With Broadcom fundamentally changing the VMware licensing landscape, businesses are searching for a stable, open-source exit strategy. In this video, we move past the technical deep-dives to look at Proxmox and XCP-ng from a strictly business perspective.
Timestamps:
00:00 - The VMware “Broadcom” Problem
01:26 Mitigating Risk With Open Source
01:48 Why Not Others Like OpenShift?
02:12 The Homelab Advantage
02:50 The Veeam Factor: Validation for Open Source
03:21 TCO and The Power of Integration
04:46 Support & SLAs
Let the haters on both sides of the fence start fighting each other about their favorite hypervisor and how theirs is better. Hold on, let me get my popcorn.
It is difficult to say that VMware isn’t top of the tier, but not everyone needs all the parts they have shoved into VCF. I’m not sure if the price really went up for those that were buying all/most of the products, but now there is no choice. All or nothing. Licensing is a whole other discussion that Tom alluded to in the video.
I haven’t used Proxmox, not sure I will ever try it, but maybe I should. I think Harvester and Rancher have a place too, certainly not giving up on trying to learn a bit about this system (long post in the discussion thread from a while ago). I probably will give Nutanix a try, it’s a fairly popular choice for some places and I kind of want to find out why. I think a lot of this has to do with the HCI storage. Almost everyone was running over priced vSan, having moved away from “expensive” NAS/SAN devices.
If you are running a lot of containers and a bunch of VMs, then VCF or Harvester/Rancher makes sense. If/when vcluster for Rancher make it to production ready, then Harvester will be a solid choice as it will be a “one product” answer to the problem of VMs and Kubernetes containers. As of right now, they still suggest a cluster of at least three hosts for Rancher in production, plus at least three hosts for Harvester, it has to do with quorum and failures.
Everyone has differing opinions on which hypervisor qualifies as “Enterprise Ready.” While I have reservations about both solutions, I generally agree with Tom’s data. However, there are a few additional points worth highlighting.
Proxmox offers a more enterprise feeling interface, though its frontend and backend are not as tightly integrated. In contrast, XOA’s frontend feels somewhat underdeveloped, but its backend is well-structured and thoroughly tested.
While technical capabilities are paramount, user experience (UI/UX) remains a critical factor in adoption. A polished UI/UX can significantly enhance user comfort, encouraging greater engagement with the platform. Ultimately, the balance between robust backend architecture and a seamless frontend experience often determines which solution resonates more with enterprise users.
I know it shouldn’t be that way, but it is a factor. XO-6, in particular, feels less refined compared to XO-5 frontend.
Looking at Unifi and pfSense, both approach network configuration differently. Yet, Unifi’s UI/UX is exceptionally polished and has the potential to eventually outpace Netgate in every meaningful way. This further underscores how a superior user experience can shape the trajectory of a product, even in technical domains where backend strength is essential.
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