Proxmox VE Reviews

We use the solution to host virtual machines, such as: SQL Server Database, Active directory domain services, web services, general cloud applications, and some virtual machines or containers for development and testing purpose. Specially the preference for containers is due to the easly development when the only basic operational system is required istead of fully hardware virtualization (kvm).

We heavly use replication resource to assign some garantine to critical virtual machines wich could run eventually on other sites or hosts, in case of broken internet links, hardware issues or even hacker attacks (many thanks to ZFS working with PVE-ZSync feature that allow planning a standback period of retention snapshots, quickly failover and fallback of virtual machine storage)

It is high availability resources, replication and live-migration (on cluster envirioment). We don't have significant problems with hardware issue or maintenance schedule, because with ZFS, Cephs or other shared storage incorporated in Proxmox technology, it´s possible to migrate virtual machines to other hosts with almost zero downtime.

1) The two-factor authentication: for security reasons!

2) PVE-Zsync: wich allows replication outside clusters, with snapshot retention for quickly failover and failback (by incremental syncs)

3) Large documentation and "How-To" on the wiki page;

4) Many usefull integration: APIs, Active Directory;

5) ACLS, Groups e User Managment: Allows to set and customize permissions.

6) Proxmox Backup Server: Assertive Incrememtal Backup Solution for realible local backups or remote with encryption support! That's perfect.

7) Built on Debian based Kernel, very stable distro

1) PVE-Zsync GUI implementation - This is a very important tool, it could delivery the more advantage in comparision to Xen Orchestra and Microsoft Virtual Machine Replica Service.

2) Central Cluster Administration: The possibility to manage many clusters sites in "one only page" instead of oppening many browsers tabs! IT Cloud companies as us, usually need to access diferent clusters sites, I think it's good idea to centralize the administration GUI for companies that own two or more cluster sites!

3) In connection with my suggestion number 2, the possibility to create a "farm cluster". In few words, the possibility to move virtual machines (live or not) among diferents clusters sites separated by WAN links. Actually, PVE Cluster is realible on local links, due to multicast or udp rings, but in some scenarios when a entire cluster site needs to be put offline (eg, for maintenance or internet issues), a virtua machine migration to other cluster that belongs to the same "farm" but in other region will increase the "value" of Proxmox simular to Microsoft Azure Site Recovery ou Amazon. That will make my evaluation increase from 8 to 9 or even 10!

Since 2014

The technical support is the very complete. I don't  have a subscription, because the support that we need for our applications and solution are available on the Proxmox Wiki However, for big companies we recomend the Proxmox subscription for getting a first class support and best pratices.

Microsoft Hyper-V on situation thats requires Outside Migration (see my comment 3 on the question: what areas could the product or service be improved)

The solution is very easy to set up and implement. It's not complex. We can put a single host or even a Cluster only line in less than one hour! 

Not yet!

Proxmox delivery more cost X Benefits in comparision to VMWare and Citrix Xen. It could be improved in future for more benefits in comparison to XCP-NG and  Microsoft Hyper-V

Citrix Xen-Server and XCP-NG

I use Proxmox VE to host a domain control environment, a Windows server environment, and to host a few apps that I publish on the store. I'm also using it to manage clients' remote surveillance backups because I keep my clients' CCTV footage.

I set up an NVR environment, and I'm pushing traffic to my servers. I'm running a mini data center. It's doing apps. It's doing Windows Server Management for a normal environment. It's nothing fancy, but it's working.

I like that it's secure, and I find its Software RAID very useful. It's way better than the Hardware RAID I was used to. I'm really impressed by their Software RAID feature. 

Backup and recovery could be better. It's a bit problematic. If you're not well-versed with Linux, it tends to be a bit of a challenge when setting up and recovering. It's not really GUI-based, and if you're not a good Linux user, it becomes a bit difficult.

In the next release, I would like to have something like Hyper-V's Data Protection Manager, where you could do an offsite backup and keep a copy. I haven't seen that incorporated yet, but I'm sure they will do that.

I have been using Proxmox VE for more than five years.

Proxmox VE is a stable solution. I don't have that much money to buy new hardware or new servers, and I have more or less deployed it on the old used servers I purchased online. It's been a breeze. Until I make money to buy the high-end servers, I'm just purchasing used servers or end-of-life servers, and they're running. For a third-world set up, they're running well. For 25-plus years, it's been a good solution for me.

