Proxmox VE

Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source server virtualization platform from Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH in Vienna, Austria. Martin and Dietmar Maurer founded the company in 2005; the first stable version of Proxmox VE appeared in 2008. It was the first platform to combine KVM virtual machines and Linux containers (LXC) with one web interface. The company calls itself independent and profitable, with customers and supporters as its only investors.

Features

• KVM hypervisor for Windows and Linux virtual machines, LXC containers for lightweight Linux workloads
• Web-based management with clustering, high availability and live migration
• Software-defined storage with ZFS and Ceph, software-defined networking and a built-in firewall
• Integrated backup; Proxmox Backup Server (since 2020) and Proxmox Datacenter Manager (since 2025) extend it
• Import assistance for moving virtual machines over from VMware

Licence and limits

Proxmox VE is licensed under the AGPL and has no licensing costs. Optional subscriptions add support and access to the enterprise repository. Proxmox works with more than 3,000 partners worldwide. Compared with VMware, the surrounding ecosystem of certified third-party products is smaller, so backup, monitoring and storage tools should be checked before a switch.