Proxmox VE

Proxmox VE is the operating system many homelabbers build their entire setup on. It lets a single physical machine run many isolated systems at once: full virtual machines (via KVM) for things like a TrueNAS instance, a Windows box or a hardened Docker host, and lightweight LXC containers for simple Linux services that boot instantly and sip resources.

Everything is managed from a clean web interface — creating VMs, taking snapshots before risky changes, live-migrating workloads between nodes in a cluster, and configuring ZFS storage. Its backup tooling is a standout: schedule vzdump jobs, or add Proxmox Backup Server for incremental, deduplicated and verified backups that make disaster recovery genuinely reliable.

Since Broadcom's changes to VMware licensing, Proxmox has become the default free hypervisor for enthusiasts. The learning curve involves understanding VMs versus containers, storage layouts and networking bridges, plus features like IOMMU-based PCI passthrough for handing a GPU or HBA to a VM. Use the free no-subscription repository to keep it fully updated at no cost.