Proxmox VE is a scalable solution. When I get a new host or a new client, I'll probably buy a new server and add it to the node or the cluster. It's just a breeze. It's as simple as a click, and I have added it. 

I have about 20 clients. My clients are about seven schools, gas stations, coal, utilities, a bank, two small microfinance banks, and the government.

I am thinking of doing more. I am thinking of setting up a mini data center with it because we have done the proof of concept for CCTV storage. People don't have the space or the money to do their own backup and store their own footage. Part of my solution is selling them storage that they can retrieve from their devices. I store their CCTV data in my data center and give them a remote view. You don't need to have an NVR.

When I sell a surveillance solution, you don't even have to have an NVR. Give me a firewall, and then I will point your storage to come to my server. I'm the one in the neighborhood storing information at the moment.

The forums have everything you need. I haven't had any challenges because the forums are there. I have yet to get the paid subscription support. I have yet to find an installation that has given me a challenge that I can only resolve by subscribing for support.

I was using Hyper-V from VMware, but Microsoft kept crashing. It takes a lot of investment here in Africa. I need to invest a lot in power because master machines crash. Windows and power are not the best of mates. After that, I moved to Huawei Desktop Protocol and Huawei Desktop Cloud. That also had issues with the support and licenses. Then we moved to Proxmox, and it's been working.

The initial setup is straightforward. It was hard at first, but I went over the forums. After I went over the forums, I did the YouTube tutorials and videos, and after that, I managed my clients well without paying for a bit of support. Surprisingly, I have been running for about five years.

It doesn't take hours because I've deployed on two nodes, and I've deployed on three nodes. Currently, I'm running it on four nodes, and it's doing great. So, with every installation, I tend to get better.

On a scale from one to five, I would give my initial setup experience a four.

I had some support. I've got over 12 years of experience working with Twitter, Uganda. Now Twitter, Uganda is a multinational, and the rest of the group supports the partners. I've had a bit of guidance when it comes to switching, routing, storage, and databases. 

When I went out on my own, I used that background knowledge and the background skills I obtained through the years, and they helped me out. I didn't have any outside tech support to help. The tutorials were there, and the videos were available on YouTube.

I have a guy who does the power because he's got to stabilize the servers. Then I've got a guy who does the networking. He gives me the IP. He gives me the ports to connect. Then I have the guys who do the installation on-site, especially the Windows servers. I also have the Linux guys. It's a team of about four people. The rest are juniors or what we call apprentices. They help out here. I mostly use students to get the work done.

I'm definitely getting a return on my investment. I'm buying used servers, and I'm charging like I was charging for new servers, and I'm making a good profit on them. I'm repurposing servers, and I'm making a lot of money from repurposed servers using Proxmox, and they're running.

On a scale from one to five, I would rate my ROI at three.

Proxmox VE is affordable. It's cheaper than Hyper-V, Huawei Desktop Protocol, and Huawei Desktop Cloud.

I made a comparison with Hyper-V and Huawei. I bought Proxmox because it's cheaper and more resilient to our power environment. We have very unstable power in the country, so Hyper-V and sudden breaches in power were problematic.

I would tell potential clients about the ease of use. What's quite surprising is that Microsoft is going that way now, but these guys had that solution there back in the day.

Microsoft is doing Software RAID with Server 2019. These guys already had that solution back in that day. They're doing cloud spaces, but Linux had SAFE back in the day. 

I'll tell them it's a cheap option. It's a stable option. I know Microsoft has done a lot in trying to get stable, but it's an affordable option. It's a stable solution, and it just works off the fly like that. 

You watch the video, use a storage guy, have a power guy, and have a good networking guy. You could get the service up and running compared to having a Microsoft MVP somewhere in a corner or on-call somewhere.

The releases are killing us. It's like they keep releasing every year. I would wish for them to come with something very stable. They keep coming up with something new every six months because I think their release cycle is every six months. I'm trying to finish something, and they release something new altogether, and I have to migrate. I know the iterations are as minimal as possible, but it still has an impact.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give  Proxmox VE a seven.

My company uses Proxmox VE for VDI, so we basically use it for Windows VDI, and a few of our Linux servers run on it.

