and not version 7. There is no easy way to implement the upgrade. I don't have enough experience to do it safely."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Proxmox VE is the linked clone.
What needs improvement?
The solution is not good at upgrading and this is why I using version 6.2 and not version 7. There is no easy way to implement the upgrade. I don't have enough experience to do it safely.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Proxmox VE for approximately two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Proxmox VE is highly stable.
I rate the stability of Proxmox VE a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution can scale but it is not perfect.
We use this solution in the branch office in Beijing. We have approximately 25 people in the office and 15 of them will use something built on Proxmox VE.
I rate the scalability of Proxmox VE a seven out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I have not used the support from Proxmox VE.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did not use a similar solution prior to Proxmox VE.
How was the initial setup?
It's straightforward to get started with Proxmox VE, but if you want to do something more advanced, it can become complex. The installation process is simple as long as you set up the cluster correctly. Setting up the cluster is straightforward, but when you try to do something more advanced, the complexity increases significantly.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are using the free community version of Proxmox VE.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated VMware ESXi and oVirt from Red Hat before choosing Proxmox VE.
What other advice do I have?
Proxmox VE and VMware ESXi are great options for beginners. I have some experience with Linux, which is sufficient for setting up the Proxmox VE environment and VMware ESXi. These two solutions are ideal choices for a small office.
I rate Proxmox VE a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Feature rich, good compatibility, and impressive fuctionality
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of Proxmox VE are the ease of containerization. Overall the solution is generic, feature-rich, and has compatibility."
- "The documentation in Proxmox VE could improve."
What is our primary use case?
Proxmox VE is used for many sectors, such as medical, IT, and electronics. It is an open-source server management platform.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Proxmox VE are the ease of containerization. Overall the solution is generic, feature-rich, and has compatibility.
What needs improvement?
The documentation in Proxmox VE could improve.
I'm new to this type of solution, there are all these features and options to select in various scenarios, but there's not much documentation out there to explain which option you should be choosing for what, and why. I know there are a lot of YouTube articles, Reddit documentation, and other information where people say if you want to do task A, here's is how, and people follow it blindly. However, nobody understands what they're doing, and why. I'll tackle any task and develop a solution but I need to understand what I'm doing. I need to understand why I'm selecting certain options, what makes that appropriate, what would make the other option inappropriate, the pros and cons, the whole run-through. I find the documentation lacking.
What I have noticed while I'm running a firewall, FireHOL, which works with DNS, and a media server all runs on my Gen 8 MicroServer. It's an I3350 with 10 gigs of RAM, and I do find that the RAM usage is pretty high. I know I do not have all the RAM allocated to the containers, but I find that the overheads there seem to be pretty high. The high RAM usage comes with input-output latency. I don't seem to have the same problem on the dual Xeon, but again that has infinitesimally more computational power, one would expect that to run quicker.
When it comes to the firewall and other aspects, I'm only looking for a simple solution, low power consumption, good performance at home, to keep my home network on. If the documentation went into a bit more detail on what the overhead requirements of Proxmox VX are and why, and how to optimize, especially when you start bringing in Oracle ZFS and VFS power systems. The RAM usage increases a lot. There's practically nothing about that in the documentation. You have to hunt down the details in VFS, and its functionality elsewhere to figure it out.
On the dual Xeon, for distributed computing, it is running fine. The system is running 24/7 without any problems.
At the moment, one of the limitations is hardware passthrough into containers. To do that, you have to start getting privileged containers. I know there's a lot of hype in the public domain as to the pros and cons of that, and some parts are supported and some are not. It would be interesting to see if technology could develop to the point where we could pass through hardware into containerized applications.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Proxmox VE for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Proxmox VE is stable and reliable.
Server stability's been phenomenal and I'm running it on several old HP MicroServers. They're Gen 7, using the AMD Turion chips. I've been running it on the Gen 8, I3, 350, and dual CPU E3 in Xeon. there are some performance differences based on what the hardware's capable of, but no matter what platform I run it on there has not ever been any stability problems whatsoever.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. If you're working with generic processor models, it's easy to shift them across different platforms once you place the CPUs.
How are customer service and support?
I have not needed to use the support from Proxmox VE. I have found all the answers I have needed online from user groups and Wiki support pages.
I rate the documentation and community support from Proxmox VE a three out of five.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used previously VMware and VirtualBox. Both are installs that have been on Microsoft Windows, and I found them both to be very limiting, very difficult to set up and manage. Proxmox VE, I found to be the easiest to use, quickest in terms of response, and has the best functionality.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy. Once you get the hang of it, setting up the VMs, containers, and deploying them is incredibly quick.
