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Oracle VM vs Proxmox VE vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.7
The ROI varies, with high initial costs; however, cost-effectiveness and ease of use are appreciated despite differing opinions.
Sentiment score
7.5
Proxmox VE offers cost savings, enhanced server capabilities, and improved efficiency, with benefits outweighing its learning curve challenges.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere reduces costs and enhances efficiency with virtualization, offering savings, agility, and improved resource utilization and scalability.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.0
Oracle VM support improved over time, with mixed reviews on speed and expertise, but helpful resources for self-resolution.
Sentiment score
7.4
Proxmox VE users often utilize community resources and documentation over paid support, though improved direct communication is desired.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMware vSphere's customer service is efficient and knowledgeable, but response times and complex issue handling can be inconsistent.
The response time and quality of support could be improved.
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
Recently, support has been less friendly and slower, especially after the company was acquired by Broadcom.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Oracle VM efficiently scales resources across environments, providing flexibility and seamless integration, despite minor configuration challenges.
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
7.4
VMware vSphere offers scalable, flexible environments with minimal downtime, seamless integration, and excellent performance across diverse hardware and business needs.
VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
It is a highly scalable solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Oracle VM is praised for stability and performance, despite initial bugs, with improvements in latest versions on certified hardware.
Sentiment score
8.1
Proxmox VE is highly stable and reliable, performing well on older hardware with minimal performance issues.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere is highly stable and reliable, with minimal outages and quick resolution of issues, ideal for critical applications.
Not every upgrade goes smoothly, and after an upgrade, it sometimes stops working.
While they are generally stable, if outages occur, they tend to be due to brands like HP or Dell, not VMware vSphere itself.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
I would rate the stability of VMware vSphere as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Oracle VM users seek improvements in UI, integration, documentation, and features like drag-and-drop, backup, and monitoring tools.
Proxmox VE faces challenges with performance, interface complexity, support, and lacks effective monitoring, documentation, and scalability features.
VMware vSphere needs pricing, interface, compatibility, management, integration, fault tolerance, performance, and technology support improvements due to user concerns.
Oracle VM provides automation capabilities in the new version.
If I have limited systems and there is maintenance on the hardware, the Oracle systems are impacted.
Not every upgrade goes smoothly, and after an upgrade, it sometimes stops working.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
Although the product is very strong and includes all necessary features, the high pricing drives many customers to avoid using it.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
 

Setup Cost

Oracle VM is cost-effective with included support and licensing, benefiting enterprise users, especially with Oracle hardware.
Proxmox VE is an open-source, cost-effective virtualization solution with optional support, valued for its affordability against competitors.
VMware vSphere is costly but valued for advanced features and stability, especially in large-scale environments, warranting careful budgeting.
Oracle VM is not a very expensive solution.
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
About three or four years ago, I would have recommended VMware vSphere more strongly, but currently, the price and licensing issues are deterrents.
 

Valuable Features

Oracle VM offers scalable, secure, open-source virtualization with extensive automation, cost savings, and enhanced compatibility with Oracle databases.
Proxmox VE provides a user-friendly, scalable, and affordable virtualization solution with strong community support and feature-rich environment.
VMware vSphere offers centralized management and flexibility, enhancing data center efficiency with strong security and fast, efficient operations.
If there is an issue with the operating system running on top of it, there's no primary and secondary domain, rather segregated I/Os, disks, memory, everything assigned to a logical domain.
It is easy to copy or clone one Oracle workstation to another.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
The tool is highly available, which is crucial for implementing critical applications requiring 24/7 availability.
The vSphere application is free and very useful, ensuring effective management and improvement in operations.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM is 7.3%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Proxmox VE is 17.5%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 16.1%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Nitin Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience enhanced performance and support with reliable server consolidation
We are working with Oracle VM and Oracle OLVM We have used both Oracle VM and Oracle OLVM. It has been four or five years since we started using these solutions. Both products are from Oracle. Oracle VM provides automation capabilities in the new version. We have been using this solution for…
Albert Lacerda - PeerSpot reviewer
Manages clusters across sites and has an easy setup and integrations
It is very easy to set up. It is a robust virtual environment and can be deployed within a few days. Typically, an environment can be set up in two, or three days. The most complicated part is migration from VMware. However, the new virtual Proxmox offers a built-in tool to directly connect to the VMware environment and convert the virtual machines to Proxmox. You need to have one person with expertise in network components and configuration for that part of the physical environment. The most important aspect is working with the vendors who supply your standard software. This is often the most challenging part. You need to contact support to help set up the new environment if something changes. This process usually involves more time and effort to get the vendors to ensure compatibility with Proxmox. Many people, including those at Zendesk, are often reluctant to assure that Proxmox will work with other unfamiliar systems. I rate the initial setup an eight to nine out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.
Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Oracle VM or KVM?
I would prefer if KVM was easier to scale and not so limited. Overall the product has been helpful. It is easy to use...
Which is better - Oracle VM or VMware VSphere?
Oracle VM seems to me to be kind of outdated. Nevertheless, it is fairly straightforward to use and maintain. The sol...
What do you like most about Oracle VM?
If you want to access the VM from anywhere over the Internet, you put it in a public subnet. So, VMs are linked to th...
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 o...
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 featu...
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...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platfor...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ambulance Victoria, Australian Finance Group (AFG), Avnet Technology Solutions, CERN, cloudKleyer, Danish Tax Authority (SKAT), Data Intensity, Dubai World, Engineers Australia, Enkitec, Groupe FLO, Guerra S.A. Implemento, s Rodovišrios, Interactive One, IT Convergence, Jesta Digital, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, KT, Kyoto Prefecture, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory / National Ignition Facility, Multinet Pakistan, National Australia Bank (NAB), Navis LLC, Overhead Door, Overstock.com, Paragon Data, Parks Victoria, Pella, Sunway Shared Services, St. Louis Metro, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., University of Massachusetts, Versace,
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
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.