By Ayush Pande
Publication Date: 2025-11-23 17:00:00
From top-tier performance in virtualization workloads to native support for LXCs, clusters, and ZFS, Proxmox has enough features that justify its popularity in the home lab ecosystem. However, the sheer number of first and third-party tools available for Proxmox is its biggest advantage over other virtualization platforms and server distros.
I often spend my weekends looking into all the cool services, packages, and scripts I can integrate with my Proxmox nodes – and here’s a list of utilities that I consider essential for my PVE workstations.
Proxmox Backup Server
I’ve got two PBS instances instead of just one
Backing up virtual guests to a separate system is a great way to recover a Proxmox setup from critical conditions, and there are a couple of ways to do so. Personally, I prefer going down the Proxmox Backup Server route instead of relying on the built-in snapshots and vzdump facilities.
For one, PBS’ incremental backups and compression algorithm reduce the amount of space occupied by LXC and VM data, while the deduplication feature ensures I don’t accidentally store multiple versions of the same files. On the troubleshooting side, the live restore and selective recovery facilities cut down on the amount of time my Proxmox virtual guests would otherwise need to get back in action. Plus, I’ve got PBS installed on a separate NAS, so I don’t end…
