Proxmox VE vs. Red Hat Virtualization

Proxmox VE and Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) are open-source, Linux-based server virtualization systems. Proxmox VE is offered for free, making it a popular choice for do-it-yourself IT professionals. Red Hat Virtualization, though not free, comes with a lower price tag compared to traditional closed-source virtualization solutions, and includes more enterprise features and professional support. Red Hat Virtualization is almost equally popular with mid-size companies and large enterprises, probably due to its combination of open-source ideals with a  budget-friendly price tag. Proxmox VE is mostly popular with mid-size companies who likely have smaller-scale IT needs that can still be easily met with free software.

Features

Both Red Hat Virtualization and Proxmox VE help businesses manage virtual assets, but they have a few key differences to consider.

Red Hat Virtualization is designed to be easy to implement, even if you have an existing virtualization management solution. Red Hat Virtualization offers migration scripts and assistance to help new customers get up and running quickly and smoothly. The company also offers professional support after setup to make sure their customers can solve any issues that may arise, and many customers specifically praise the quality of Red Hat Virtualization’s support team. For a professionally-supported, paid solution, Red Hat Virtualization still has a low price point when compared to industry standards such as VMWare.

However, Red Hat Virtualization can’t beat Proxmox VE’s price tag: free. For businesses who want extra assistance, Proxmox VE also offers a paid support subscription to help with technical problems and upgrades. This pay-if-you-need flexibility is extremely helpful for cost-conscious IT departments. The fact that the software is free also makes Proxmox VE scale-friendly, with no need to buy additional licenses as your datacenter grows. Proxmox VE also offers high-availability features such as host-aware failover, allowing the system to move to another host if its current host crashes or runs too hot.

Limitations

Despite their strong feature set, both Proxmox VE and Red Hat Virtualization have their drawbacks.

Some users may find that Proxmox VE is missing features they need, such as the ability to dynamically move hosts between hardware resources to balance out high usage. The management GUI is browser-based, which means that administrators must use console commands if they don’t have a network connection. Proxmox VE can also be cumbersome to upgrade and complicated to set up, especially for users without existing virtualization and Linux experience.

Red Hat Virtualization has a local UI, but users often complain that the UI is outdated and unintuitive. Although the company provides scripts to migrate virtual hosts from other platforms, these scripts might not be plug-and-play for all users, making the migration experience more of a hassle if, for instance, your disk names have spaces in them. With no live-patching options, maintenance for Red Hat Virtualization can also be a chore, requiring a reboot to upgrade the system.

Pricing

Proxmox VE is open-source and free, with an optional paid support and upgrade plan that uses a tiered per-year, per-CPU-socket structure. The Community tier is $100.05 per socket per year and gives access to the Proxmox update repository. The Basic tier is $317.91 per socket per year and adds access to a customer support portal and 3 support tickets per year. The Standard tier is $468.61 per socket per year and increases the support ticket limit to 10 per year, with a guaranteed first response time of 4 hours. The Premium tier is $937.23 per socket per year and offers unlimited support tickets and a guaranteed first response time of 2 hours. (All prices converted from Euro to USD.)

Pricing information for Red Hat Virtualization is available from Red Hat or a Red Hat sales partner.