My company has benefited from the use of Proxmox VE since it has helped us reduce our costs. Earlier in my company, we were using VMware. My organization's costs related to operations were on the higher side when we were using VMware, especially when it came to areas related to management and updates. With VMware, you need to have an active subscription to run a few basic VMs and other stuff, but on Proxmox VE, you don't need to pay for any overhead costs. You only need to pay for support from Proxmox VE, and otherwise, it is a completely free solution.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that my company gets to use the open-source version of the product while also getting better features like clustering and redundancy. Compared to the other products in the market, Proxmox VE has an easier setup phase and can be easily managed.

Proxmox VE doesn't offer a good interface for monitoring. From an improvement perspective, Proxmox VE can offer a better interface for monitoring. Other products like Nutanix offer better monitoring capabilities than Proxmox VE. Proxmox VE doesn't have any other product integrated with it for storage. My company has to look for products from other vendors to take care of the storage part in Proxmox VE. Proxmox can offer its users a storage solution integrated with Proxmox VE.

Feature-wise, the console was the only place where my company saw an issue with Proxmox VE. The console provided by Proxmox VE is not much of a console meant for virtual machines. With Proxmox VE, once you have deployed the virtual machines, you realize that the initial console is not very good, because of which the graphics may seem boring. My company also finds many compatibility issues with the tools you need to install for the virtual machines to work in Proxmox VE, like the drivers and other stuff. My company has to look into many logs and other sources to resolve the compatibility issues related to Proxmox VE. In Proxmox VE, my company installs ISO when the setup phase of a virtual machine is carried out. One of the problems my company faced with Proxmox VE was installing a server with MySQL since it didn't function as an out-of-the-box product, because of which we had to shut down the machine and go through a configuration process. The default processor provided by Proxmox doesn't work.

I have been using Proxmox VE for a year.

It is a stable solution. My company does face some performance-related issues with Proxmox VE, but I feel that such issues are mostly related to hardware and not the solution.

My company hasn't used the scalability options provided by the solution because our hardware is currently fixed. My company operates on an on-premises model, and I don't know how we can avail of the scalability options if we plan to move to a higher version of the hardware.

My company has only two servers running for Proxmox, but we have about a hundred VDIs or virtual machines that run on Proxmox.

I have experience with VMware. We had VMware in our company, which is only for service and not for the VDI part. We did not continue with VMware in our company because it was not an open-source platform. My company mostly prefers to stay on open-source platforms over paid tools.

The initial setup of Proxmox VE was very easy. With Proxmox VE, the installation, clustering, and configuration parts are easy.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. My company plans to deploy the solution on the cloud in the future.

For the deployment process of Proxmox VE, since my company migrated from VMware to Proxmox VE, we rely on our own hardware. The deployment process didn't require much effort. In our company, we were able to handle the workload related to the deployment process easily.

The migration process from VMware to Proxmox VE was completed in a period of 15 to 20 days. In my company, we had very little workload on VMware. To work on the VDI part in Proxmox VE, my company had to do a fresh setup, meaning we had to start from scratch since we weren't using it with VMware. After looking at the solutions available in the market, my company decided to go ahead with Proxmox VE.

It is an open-source platform.

As a part of my company's evaluation process, we tested VMware.

The solution's maintenance part was very easy.

I recommend Proxmox VE to others considering the online community support and because it is available as an open-source product.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

In 1994, I started to work with Proxmox VE. Since 2020, I have developed much expertise in Proxmox VE and have helped many organizations with their Proxmox VE needs. During this time, I have studied Linux, maintenance, and troubleshooting and helped organizations successfully implement and manage Proxmox VE. 

To mitigate DDoS risks on Proxmox VE, we use VFXTHs, which are a better way to take snapshots for high-performance applications. I have seen that VFXTHs are being developed to cache and block traffic, which is a promising development.

I have a program on my old machine with 380 events, but I need to create new events. This is much easier to do with VFXTHs, and I have the skills to do it. I also have two VPNs running on the old machine, which I can use to get started.

Proxmox needs to improve the integration of its network, machines, and virtual machines. It is very difficult to test, but it is possible to use scripts to make the process easier.

The documentation is good. When I needed some kind of support, I found it on the Internet.

The initial setup is easy. 

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It's used for server virtualization on a client-facing network.

