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IT supervisor at Fox-it solutions KG
Real User
Reliable, easy to deploy, and offers great out-of-the-box functionality
Pros and Cons
  • "You can easily migrate VMs between hosts."
  • "The compatibility with non-English operating systems needs to be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for general virtualization for all sorts of services. 

What is most valuable?

The out-of-the-box functionality is great for containers. 

You can easily migrate VMs between hosts.

The hyper-converged solution with the CEPH cluster is very nice. 

It is stable. 

The solution can scale very well.

The deployment is fast and easy.

What needs improvement?

The compatibility with non-English operating systems needs to be improved. If there is a non-English operating system, we run into issues.

We'd like to be able to replicate on the same data. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I used the solution for about a year. 

Buyer's Guide
Proxmox VE
May 2025
Learn what your peers think about Proxmox VE. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. We haven't had any stability issues. It does not crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's extremely scalable. I'd rate the ability to extend ten out of ten. 

We have about 25 users on the solution right now. We will increase usage in the future. 

How are customer service and support?

Support is a paid service. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We've also used Hyper-V and VMware. We switched based on cost and functionality.

How was the initial setup?

It is very easy to implement. I'd rate it ten out of ten in terms of ease of setup. 

The deployment itself only takes an hour.

What about the implementation team?

I handled the setup in-house without the help of an outside vendor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is pretty affordable. It costs less than Hyper-V and VMware. If you want to have support from the vendor, you need to buy a subscription. 

What other advice do I have?

We have been using the latest version of the solution. 

We are an IT company and selling it to customers. 

I'd advise others to just do enough planning before they deploy so everything is ready so that the system runs smoothly.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Engineer at Lite-On Technology Corp
Real User
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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Proxmox VE
May 2025
Learn what your peers think about Proxmox VE. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Joseph Nazer - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at Ertekaa
Real User
Top 5
Improves speed of servers but needs enhancement in backup
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution's most valuable feature is backups."
  • "Proxmox VE needs to make a deal with Veeam. I was also unable to make version upgrades. I have also encountered backup problems."

How has it helped my organization?

The product helps me to use a group of servers and improves the speed.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable feature is backups.

What needs improvement?

Proxmox VE needs to make a deal with Veeam. I was also unable to make version upgrades. I have also encountered backup problems.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for seven months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate Proxmox VE's stability a seven out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool's scalability a five out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is not good. I find support through the internet.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The tools' deployment is easy and I rate it a seven out of ten. It took two hours to complete. Install Proxmox VE on the server, then proceed to install the hard disk. After that, configure it for the work system and install the desired system. Finally, install all the necessary programs on the server. You need one resource to handle the deployment.

What about the implementation team?

The tool's deployment can be done in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is open-source and I rate its pricing an eight out of ten. You need to pay for support and it is costly.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Proxmox VE an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Software Engineer at NTInet
Real User
Top 20
An open source virtualization solution with good documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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. 

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. 

What other advice do I have?

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

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Director of FCL at a non-tech company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Reliable and allows us to create an individual VM along with the GPU for machine learning
Pros and Cons
  • "It allows us to create an individual VM along with the GPU for machine learning."
  • "The process for deployment is complicated."

What is our primary use case?

Proxmox creates an environment for writing script and virtualizing. I'm the senior finance administrator and I work in a research department in the health arena. 

What is most valuable?

The product is cost-effective to virtualize because of the ability to always create VMs. It allows us to create an individual virtual machine along with the GPU for machine learning. We can create multiple NPI notes, and whenever they need it, we can just power some down and bring them out. The solution is open source which is great for us and it's very reliable. Proxmox has given us the ability to do what a commercial organization can do but it's free. You don't have to buy any hardware. If you do take a subscription, they provide support. It's a good model.

What needs improvement?

The process for deployment is complicated and can be quite difficult for some; there's a steep learning curve if you've never dealt with the product before. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used this solution for a couple of years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is good, the solution functions well. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is good, we have around 100 users. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy for me, because I'm very familiar with this product. Deployment takes an hour or two. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The subscription version is not expensive but we don't always have the money to pay it. In that respect, both Netgear and Proxmox have been very important to us. 

What other advice do I have?

This solution is accessible to anyone. It does take time to learn and experiment with it. I rate this product nine out of 10. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Tanvir Siddique - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Officer at ADN Telecom
Real User
Top 10
Simple setup, hassle-free integration, and performs well
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Proxmox VE is the speed. Additionally, I can modify the solution if needed because it is open-source and the integration of any kind of API and monitoring is hassle-free."
  • "Proxmox VE can improve the management of virtual discs. For example, if my virtual disc is 200 GB and I want to decrease it is not easy. I have to do a lot of things to decrease the size of existing virtual machines. If the Proxmox VE team can make it easy for customers to instantly increase or decrease the virtual machine hard disc, it will be very helpful for me. However, the containers I can do it easily."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Proxmox VE for our internal services, we have a few virtual machines that run our mail servers, call center solutions, TDX, and other applications. Proxmox VE is a virtualized platform.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Proxmox VE is the speed. Additionally, I can modify the solution if needed because it is open-source and the integration of any kind of API and monitoring is hassle-free.

What needs improvement?

Proxmox VE can improve the management of virtual discs. For example, if my virtual disc is 200 GB and I want to decrease it is not easy. I have to do a lot of things to decrease the size of existing virtual machines. If the Proxmox VE team can make it easy for customers to instantly increase or decrease the virtual machine hard disc, it will be very helpful for me. However, the containers I can do it easily.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Proxmox VE for approximately seven years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the stability ofProxmox VE an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Proxmox VE could improve. The vertical scaling needs improvement. If the vertical scaling was better I could input the resources on the fly without shutting down the system. This would make it a lot easier.

We have approximately six technical support staff using this solution in my company. We plan to increase our usage of this solution.

I rate the scalability of Proxmox VE a six out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I have not had any issues that I would need to contact support about. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used Oracle Virtual Box and VMware prior to Proxmox VE. We choose Proxmox VE because of the cost savings, it is free.

How was the initial setup?

Proxmox VE's initial setup of easy. I started the implementation process by selecting a location, installing the hardware and Proxmox VE, and then I made the cluster without the Proxmox VE. The last step was to implement my virtual machine. The full process did not take more than two hours.

I rate the initial setup of Proxmox VE a nine out of ten.

What about the implementation team?

I did the implementation of this solution myself.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This is a free open-source solution.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others would be to choose simple solutions for only virtual machines with no extra integration of other features. This is an open-source solution and if someone wants to do something on the backend many things could go wrong. It is best to start with something simple, such as virtual machines with containers only. After they have had some experience then they can expand their knowledge with other solutions.

I rate Proxmox VE an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer965514 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Idris Aliyu - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 10
Simple to use and feature rich but challenging to update
Pros and Cons
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Proxmox VE for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Proxmox VE Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: May 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Proxmox VE Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.