The setup for most of the configurations is similar, once you understand the concepts and the principles, it comes down to basics. You know your hardware and what you're setting up, and what it's capable of doing. You can't set up older generation hardware and then expect to have PCI Express Passthrough or GPU Passthrough, because the hardware doesn't support it.
You can't expect the solution to do what the base hardware is not capable of doing. Work within the constraints of the hardware, understand your hardware, and the OS.
You can download the solution and it is an open-source installation, it is exactly the same as their commercial solution.
The maintenance of the solution depends on how you've set it up. If you've only set it up as a functional hypervisor, you have your VMs running, and that's the last thing you did, then you're going to have to come back every two weeks or every month to check on your OS updates, upgrades, and security patches, et cetera. However, you can automate a lot of that with Cron jobs. It's about learning the system which is based on Debian. If you understand Linux and Debian, you will understand how powerful the system is and what you can actually do with it. When you start running things, such as Monits or syslogs, you can automate any error messaging or any problems and it can be sent to your system administrator in an email.
Whether it's a case of regular backups that are happening, if everything is working well, then great, but if one fails, an I/O error or other errors pop up and you get notified of it quickly, then you can fix it easily. If you're only coming in every four weeks to have a look at it and see what's going on, things could have gone horribly wrong.
I would suggest to anybody who's running a hypervisor, is schedule regular backups. Back up your VMs regularly. Schedule it. Automate it, and make sure it happens on a separate machine, onto a separate machine, onto a separate host- because you don't want to lose your VM with all its backups.
If you've taken the time to set it up well with all your Cron jobs and automation, there will be almost zero maintenance.
I rate the implementation of Proxmox VE a five out of five.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
To use Proxmox VE there is not a license required. However, you can purchase a support license, which you access, but it doesn't change the functionality of the solution.
Their licensing is very similar to other solutions, such as Canonical and Ubuntu. The full OS is available to you. If you want the support, you will need to pay a license fee.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others wanting to implement this solution is if you're looking to virtualize, ask yourself why. In terms of bringing your costs and energy consumption down, never mind the whole global eco-footprint hype that everybody wants to get onto. The reality is, for any business, keeping a business afloat is about dollars and cents, and if you can accomplish your IT tasks at a lower cost and expense, have better utilization of hardware, you've probably already hacked a path to what way to move forward.
Instead of spending hundreds of thousands on multiple servers, to then have a less than 5% utilization on each machine, while they using up 500, 600 watts of power, is not efficient. With virtualization, you're running multiple VMs on one physical piece of hardware. You get much better utilization out of it, you're getting much more for the money you are paying, and without any significant drop in performance.
When one considers the internal networking on the VM, where you have different VMs and your containers are running on internal networks. You're not limited to gigabits or 10-gigabits throughputs. It runs on the PCI Express speeds on the board, it is a lot quicker.
I rate Proxmox VE an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Operations Manager at Ocient, Inc.
Free, flexible, easy to implement; it's based on KVM and independent nodes are a great feature
Pros and Cons
- "Less infrastructure required; simple to use."
- "Lacking in enterprise features."
What is our primary use case?
This is a free version of VMware and that's why we're using it. It does everything that VMware can do and it's more flexible. We were looking for a virtual solution and we're a startup, so the cheapest is best. We are customers of Proxmox and I'm the technology operations manager.
What is most valuable?
The feature I like best about this product is the fact that they have independent nodes. Proxmox is based on KVM and essentially you could lose a node. All the hosts that are running are evacuated elsewhere in the cluster and away you go. I have reduced infrastructure and I'm familiar with it because at the heart of the hypervisor is Debian Linux and I'm a Linux administrator. It didn't require learning a whole new platform and it's so easy to use. Proxmox will be in my toolbox forever, I love it.
This is a really great solution and the more VMware raises their costs, the more appealing it is. I'd be very nervous if I were one of the big companies because you're going to have administrators like myself discovering Proxmox and the cost is zero. With this solution, when something goes wrong, you Google it, you figure out the problem and fix it. Of course if you're an enterprise company, that's something else.
What needs improvement?
The product should have more enterprise features, perhaps DRS. I don't think Proxmox has the ability to sense that a host is running hot and needs to be evacuated. So DRS, dynamic resource scheduling, is a feature that constantly monitors the host and if it sees a particular host taking up a lot of resources, it will take that host off and throw it on a different host in the cluster that's not running as hot and doesn't have as much utilization. It protects the overall cluster
As above, I think the DRS would be a helpful additional feature.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
As long as you're monitoring your host yourself, it's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I can't really speak to the scalability. I haven't looked into it yet. We're a very small company and we have about five people using the solution, all at the director or senior level. We have a senior application developer, and a director level manager who brought the product in.
