My unqualified comparison between ESXi and ProxMox

[noviceiii]

I have recently changed from ESXi 6.7 to ProxMox and thought to write down my first impressions.

I had uses ESXi starting with version 5.0 for my home lab. I have chosen ESXi after a longer evaluation between the hyporvisors available at that time. ESXi was the only one fulfilling all my needs, which are

Single computer with consumer hardware..

• Intel i7
• 32 GB RAM
• 2 HDD
• 2 SSDs
• (And later, a 1 NVME)

to host..

• a firewall
• a few Debian systems
• Windows of various versions
• OSx in various flavors

Installation/ boot media USB stick.

ESXi

My mainboard had quite some issues addressing hardware, RAM and clock speed correctly and to make the devivces accessible for ESXi. A few bios updates later, I got this. For the onboard network card, a home brew driver had to be used. However, I have never managed to get the onboard wifi nor the NVME storage accessible in ESXi. Since I had not much use for the WiFi and the NVME came later, it didn’t bother me much. In regards of backup, it needs professional software which is usually too expensive for home use but I found my way with

The ESXi installation obviously corrupted a little after all the upgrades so I was never able to upgrade to 7.0.

The administration of ESXi is usually done through the web UI or on a local PC installed tools. The shell is uses only in rare and special occasions. Additional linux tools (network tools, disk operations, ..) are at a minimum or not at all available in the shell and cannot be installed manually (this is ment to increase security).

Migration from ESXi to ProxMox

Since I use the same hardware and I have a few rather big virtual discs, I’ve installed ProxMox over ESXi. The disks had to be mounted with vmfs-tools6. Once that was clear, everything else went fine. Actually, surprisingly good. The vmware machines can be used (more or less) directly in proxmox.

ProxMox

In contrast to ESXi, the hardware driver support is far better due to the underlying linux core of ProxMox. All mentioned devices where accessible out of the box.
It seems to be faster than ESXi particularly with disc operations (i/o) and networking.

However, I had quite a while to setup the discs and the networking as the concept is a bit different from ESXi and requires some manual work. And I currently have issues with RAM filling when moving data from one virtual machine to another (currently investigating the issue).

Since I have no use for advanced firewall, mail or DNS functionality provided by proxmox, I could live without it.

Additional tools can be installed through the usual ways on Debian systems. Which I consider as a plus.

first conclusion

What was obvious rather quick is the ESXi UI and usability is much better than ProxMox. It seems a bit more straight forward.

In contrast, ProxMox is a bit faster and offers far better hardware support. To understand the disk and network setup in ProxMox, it needs a bit of reading. Loads of administrative tasks are done on the shell in ProxMox, so it requires switching between Web UI and shell.

Nevertheless, since I have certain experience with Debian systems, I’ve felt home soon.

Since I use it on consumer hardware and in regards, that I would have to install ESXi again anyways, I'll stay with ProxMox. It is more promising for the needs I have.

Would I recommend in general switching from ESXi to ProxMox?

It certainly depends on ones requirements. If ESXi is running fine, ESXi it is the better choice: - ESXi seems a bit more stable on the hardware I use: Even tough finding the right ESXi driver can be challenging, the closed system is of benefit for the overall stability.

- It prevents n00bs like me better from miss configuration or security issues
- The UI of ESXi seems a bit more self-explanatory (maybe this will change by gaining more experience with the ProxMox UI)

 

[dcsapak]

hi,

thanks for the feedback!

regarding:

Loads of administrative tasks are done on the shell in ProxMox, so it requires switching between Web UI and shell.

any concrete examples for that? we usually try to make the 'standard' setup to be as accessible as possible, so any pointers where we are missing something would be good
(note that the documentation mostly mentions the cli, but often can also be done on the webui, even if its not mentioned)

- The UI of ESXi seems a bit more self-explanatory (maybe this will change by gaining more experience with the ProxMox UI)

also do you have concrete points for that? i did not look at esxi for quite some time, so concrete examples (e.g. with screenshots) can help us improve things

 

[noviceiii]

Sure, thank you for asking.

I had rather everything related to the disk done through shell. And this of course, since I had the ESXi disks put into the ProxMox server. The UI does not address this migration path. And this is certainly fine as this won't be a daily use case and only happens during a migration.
.. and yes, if the documentation points to the shell, then one tries his or her luck through the shell..

The UI usability.
It would be quite a bit to explain it as ESXis concept is different. What I have on top of my head:
- Network setup: the diagrams in ESXi are very handy.
- Disk: I do not have the choice in ESXi for LVM/ LVM-thin/ directory.. in ESXi to access physical discs. And since I am new to proxmox, I haven't fully understood the need to so when adding a physical disc. (ESXi knows differences when creating VM discs).

I have deleted ESXi so no screenshots at hand

I'll update this thread maybe in few weeks, when I gained some more experience with ProxMox.