Hypervisor reviews from Reddit
Summary
We analyzed 236 Reddit reviews across 14 subreddits and 30 posts to rank the best Hypervisor brands recommended by redditors, including communities like r/homelab, r/msp, r/linuxquestions, r/Hacking_Tutorials, r/selfhosted. Top-rated brands include Proxmox (4.3/5), Microsoft (3.9/5), XCP-ng (4.1/5).
Stats
Reviews236
Subreddits14
Posts30
Brands27
Products12
236 reviews from
and
By Brand
/By Product
#1
Proxmox
4.3
(84)
"Proxmox all day"
"I use proxmox with AMP game server from cube coders. Flawless issues running Minecraft, Valheim, and palworld."
"I second proxmox. Uses a web gui so access from anywhere within your network or externally using Tailscale."
"ProxMox is probably the best free hypervisor."
"Type 1 General - Proxmox is what I use on a daily basis"
"If you want to start dabbling into Type-1, I would highly recommend PROXMOX."
"I believe your best option will be Proxmox. It supports nvidia grid and it is free."
"I'd say Proxmox since it's the most GPU friendly"
"Proxmox is the way. Free, easy, lots of advice available."
"Proxmox makes me feel warm inside"
#2
Microsoft
3.9
(21)
"Hyper-V is the obvious choice, here."
"+1 for Hyper-V and WSL2. Between PowerShell and WSL scripting you can automate almost anything you'd want in a homelab."
"Hyper-V is my answer."
"Using Windows would probably give the best day-to-day computing experience on a laptop: even if you game on it. Then Hyper-V/WSL2/Docker would handle all the homelab services."
"I'd stick with Win10/Win11 with Hyper-V and/or WSL2. You could even still use it for gaming: the VMs would be in the background and you likely wouldn't even remember they're there."
"In this situation I would go with Hyper-V or windows with VMWare Workstation."
"Could just run hyper-v if the laptop already has windows on it"
"Use the current industry standards, Microsoft Hyper-v and VMWare"
"If your PC runs Windows go with Hyper-V, if your PC runs Linux go with QEMU/KVM + Virt-Manager. Both are super easy to set up."
"If you're running Windows Pro, you can use Hyper-V."
#3
XCP-ng
4.1
(19)
"XCP-ng. It’s open source like Proxmox. It can be used free of charge and it’s good performing."
"I'm using XCP-NG for my servers and Proxmox for my virtualized workstations. Both have been excellent."
"Have you looked into xcp-ng which is a fork of xenserver."
"[xcp-ng.org](http://xcp-ng.org) is what I would run."
"You can check xcp-ng, hyper-v, ovirt and etc. Since you are starting from the scratch, you can test them and choose the one which works fine for you."
"Had the same issue once, went to XPC-NG which was nice but missed proxmox's intuitive interface."
"Sounds like you want xcp-ng..."
"XCP-NG or Proxmox"
"I was really happy with xcp-ng. It's free."
"Try XCP-NG, Debian + KVM + Cockpit, Hyper-V if you are a Windows user, and Proxmox."
#4
KVM/QEMU
4.3
(18)
"Qemu or KVM are good. I really rate QEMU"
"The underlying KVM Qemu hypervisor is used extensively in hyper scale Cloud deployments."
"If you want one that is Free Software, and that's your main criteria, then especially since this is /r/vfio I can only recommend Linux/KVM."
"I was using KVM for Linux VM's and just decided to install Win 10 in a KVM VM."
"I thought KVM was probably the best - I basically want the best performance in order to use the Win 10 VM to carry out labs for my IT course."
"Try something like ubuntu server or debian with kvm/qemu and cockpit web interface"
"Maybe you can consider pure debian with KVM and using virt-manager as a GUI."
"Thx for the options. I'll check QEMU AND KVM out later this week."
"Type 2 Linux Partition - QEMU"
"KVM, or potentially Xen if you want to mess around a bit."
#5
VMware
4.3
(14)
"Sounds like you're hosting? VMware. End of story."
"VMWare really. Or Nutanix. Whatever you have money/skills for. Skip Hyper-V"
"VMware all the way, it's solid, reliable and stable as a 10nton Boulder."
"Given you have so many hosts, definitely vmware."
"Use the current industry standards, Microsoft Hyper-v and VMWare"
"VMware is good enough"
"I've lots about VMware, so I'm definitely gonna check them out."
"Type 2:VMware"
"If you want to stick with Type-2 hypervisors, if you do I'd recommend checking out VMWare"
"If you want to test esxi and other VMware software, vmug advantage can get you year long licenses for 200 USD"
#6
ESXi
4.0
(14)
"ESXi. I know proxmox is popular here, but in "the real world", that's what you mostly need. It's free as well."
"ESXi is the defacto standard in the industry, followed by hyper-V."
"If you're bothering to go the CCNA route, I'd recommend going with ESXi as it's more or less the default virtualization host for most businesses."
"If you need enterprise features - ESXi."
"ESXi is free for the basic hypervisor, as are all most all type 1 hypervisors."
"I’m using esxi free edition and also setup a FreeBSD bhyve box with vm bhyve recently."
"I've recently switched from using ESXi 6.5.0/6.7.0 for the past 6 years to TrueNAS SCALE, ESXi worked great for me for the most part."
"ESXi is great and you can get a free license from VMware for up to 8 cores."
"If you're learning for gainful employment, esxi (msp small and medium enterprise) , hyper-v (at schools and govt or small business), Nutanix (plucky 3rd, AHV is kvm)."
"ESXi will give far more than adequate performance for iSCSI and vCPU."
