Proxmox vs ESXi in 2025: VMware Dying in the Home Lab
I can’t believe it but we are almost in 2025 already and what a year 2024 has been in the technology space with AI continuing to make waves. But who would have thought before 2024 that someone could have said VMware would be dethroned from the most desirable virtualization platform. This has happened and not due to technology reasons but due to the Broadcom buyout unfortunately. Broadcom continues to make decisions that are going to effectively kill VMware in the home lab environment and I think eventually move ones away from VMware in the enterprise as time goes along. Let’s look at Proxmox vs ESXi moving into 2025 and try to get a perspective of where things are and where they are going.
Table of contents
Timeline of events in 2025 and their impact on home lab
There have been significant events leading into 2024 and throughout this year that represent major changes in the VMware ecosystem that have definite impacts on home labs. Note the following:
- November 22, 2023: Broadcom completed its purchase of VMware, and started a series of strategic shifts within the company’s portfolio of products.
- December 13, 2023: VMware announced that it would stop perpetual licenses for products like vSphere and Cloud Foundation, transitioning exclusively to subscription-based models (in fairness VMware was heading this direction before the Broadcom purchase).
- February 12, 2024: Broadcom marked the free edition of VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) versions 7.x and 8.x as End of General Availability (EOGA)
- November 5, 2024: At VMware Explore in Barcelona, Broadcom introduced a new program for VMUG Advantage members, offering personal-use licenses for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVS). Getting hands on the licenses now requires a VMUG Advantage membership and completion of specific VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certifications
- November 30, 2024: The existing VMUG Advantage members ability to download EvalExperience licenses was scheduled to be discontinued. Members were advised to download all necessary licenses by this date since future access to license keys would mean you have to be certified
Home labs are a microcosm of production environments
I really do think that a lot of what we see in the home lab represents what technologies that are used in the enterprise. I see people moving in droves to open-source hypervisors like Proxmox. Why? Because when enthusiasm for a product wanes, people normally stop using it. And, that is what has happened with VMware. Due to the massive changes. People everywhere are reconsidering using it and considering Proxmox vs ESXi instead.
I think we are going to see the trickle down effect of fewer and fewer orgs using it in the enterprise, especially in the SMB market. It is a sad time, especially for all who have cut their teeth on VMware technologies.
The flip side
I do think that VMware will still be in the big shops and the skills to administer it will still be in demand and the new VMUG certification requirements may help to microfocus those who want to put in the work for certification to get their hands on the licenses.
Proxmox improving its game in 2024
There have definitely been major improvements in Proxmox in 2024 with the release of the latest versions of 8.X.
Software defined networking
Proxmox has introduced software-defined networking into the solution that allows creating VNets and overlays on top of your physical network infrastructure. This helps to close the gap with VMware NSX and some of the features there. While is isn’t close to as fully-featured as NSX, it definitely is very good considering it is free and in-the-box.
VMware import wizard
One of the significant introductions has been the import wizard for VMware VMs. Now, Proxmox is making it easier to move from ESXi to Proxmox with the built-in migration wizard that allows you to move from your VMware environment without the major lifting that was required before with disk conversions, etc. Now this is done automatically.
New OVA import
The latest version of Proxmox just recently released the ability to import OVA appliances into Proxmox which is a simple but powerful feature that helps to provide feature parity with a management tool we have had in the VMware environment for years. It seems that most appliances are provided in OVA format so this will be a great addition to be able to easily deploy appliance-based solutions.
Software-defined storage
Ceph software-defined storage is a free and open-source storage solution that Proxmox admins can use to create logical shared storage between Proxmox nodes. With Proxmox shared storage, it means you can create a free and open-source HCI solution using only locally attached storage devices.
This is an extremely good rival to VMware vSAN HCI storage since it can essentially do many of the same things as vSAN. However, Ceph is much more complicated to administer than vSAN in my honest opinion. VMware has really made the vSAN solution a push-button storage solution that is easy to administer.
However, it still shows the power of open-source software compared to proprietary software that is subject to major price hikes.
