By https://www.techradar.com/author/ritoban-mukherjee
Publication Date: 2026-06-05 15:05:00
Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Proxmox VE is often listed among the best virtual machine software options, although it belongs to a different category than most desktop virtualization tools. Rather than running as an application inside Windows, macOS, or Linux, it is designed as a server virtualization platform that manages workloads through a web-based interface.
At its core, Proxmox VE combines KVM for full virtual machines with LXC containers for lighter workloads. This gives users the option to run complete operating systems when needed, while also deploying more efficient containerized services where a full VM would be unnecessary. That combination is one of the main reasons Proxmox has become popular in homelab environments, where users often want to run many services on limited hardware.
The platform has also gained momentum because of changes in the broader virtualization market. VMware remains a powerful enterprise platform, but licensing and ecosystem changes have made many homelab users and smaller organizations look for alternatives. Proxmox does not replace VMware in every enterprise scenario, but it offers a strong mix of flexibility, cost control, and practical capability.
This makes Proxmox VE particularly interesting for users who want to move beyond basic desktop virtualization. It is not the easiest…