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Proxmox VE is a free and open-source virtualization platform built on Debian. It supports KVM virtual machines, LXC containers, ZFS storage, clustering, backups, live migration, and high-availability features. For home labs, the big advantage is flexibility. You can run a Windows VM, a Linux server, Home Assistant, Docker, Pi-hole, Plex, Jellyfin, TrueNAS, or even pfSense on the same physical system. For small businesses or more advanced users, Proxmox can scale into multi-node clusters with shared storage and centralized management. The main tradeoff is that Proxmox is infrastructure software

If you’re still comparing virtualization platforms, these guides are the best place to start: Proxmox vs ESXi Proxmox vs KVM Proxmox vs Hyper-V XCP-ng vs Proxmox Unraid vs Proxmox if you’re deciding between a NAS-focused OS and a hypervisor In general, I’d choose Proxmox if your main goal is virtualization. I’d choose Unraid or TrueNAS if your main goal is NAS storage, and virtualization is secondary. Proxmox can do storage, and NAS operating systems can run VMs, but picking the tool that matches your main use case usually leads to a better setup.

It depends on whether your host has integrated graphics or a second GPU for the hypervisor. If the host can keep its own display adapter, other VMs like Home Assistant on Proxmox run independently and aren’t affected by the GPU being passed through to a different VM. Security note: IOMMU configuration and kernel parameters affect system-level isolation. Review any changes in the context of your threat model — especially allow_unsafe_interrupts, which weakens IOMMU isolation. Security best practices in this area continue to evolve.

Most discrete PCIe GPUs work with passthrough on Proxmox, but success is heavily hardware-dependent. NVIDIA consumer cards have historically had driver-level restrictions (the “Error 43” issue on GeForce cards in VMs), though this has become less of a problem on newer drivers.