Hypervisors Compared
A short comparison of the hypervisors covered in this repository: Proxmox VE, VMware ESXi and XCP-ng. Use it to choose a platform for a homelab.
See also: Proxmox VE Overview and Install · Proxmox Storage · VMware ESXi · XCP-ng · NAS Operating Systems Compared
Comparison #
| TOPIC | PROXMOX VE | VMWARE ESXI | XCP-NG |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Debian, KVM and LXC | Proprietary VMkernel | Xen, CentOS-derived dom0 |
| Management | Web UI, API, clustering built in | Host Client; vCenter for clusters | Xen Orchestra |
| Licence | Open source, optional support subscription | Broadcom; free edition is ESXi 8.0 U3e with limits | Open source, Vates support optional |
| Storage | ZFS, LVM, Ceph, NFS, iSCSI | VMFS, NFS, vSAN | EXT, LVM, NFS, iSCSI, XOSTOR |
| CLI | qm, pct, pvesh | esxcli, vim-cmd (unverified) | xe |
| Best fit | General homelab | Existing VMware estates | Xen shops wanting open source |
Hyper-V (Windows) and Incus (containers and VMs) are alternatives not covered by a sheet here. For plain KVM on a Linux host see libvirt and KVM; for desktop virtualisation see VirtualBox.