> Other companies, including Microsoft (Hyper-V) and Proxmox, have also been aggressively courting disgruntled VMware customers.
I think I'm among the few in my peer group who hasn't yet started running Proxmox on their home server.
I think I'm among the few in my peer group who hasn't yet started running Proxmox on their home server.
Highly recommended.
I switched from VMWare to Proxmox a few years ago because Proxmox supported a wider range of network cards that were more common in the cheap desktop computers I use in my homelab, whilst VMWare almost required an Intel network card (which was usually fine for server hardware).
It was a surprisingly easy transition that I have not regretted one bit. I'm not sure whether there that was an actual migration path, without reinstalling servers from scratch. Homelab meant it didn't quite have the requirements of a production system...
At this point they're more an enterprise scheme to maximize license profiteering for compatible software and OS "per core" licensing in conjunction with hardware platform providers. It'd be cool if the support were worth the price, but in most enterprise cases, you're going to save a lot of money if you pay enough full time staff to purchase, build, maintain, and operate a virtualization environment compared to what the enterprise platforms provide. In most cases, you'll save more than enough to keep a better specced system completely redundant with spare hardware on hand.
I'm told that Kubevirt with Kubernetes has also been a winner among customers post Broadcom acquisition who were really reluctant to go beyond VMware previously.
I would suggest at least a minimal Linux Server VM if you're running containers, underneath ProxMox or on a bare metal install if you don't need other virtualization on said server.