Its compatibility is most valuable. For any VM or specification, if I have the license, there could be one cluster for it.

The management can be better. It's not like VMware where you can get all clusters on a single dashboard. In VMware, you can literally see all the VMs running in one cluster regardless of the host.

I've been using this solution for just a year.

I'd rate it a six out of ten in terms of stability. Because we don't have a professional engineer for Proxmox VE, we are very reliant on our suppliers. So far, we haven't experienced any bugs, but as an IT specialist, I haven't had any formal training for Proxmox VE. It's an open-source virtualization platform.

It's scalable, but it lacks automation. You have to configure the memory for the system to be automated. I'd rate it a six out of ten in terms of scalability.

It's for our external servers, and we probably have more than five thousand users.

We are very reliant on our supplier for support. I haven't got any chance to get in touch with Proxmox support.

I've used other solutions. Proxmox VE is much harder to use than ESXi and AHV.

It's easy, but the management is not really that efficient for us, so I'd rate it a seven out of ten.

It usually takes two days to conclude. There is also migration. Migrating less than twenty VM to a newly configured Proxmox would approximately take two to three working days.

It's very cheap.

I'd recommend it for a small business or a startup business. It's very helpful for those who are starting up and have fewer users. For DR scenarios or use cases, it would be worth it.

Overall, I'd rate it a seven out of ten.

At the moment, it's used for the virtualization of everything within my test environment.

I'm not using the newest version of Proxmox.

It brings all those benefits that virtualization brings. It reduces cost. I don't have to invest so much in buying many servers. I can go buy one new server with enough resources, and I can virtualize using that server. I can also layer features, such as routing, firewall, HTTP, and VLANs, on top of that.

In addition to the virtualization, the firewall and the routing functions that it provides are valuable.

Its user interface can be improved. In the version that I am using, not all functions can be performed by using the UI. There can be some improvement on that. I'm assuming that it has already been improved in the latest version.

I have been using this solution for the past three years or so.

It has been absolutely wonderful in terms of reliability and performance.

I see the options for scalability, but for my own use case, I don't have the need to have several instances. It is just for my test environment, but the options that they provide sound interesting. There are some high availability configurations for multiple Proxmox instances.

My environment has about 30 users. It is being used every day. It is an operational tool because the environment has to be up.

The way the licensing is structured is that you have to pay for the support. My use case is just for my test environment. I have not deployed it on production, so I've not had any need for technical support.

I've worked in environments where other solutions, such as VMware, have been used, but personally, I have not used any other solution. This is the first solution I am using as far as virtualization is concerned.

For me, it was straightforward. There are different user levels for things like this, but it was straightforward for me. It takes about a day or two.

I implemented it myself. For its deployment and maintenance, you need a minimum of one and a maximum of two people. The second person is for backup reasons when the primary resource is not available.

I have absolutely seen an ROI. I am not able to measure the actual value in terms of returns, but because I've invested nothing, apart from the cost of the server or the hypervisor upon which the Proxmox is installed, the value that we've got from it has been huge.

The way the licensing of Proxmox is structured, you can use it for free. It is an open-source solution, and you can use it for free, but if you do need support, then you have to pay for the support. So, you can use it in a way that you don't have to pay anything, which is a plus point for me. For people or users who have huge and more intense use cases, the advice or the recommendation is to always pay for support. In case something goes wrong, you can fall back on the team that will attend to your request. For me, at the moment, the cost is zero.

I would advise that you weigh your use cases very well before deciding whether to use Proxmox or not. It meets the needs of my use case, and I don't have any reason to complain. If there is a switch or change in my use case, I might decide to not use Proxmox. I might consider some other solution.

If you want to run Proxmox without paying for support, like any open-source solution, you have to read the documentation and be familiar with all the dependencies and requirements for your environment. Once you have all of that covered, you are good.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

Our primary use case for Proxmox VE is for virtualization and a little bit of SaaS storage, basically for virtual machines.

Proxmox VE is simple to use and it is feature rich. The fact is that it performs,

The only issue I have with Proxmox VE is updating it. You have to manually update it or you have to have a way to update it automatically.

The main area for improvement is with the automatic updates, if it's even possible, even if you have to pay for the cloud services. Updates are very important.

If they could fine tune the updating process that would be good.

