That said, there's value in having your router/firewall separate from other systems (virtual or otherwise), which will substantially reduce complexity and make it less likely that you accidentally make a system accessible on the wrong side.
In particular, qemu and apparmor don't always play nicely together and the error messages you get by default don't tell you that it's an apparmor problem.
Importing a VMDK package was also tricky, I ended up having to get familiar with some XML incantations to get the machine to import properly. Feedback from qemu or its friends was totally obtuse and unhelpful there too.
I got home network and wanted KVM to control which VM gets which IP, but I couldn't make them accessible from outside - without static IPs on VM side. When I use virtual bridge, KVM cannot set the IPs, but at least they are accessible from my home network.
It doesn't have the same hype as the others but far more open. Biggest drawback is that the configuration software is windows-only (you can get it running in wine but it is a bit hacky, also xen-orchestra is a free (for personal use, if you build from source) web-configuration utility that one can use).
Would not want to be at mercy of vmware. Also don't want to invest time into a system with such restrictions on use.
Proxmox might be a decent alternative but I have a few systems and the cost would be prohibitive for hobby use.
Not sure if a gimped shareware-like(?) option sounds that appealing.
You can get good, power efficient pfsense hardware for around $200 USD. A few bonus notes:
—You could spend a little bit more and get hardware that's good enough to add a virtualisation layer to your dedicated router.
—If your uplink is less than 300 megabit, and you have a managed switch with VLANs, your pfsense box doesn't need to be dual NIC. This could open the door for cheaper or re-purposed hardware.
Upgraded to the latest pfSense version a couple of days ago and the total downtime was in the order of minutes.
It's a bit too early to say whether it's a good idea or not; the main concern I have is that you have two points of failure instead of only one. Other than that worry it has been very smooth.
That, and CARP on VMware is ... tiresome.
Proxmox is great as long as you have the mental fortitude to ignore the tickler that pops up on login if you're on community support only.
If web works with base ESXi great! If not then I'm not interested.
I just don't work on a lot of companies in the position of needing VMWare anymore. Either they're all in on AWS or they're too small to justify the expense.
I haven't actually used Proxmox but had X11/Xquartz on macOS, following enough to manage them. You don't even need to open X manually. It gets started when there is a connection.
ssh -X user@host -- virt-manager &
apt install -y libvirt-bin virt-manager