How was the initial setup?
Does a three and a half minute setup sound reasonable to you? When I first installed it, I thought there must be more to it. I downloaded the ISO onto a thumb drive and made it bootable. Then you boot the server, boot off the thumb drive. You have to answer about six questions and that's it. Very simple.
What other advice do I have?
My only recommendation to anyone thinking of implementing this solution is to read up on it, but give it some serious consideration because it really is a great product. In other words, don't let the freeware label scare you off.
I would rate this solution a seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director of Security at Universidade Aberta
An easy-to-setup solution with good performance
Pros and Cons
- "The tool has very good performance."
- "The solution needs to improve its stability."
What is most valuable?
The tool has very good performance.
What needs improvement?
The solution needs to improve its stability.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one month.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.
How was the initial setup?
The tool’s setup is easy. The setup took two weeks to complete.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director & CTO at TechnoInfotech
Out-of-the-box, is easy to learn compared to other vendors, and is easy to deploy
Pros and Cons
- "The feature that I have found most valuable is that its storage container, LVM, and everything else work out of the box."
- "It could have more security updates such as when a new threat is coming into market."
What is our primary use case?
We use the open-source version of Proxmox for automation and other uses, including LXC containers. We use it for my enterprise applications and to offer our hosted cloud-services.
How has it helped my organization?
Proxmox with Ceph Storage as HCI has given really peace of mind to Management & IT for regular hardware maintenance, with near to zero downtime or no downtime for most of VM & LXC container keeping in mind service running round-the-clock for customer.
What is most valuable?
The feature that I have found most valuable is that its storage ZFS & Ceph, container based on LXC and everything else works out of the box. Additionally, it is a really stable, reliable, and scalable solution.
They have a good road map already in place, so I don't think there are any immediate challenges.
What needs improvement?
I don't have any real challenges about improvement here. (As most IT required features are included and they do have roadmap). Plus API & Command tool is lot helpful.
I personally keep exploring other players and backup/Restore/DR software.
And believe more advance features of backup/restore & DR Data Sync for Ceph on GUI fronted would be added benefits for users coming from other platform.
On Security/Firewall/Software-Defined-Switch with more advance feature on webGUI would be also more helpful too.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Proxmox VE for more than six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Proxmox VE is an enterprise solution, it is used daily. Its regular maintenance is normal, the way you would maintain any normal infrastructure. There is nothing special or complex with it. We have a team of five people who maintain it, but there aren't any complex challenges.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
My company is very small but I have more than 10,000 users accessing on ProxmoxVE Cluster. We provide the solution to other customers.
How are customer service and technical support?
The thing about this solution is that is so stable I hardly need any technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Raw Linux Virt-manger for per Server management for VM & LXC before, without any central management.
How was the initial setup?
Everything has a learning curve, steps to watch, understand and explore. But with Proxmox there are hardly any challenges. I don't think the deployment took more than an hour.
What about the implementation team?
Its was inhouse.
What was our ROI?
License & Support-subscription & running maintenance cost is bear minimum compare to other closed source solutions. We were able to use our other existing commodity server part of this cluster.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Recently, I have been a Proxmox reseller. I wanted to promote it in India because there is no reseller here. We are trying to promote Proxmox here because being open source it's not popular worldwide, although we have been using it in production for the last more than five or six years. We have been exploring Proxmox for small applications for more than seven, eight years.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Tried Xen, but was not comfortable.
What other advice do I have?
With Proxmox VE you get everything in one box, including the ZFS & Ceph storage & LXC container technology.
Even the support subscription is really good.
It's a wonderful open-source solution. It's out-of-the-box and it is easy to learn compared to other vendors. It is easy to deploy and maintain and you hardly have any trouble or challenges from the software.
It provides peace of mind for management.
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Proxmox VE a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
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Learn More: Questions:
- Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
- What are the main differences between Proxmox versus VMware vSphere?
- Proxmox VE or KVM?
- What is the biggest difference between Proxmox VE and XenServer?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Proxmox versus ESXi 6.5?
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I recommend Proxmox is an excellent virtualization solution for large and small companies.
It offers similar benefits to virtualization products like VMware vSphere, Windows Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, it is up to you, where you are going.
PROXMOX free at no cost, you can install it on any number of physical Servers, with no limit on the use of Processors and Sockets, Communication Bridges, or integration of NAS or SAN either through Fiber Channel, iSCSI Over Ethernet or NFS.
You should only have good server resources and you must virtualize.
I am at your service and attentive to continue.