I have been using Proxmox VE for two years.

Proxmox VE is stable. We have a few issues where all of a sudden you can't update it, because maybe you have taken too long to update the repository. This is a concern for us. Like I mentioned before, the updating feature is very important to us because there could be some security issues.

There are a lot of actions that you need to do with commands, which have not been automated yet. I believe that with time it will be automated.

In terms of scalability, we didn't have any need for scaling because just the fact that you can put them in a cluster and manage one unit is a very good feature. I don't have to manage it individually, I can just put them together in a cluster and manage them for one single piece. I'm about to test the backup feature and also maybe upgrade it to the next version, which is 7.0. I'm expecting that there will be a lot of improvement.

Right now we have about six users on a project that I'm deploying. I'm still managing the project, but due to COVID it has gone on for two years, but we're just about to hand it over. Because of the COVID issue, nobody wants to come to one place to sit down and do anything. All of last year was just wasted, but this year we're able to do a number of things with them. The manual process of updating one by one is relatively stable. In the account, you have to centralize the management. You have to log in one by one and you can have a different password for for each one, it's not unified. They have not unified the authorization process.

One thing I have noticed is that because I put a password on one it is expecting me to manually put a password on the other node. I would expect that for better management you can have the same propagating password. Maybe there's a better way to do it, but that's what I have been seeing and I found that I have to be doing this for each one on each node. That is an issue, but so far it's been very good. It's been very stable. I never had any issues with it. It's cool stuff.

I  really like the software storage. I used it on one of the cloud servers that we set up and it's working very well.

We do plan to increase the usage in the future.

Proxmox VE is very simple to use.

The deployment took a long time, but it was not because of Proxmox. It was some other issues for other projects. Installing the Proxmox software is very easy. It just takes a day or two.

We did it in-house.

Our license is on a yearly basis.

There are no other costs, just the license fee and the license is flexible. You could decide to go subscription only or you could decide to pay for support.

My advice to anyone considering Proxmox VE is that they should study it to understand it, because it is feature reach, so you have to read the manuals. They have to read the manual and unfortunately the manual training level is on the high side, so for people who are experimenting or who are just coming into the free version, it might be a little bit hard for them. Proxmox should try and market more on the training side so users can speed it up and have a good adoption. I hear that people understand the product very well, because right now I don't think it has a rival. It's trying to beat the Oracle VM or the other VMs in the market.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Proxmox VE a seven.

We primarily use the solution in order to have an infrastructure set up on-prem. It enables flexibility in projects to set up virtual servers. Instead of having to go out and buy expensive solutions from VMware, for example, Proxmox fills the gap between flexibility and stability. 

The solution is easy to install. It can run on a lot of different types of hardware. Creating virtual machines with it is really easy. 

The backup solution is a little bit slow and sometimes sluggish on the restore side. It takes a little bit of time, but that could also be the fault of the hardware.

We had some challenges with management including volume and storage management. Setting it up properly and making it work, specifically shared storage between the virtual machines, is difficult.

The installation could definitely be easier. For the vendor, if the solution offered better information, they would have more users on it.

The solution should implement something that enables me to at least get an overview of the loads and the statuses of the machines and applications from my cell phone. An app for mobile management would be great.

It's been very stable. It's been working tremendously for our projects in order to set up things temporarily. Right now, it's not in production; we're only using it for testing. It offers superb stability, however.

We haven't tried to scale the solution. We tried it with two loads, which isn't really enough for a scalability test. We only have about 20 people on the solution currently.

We haven't really used technical support. We've only been using the community version.

We previously used VMware. We switched mostly due to the cost, but also the scalability, and usability of Proxmox.

The initial setup, after you've done it once, is straightforward, but the first time it isn't. That's because of the way you build the image. When you install on x86 infrastructure, mounting the installation is not straightforward. Unless you have medium to good NAVIS experience, it's actually difficult to install. 

We handled the implementation ourselves. The documentation available is really good, which is why we were able to handle it internally.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

Apart from a few small issues, everything works well in comparison to VMware. I would select Proxmox any day. The solution itself is really good.

The solution should definitely keep supporting the community, and always have a community edition because people who are interested in it will want to learn it. Once users get into production mode, they will definitely end up buying the support version. They should make the implementation easier, however, because then the solution would get more people on board.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.