I haven't been using Proxmox for too long, at least not compared to some of my esteemed colleagues. It has been a few years, but the primary reason for my sticking to my guns and running everything off a prebuilt network-attached storage (NAS) enclosure was simplicity. Synology, Asustor, and other brands all run some form of Linux on their devices, but the OS is heavily tailored to storage and running a few packages. As the home lab grew, I found that the NAS was no longer enough, and that's where Proxmox came into play.

My home lab went from running comfortably on a single low-powered device to requiring multiple platforms for services, experiments, running large language models (LLMs), and more. I had come across Proxmox countless times before the switch, but I always thought it would overcomplicate my home lab instead of simplifying a rather complex expansion. Proxmox always seemed like it belongs in the data center, but it also has a place on a PC or two at home.

When I finally gave Proxmox a try

Testing multiple operating systems with ease

Traditionally, when trying out a few different operating systems, you'd have to throw multiple ISO files onto USB drives or use something like Ventoy to manage everything accordingly. An OS would have to be loaded at a time on one system. It was slow and overcomplicated a simple process. Proxmox, being a hypervisor, handles it all differently, and that's why I tried it out to test a few options. Instead of causing serious confusion, virtualization essentially simplified my entire setup.

I thought I would have had to spend a few hours over the weekend learning Proxmox and all of its intricacies, but that never occurred. Proxmox takes a few minutes to install, and all you're greeted with is a web interface, which is where the entire platform is managed. Everything from creating storage volumes to downloading and setting up images with virtual machines (VMs). Not a single command line entry needs to be entered. Although a different process from what I used before, it felt natural.

Instead of treating the underlying system as the host for managing the environment and everything on top of the bare-metal install, Proxmox uses the hardware as infrastructure. The system becomes the foundation for what needs to run, such as Windows, Linux, some containers, and Proxmox itself. It immediately made it more accessible to run various instances without needing to juggle the OS. I can run as many virtualized instances as the hardware will allow.

Instead of shutting down the PC, plugging in a USB drive, and starting it back up to launch and install a new Linux distro, I can quickly deploy the ISO by creating a new VM with a click of the button in Proxmox. The entire process takes around a minute, and these can all run simultaneously, so long as the underlying system is capable enough to handle the load. Better still, I can run all my favorite self-hosted services within the same interface, including Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Immich, and Home Assistant.

Everything is safe and backed up

Proxmox makes running a home lab painless

Having everything running on the same system with a single hypervisor may sound daunting. What if something goes wrong with a specific VM? How about Proxmox itself? What happens if it suddenly goes down and won't get past the initial POST screen? That's where the reliable and robust backup and snapshot systems come into play. It's possible to create per-instance snapshots that can be easily restored to take entire VMs back to an earlier state.

I can quickly spin up a VM to test something risky. What if you wanted to see what a specific system setting change does, or maybe some Windows registry tinkering is on the table? Proxmox makes it painless to restore to an earlier point. The same goes for software or downloads; you may not be able to verify before opening. A sandboxed VM is the answer, as it won't affect the rest of your Proxmox node. This is huge since I no longer have the fear of anything outright breaking.

Then there's organization, which is far easier thanks to grouping all my running VMs, containers, and other self-hosted content onto a single platform. I could make notes on all the virtualized instance portal pages that could provide glanceable info on what each handles. I could then expand the single Proxmox deployment into nodes, allowing each to run specific sections of the home lab, effectively creating my own mini data center without all the complicated overhead.

This should make it sound overly complex, but in reality, my home lab became infinitely easier to manage and maintain. Less time was spent diagnosing or configuring hardware. No more guesswork went into how much RAM I'd need to physically install into each machine to handle a specific task. Proxmox allows for CPU, memory, and I/O to be adjusted per VM or container. Everything is displayed with easy-to-follow charts to see precisely what is hogging system resources.

Proxmox makes home labbing easy

Just about anyone can get up and running

Security risks are present when creating a home lab with public-facing services like Plex or Nextcloud. A compromised service or app could potentially access other components or software on the same system. That sounds terrifying, and it can happen, but Proxmox acts as a form of internal firewall between running software with VMs and containers all loaded in sandboxed environments. Although there is a learning curve, as is the case with anything new, it doesn't take long to grow accustomed to how it all works.

Now I can't see myself running the home lab without Proxmox as the foundation, and it has completely transformed how I manage services and operating system instances without dealing with hardware overheads and worrying about security vulnerabilities.