6 ms·

Been using proxmox for a home lab and I still can't believe how much value they provide for free. I use it with Cursor and create vm templates and clone them w

Been using proxmox for a home lab and I still can't believe how much value they provide for free. I use it with Cursor and create vm templates and clone them with a proxmox MCP server I've been adding features to and it's been incredibly satisfying to just prompt "create template from vm 552 and clone a full VM with it". https://github.com/agentify-sh/cursor-proxmox-mcp https://github.com/agentify-sh/cursor-proxmox-mcp

trallnag 1y ago
What do you use all these VMs for in your homelab? I've dabbled with Proxmox in the past but settled on plain Ubuntu for my home server that I now treat as a pet managed with Ansible.
- AgentMatrixAI 1y ago
  it gives me a direct bridge from cursor -> VM, for local dev & test out open source projects I like having a local server I can carry with me and control using just Cursor to manage it. So basically the freedom that comes with a homelab without using proxmox UI and ssh.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 1y ago
  Take your pick. Everyone wants different things. This site/repo is pretty great. https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts
- npteljes 1y ago
  I personally self-host a bunch of stuff for myself and my household. Nextcloud for my phone, mattermost for in-house communication, private wordpress as a multimedia diary, a bunch of experiments, wekan for organization, network storage, network printer. I found Turnkey Linux pretty nice. They provide ready to use Linux images for different services. Proxmox integrates with them, so for example to install Nextcloud, all I needed to do is to click around a bunch on the Proxmox interface, and I'm good to go. They have around 80-90 images to choose from.
- nickthegreek 1y ago
  immich, n8n, openwebui, metube, hoarder, gethomepage, freshrss, tailscale, reverse proxy, on and on it goes.
  - trallnag 1y ago
    I do that with containers running on a single-node Kubernetes cluster (k3s). Doing it via the Proxmox UI feels like I'm giving up "control". Maybe that's just because doing it with Kubernetes etc. is closer to how I'd do it at work.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  For me Proxmox is mainly a means to be able to have more than 1 pet (partially for simplicity's sake of not having to make everything play well together in the same install, partially because I have some things which require Windows and some things which require Ubuntu). I guess I do also sometimes use it for ephemeral things without having to worry about cleaning up after too. E.g. I can dork around with some project I saw on GitHub for an afternoon then hit "revert to snapshot" without having to worry about what that means for the permanent stuff running at the same time.
pphysch 1y ago
To be fair, Proxmox is essentially a UX wrapper around QEMU/KVM, which is free software and the true kernel of value. If you are going the MCP route I wonder if a direct QEMU or libvirt MCP server would be much more powerful and precise.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 1y ago
  Proxmox has a UI and a bunch of APIs so I don't need to rebuild them myself, and maintains everything quite well (all major upgrades I've done have been pretty seamless). Proxmox is definitely an easy path, and you still have root access for drawing outside the lines.
- tlamponi 1y ago
  While UI/UX is–as probably everywhere–a huge topic, we actually have spent most engineering power in the whole management stack. And of that managing QEMU/KVM–while surely significant–is by far not the biggest part of our also 100% free and open source code bases. I'd invite you to try our full feature set, from clustering, to SDN to integrated Ceph management, to containers, backups including third party and our own backup server, and many more, all accessible through a REST API with full permission management and modern access control. And we naturally try to contribute to every project we use however possible, be it in the form of patches, QA, detailed bug reports, ... and especially for QEMU et al. we're pretty content with our impact, at least compared to resources of other companies leveraging it, I think. If all it'd take is being "just" a simple UI wrapper, it would make lots of things way easier for us :-)
  - pphysch 1y ago
    > I'd invite you to try our full feature set, from clustering, to SDN to integrated Ceph management, to containers, backups including third party and our own backup server, and many more, all accessible through a REST API with full permission management and modern access control. This would be appealing in a world where Kubernetes doesn't exist as a mature option. Don't the vast majority of Proxmox users use it for small VM labs, without all the bells and whistles?
kilroy123 1y ago
Yes, same here. Big shout-out to https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE as well.
MomsAVoxell 1y ago
I use it for DevOps at work and it’s just wonderful. The data center features alone are worth the license fees .. but what I like most of all is how easy it makes managing ZFS pools.

trallnag 1y ago

What do you use all these VMs for in your homelab? I've dabbled with Proxmox in the past but settled on plain Ubuntu for my home server that I now treat as a pet managed with Ansible.