#7
Hyper-V
4.0
(12)
"We have a lot of customers running it on Hyper-V. Their support is awesome."
"Hyper V and KVM"
"Theres the hyper-v server"
"If you want type 2 - hyper-v / virtualbox / vmware workstation/player"
"If you are more comfortable with Windows - use Hyper-V"
"Hyper-v if you are used to Windows and need to test something quick."
"Easy and free? Proxmox on Linux and Hyper-V on Windows."
"Then when you have done your VMware build a proper clustered Hyper-v as that"
"Another option is Hyper-V Server, which is free as well."
"Hyper-V is best if you're running a ton of windows stuff. VMware is popular, and would be a great choice but gimped in the free version. Proxmox is fully featured free"
#8
KVM
4.6
(10)
"Install Ubuntu Desktop. Set up KVM and install virt-manager. You now have a single box GUI solution for the management and all guests."
"KVM offers by far the best flexibility."
"KVM is the best hypervisor. Qemu/kvm is arguably the best vm setup period."
"KVM is the way to go."
"Kvm is a type 1. Best option imo"
"Plain KVM/QEMU, no competitor can even come close"
"The best experience I've gotten us with virt manager on Linux. I used to have two GPUs in my machine and would pass the second one through to play video games that wouldn't run under Linux."
"What about KVM? It’s server proof and someone just port a tutorial to setup KVM on Arch Linux"
"KVM allows a good amount of trickery, including virtualization of the primary GPU."
"KVM on Ubuntu Server. I've been running it for years. It's solid, and there are guest tools for Windows and Linux guests."
#9
VMware ESXi
3.9
(10)
"We have multiple ESXi clusters in our environment. It is much better in terms of management and configuration comparing to Hyper-V, IMO."
"VMWare ESXi is the only true enterprise virtualization IMHO."
"Esxi also has a much smaller footprint than hyper-v. VMware is faster on the same equipment because you don’t sacrifice ram /processor and storage to the host OS."
"ESXi/VMWare for us."
"ESXi has free version. It has some limitations though."
"Yeah I love ESXI but the hardware lock is cramping my style"
"ESXi but sadly not free anymore, I would go with Proxmox as the second best alternative."
"You can get VMUG Advantage subscription and you get Enterprise Plus functionality."
"Want to experiment or learn for an enterprise job? ESXi (you are limited to just basic single host features)."
"You can have a free ESXi hypervisor license."
#10
Debian
3.8
(4)
"Debian with qemu and libvirt, and standard x applications on your favourite windows manager."
"My go to is just Debian with regular KVM/Qemu, using cockpit as a manager."
"I personally use Debian with qemu+kvm and cockpit to manage VMs via web GUI."
"Not Proxmox. AFAIK it's intended to be used headless. If you connect a monitor to it, the login prompt is preceded by a message explaining this. Instead, maybe what you want is Debian?"
#11
VMware Workstation
4.0
(3)
"Workstation is the best type 2 on desktop"
"VMware Workstation is fine for personal use, they even made it free."
"VMware Workstation is free to use. Works best for 3d acceleration etc."
#12
Virt-Manager
3.7
(3)
"Virt manager is an option too."
"Https://virt-manager.org/ Is the Linux Virtual box. You don't need a Hypervisor OS for that."
"Virt-manager, but the client, if remote, runs on Linux."
#13
Xen
3.7
(3)
"I've had a great experience with Xen on SLES."
"AFAICT xen is the industry standard for a layer 0 hypervisor."
"I thought that AWS used Xen as the hypervisor, but I could be wrong..."
#14
VirtualBox
3.0
(3)
"Performance is fine and that was on a third gen i5. One feature that VB offers that none of the others do - seamless mode."
"Otherwise, VirtualBox"
"Virtualbox which is so so slow and buggy"
#15
vSphere
4.5
(2)
"The product is great, it does everything I need and the price is reasonable."
"You can go with VMUG subscription for vSphere."
#16
Nutanix
4.5
(2)
"I love working with Nutanix, my boss isn't happy about having to explain the cost, but the amount of headaches and time it saved us from having to manage the hypervisor, drivers, compatibility, etc... totally worth it."
"I would have thought they would have started to grow a decent following at this point. Their support seems to be quite amazing."
#17
VMware Workstation Pro
4.0
(2)
"Type 2 Windows Partition - VMWare Workstation Pro"
"Workstation is still the best on Windows, IMO."
#18
Unraid
4.0
(2)
"Unraid or Trunas if you want zfs and built in nas functionality"
"I consider the Unraid price cheap enough to call it free and "
#19
Libvirt
4.0
(2)
"Libvirt"
"Libvirt with whatever frontend you prefer"
#20
QWMU/KVM
5.0
(1)
"I have not found anything that beats QWMU/KVM with virt-manager."
#21
VMware vSphere
5.0
(1)
"VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V are top choices for MSPs and service providers."
#22
VMware Essentials Plus
5.0
(1)
"VMWare Essentials Plus. It gives you 90% of the big brother product at a great price."
#23
Incus
4.0
(1)
"Incus is great and will run on top of almost any Linux distro. Runs VMs, LXCs, and now OCi containers (with some restrictions) natively."
#24
QEMU/KVM
4.0
(1)
"If your PC runs Windows go with Hyper-V, if your PC runs Linux go with QEMU/KVM + Virt-Manager. Both are super easy to set up."
#25
HPE
4.0
(1)
"KVM (wrapped in proxmox) and terraform for automation based on a HPE G11 at whatever specification you require."
#26
VMware Essentials
4.0
(1)
"VMWare essentials is not much $"
#27
QEMU
3.0
(1)
"I've mostly used QEMU and Virtual Machine Manager"
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