VMware faces uncertain times
When it comes to virtualization feature when you put VMware toe to toe with any other solution, I think it wins hands down from a purely technology standpoint. However, in today’s very cloud-driven world, I don’t think most organizations are looking for all the bells and whistles when those now cost 3-5x as much under Broadcom.
Also, with all the changes Broadcom has made, I think this is going to sour VMware being used in home labs which will have a trickle down effect on what today’s and tomorrow’s engineers recommend in the enterprise.
One of the strengths of VMware pre-Broadcom has always been the community. This is what has driven the excitement for the product all these years in my honest opinion. Without that excitement and now with the attitude towards VMware drastically cooling, it will be uncertain times for VMware for sure.
I think the VMUG changes are the death knell for the majority of home labs running on VMware unfortunately with many not wanting to pursue getting certified to get access to the license keys.
Possibility of a more elite knowledge?
With fewer keeping up with the latest VMware technologies due to the requirement of certification for VMUG, will this lead to fewer elite engineers that understand the technology as a whole and the new features and benefits offered? It could.
Will Proxmox replace VMware in the enterprise?
I honestly don’t think so at this time. Proxmox is still a bit rough around the edges for most enterprise environments. I think also the support offerings are not where most enterprise environments would need to be to trust running production workloads on it as of yet.
I think the biggest winner for the Broadcom fallout will/is Nutanix. They are known for enterprise HCI solutions and have been in this space for a long while now and have been the real contender with VMware going toe to toe with them.
Comparing the latest features of Proxmox vs ESXi
Here’s a comparison of the latest features between VMware ESXi and Proxmox VE as of late 2024:
| Feature | VMware ESXi 8.0 Update 3 | Proxmox VE 8.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Release Date | September 17, 2024 VMware Documentation | November 21, 2024 Proxmox VE |
| High Availability | Supports high availability clusters with features like vSphere Distributed Services Engine. You can now do dual-DPU support | Has high availability clusters using Corosync and integrated HA manager. There is enhanced SDN integration with firewall for improved network security |
| Lifecycle Management | Introduced vSphere Configuration Profiles for consistent host configuration management. There is also the new vCenter reduced downtime patching with automatic switchover. | Provides a text-based installer and support for automated, unattended installations. You now have improved cluster-wide bulk management for virtual guests. |
| Networking | Support for NVIDIA Bluefield-3 DPUs in both single and dual configurations. There are new design improvements for cloud-init guestInfo variables. | Full Software-Defined Networking (SDN) stack with the access control framework. New VLAN and source NAT management. |
| Storage | Support for vSAN stretched clusters. New enhancements have been made in vSAN performance and resilience. | Operation with Ceph for distributed storage. There is support for ZFS 2.2.6 with compatibility patches for newer kernels. |
| Backup and Restore | vSphere Data Protection for backup and recovery. There is also the existing integration with third-party backup solutions. | Advanced backup settings with Proxmox Backup Server. Third-party support is getting much stronger with Proxmox with major players like Veeam and others offering agentless backups of Proxmox hosts and clusters |
| User Interface | vSphere Client with enhanced UI features. Now we have vSphere Configuration Profiles accessible via the vSphere Client interface. | New “Tag View” for overview of virtual guests. New firewall management based on nftables. |
| Security | Support for secure boot and improved certificate management. | Compatibility with secure boot and support for custom ACME-enabled Certificate Authorities |
| Virtual Machine Management | vMotion enhancements for live migration. There is also support for Kubernetes runtime | Import wizard for VMware ESXi VMs. LXC device passthrough for containers. |
Wrapping up
Not sure where Broadcom’s mind is at for the community, but I am not too fond of the direction things have been headed lately. I think we were all hopeful that with the reassurance from many that the community aspect wouldn’t change that Broadcom would leave well enough alone with VMUG and vExpert programs. However, I am trying to be positive as well and looking at the benefits of certification with the new requirements also. I do think though this may be the end for many home labs though running on VMware as I think having access to the license helps with certification and not the other way around.