AgentMatrixAI 1y ago
it gives me a direct bridge from cursor -> VM, for local dev & test out open source projects I like having a local server I can carry with me and control using just Cursor to manage it. So basically the freedom that comes with a homelab without using proxmox UI and ssh.
SparkyMcUnicorn 1y ago
Take your pick. Everyone wants different things. This site/repo is pretty great. https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts
npteljes 1y ago
I personally self-host a bunch of stuff for myself and my household. Nextcloud for my phone, mattermost for in-house communication, private wordpress as a multimedia diary, a bunch of experiments, wekan for organization, network storage, network printer. I found Turnkey Linux pretty nice. They provide ready to use Linux images for different services. Proxmox integrates with them, so for example to install Nextcloud, all I needed to do is to click around a bunch on the Proxmox interface, and I'm good to go. They have around 80-90 images to choose from.
nickthegreek 1y ago
immich, n8n, openwebui, metube, hoarder, gethomepage, freshrss, tailscale, reverse proxy, on and on it goes.
- trallnag 1y ago
  I do that with containers running on a single-node Kubernetes cluster (k3s). Doing it via the Proxmox UI feels like I'm giving up "control". Maybe that's just because doing it with Kubernetes etc. is closer to how I'd do it at work.
zamadatix 1y ago
For me Proxmox is mainly a means to be able to have more than 1 pet (partially for simplicity's sake of not having to make everything play well together in the same install, partially because I have some things which require Windows and some things which require Ubuntu). I guess I do also sometimes use it for ephemeral things without having to worry about cleaning up after too. E.g. I can dork around with some project I saw on GitHub for an afternoon then hit "revert to snapshot" without having to worry about what that means for the permanent stuff running at the same time.

pphysch 1y ago

To be fair, Proxmox is essentially a UX wrapper around QEMU/KVM, which is free software and the true kernel of value. If you are going the MCP route I wonder if a direct QEMU or libvirt MCP server would be much more powerful and precise.

SparkyMcUnicorn 1y ago
Proxmox has a UI and a bunch of APIs so I don't need to rebuild them myself, and maintains everything quite well (all major upgrades I've done have been pretty seamless). Proxmox is definitely an easy path, and you still have root access for drawing outside the lines.
tlamponi 1y ago
While UI/UX is–as probably everywhere–a huge topic, we actually have spent most engineering power in the whole management stack. And of that managing QEMU/KVM–while surely significant–is by far not the biggest part of our also 100% free and open source code bases. I'd invite you to try our full feature set, from clustering, to SDN to integrated Ceph management, to containers, backups including third party and our own backup server, and many more, all accessible through a REST API with full permission management and modern access control. And we naturally try to contribute to every project we use however possible, be it in the form of patches, QA, detailed bug reports, ... and especially for QEMU et al. we're pretty content with our impact, at least compared to resources of other companies leveraging it, I think. If all it'd take is being "just" a simple UI wrapper, it would make lots of things way easier for us :-)
- pphysch 1y ago
  > I'd invite you to try our full feature set, from clustering, to SDN to integrated Ceph management, to containers, backups including third party and our own backup server, and many more, all accessible through a REST API with full permission management and modern access control. This would be appealing in a world where Kubernetes doesn't exist as a mature option. Don't the vast majority of Proxmox users use it for small VM labs, without all the bells and whistles?

kilroy123 1y ago

Yes, same here. Big shout-out to https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE as well.

MomsAVoxell 1y ago

I use it for DevOps at work and it’s just wonderful. The data center features alone are worth the license fees .. but what I like most of all is how easy it makes managing ZFS pools.