Enterprise backup solutions have long played a central role in protecting data within virtualized environments, offering reliable features and broad compatibility. But over time, many organizations have found themselves grappling with steadily rising licensing costs and increasingly complex environments.
As budgets tighten and infrastructure strategies evolve, IT teams are now actively exploring more flexible and cost-effective alternatives. This shift is prompting a closer look at modern, open-source platforms and streamlined backup solutions that offer greater control without the overhead.
One name that continues to rise to the top of these conversations is Proxmox VE.
Why Proxmox VE?
Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) is an open-source server virtualization platform that combines two powerful virtualization technologies—KVM for virtual machines and LXC for containers—under one intuitive management interface. It offers everything from live migration and high availability to integrated backup and restore tools.
What sets Proxmox apart is its simplicity, transparency, and control. Being open-source, there are no expensive licensing models to navigate. Instead, users get full access to the code, a strong user community, and a platform that scales effortlessly from small labs to enterprise environments. It's also incredibly lightweight, making it a practical choice for organizations looking to maximize performance without bloated system requirements.
But choosing Proxmox is only part of the equation— you still need a solid backup and recovery solution.
Backups That Just Work: NAKIVO for Proxmox
While Proxmox handles your virtualization layer, NAKIVO Backup & Replication ensures that your workloads are protected, recoverable, and resilient against threats like ransomware.
NAKIVO offers agentless, image-based backups that are purpose-built for Proxmox environments. Its fast backup performance, near-instant VM recovery, and advanced backup verification features make it a reliable choice for organizations prioritizing business continuity.
Key highlights of NAKIVO for Proxmox users include:
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Smooth agentless backups of Proxmox VMs
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Fast and reliable recovery of entire VMs, files, or app objects
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Immutable backup support for ransomware protection
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Support for backup to local, cloud, and tape targets
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Backup copy jobs to ensure offsite redundancy
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Scalability across diverse environments—from small IT setups to large enterprise deployments
The Cost Equation: VMware vs Proxmox
The financial argument for Proxmox has strengthened considerably since Broadcom's acquisition of VMware in late 2023. VMware's shift from perpetual licensing to subscription-only models, combined with the elimination of lower-tier product bundles, has pushed many mid-market organisations to re-evaluate their virtualisation costs. A typical VMware vSphere Standard licence for a two-socket host now costs significantly more per year under the new Broadcom pricing, and that figure does not include vCenter Server, vSAN, or NSX — each of which carries its own subscription fee.
Proxmox VE, by contrast, offers all of its core features — including clustering, live migration, high availability, and software-defined storage via Ceph or ZFS — without per-socket or per-VM licensing. Organisations that want commercial support can purchase a Proxmox subscription starting at EUR 110 per socket per year for the Community tier, or EUR 510 per socket for Premium support with direct access to the Proxmox engineering team. Even at the Premium tier, the cost is a fraction of an equivalent VMware deployment.
For Australian organisations running 10 to 50 hosts, the savings can be substantial enough to fund the migration project itself — including new hardware, consulting time, and NAKIVO backup licensing.
How NAKIVO Integrates with Proxmox
NAKIVO connects to Proxmox VE through the QEMU Machine Protocol (QMP) and the Proxmox REST API, enabling agentless backup without installing software inside each guest VM. When a backup job runs, NAKIVO triggers a QEMU snapshot, reads the changed blocks since the last backup using Proxmox's dirty bitmap tracking, and writes the incremental data to the configured backup repository. This process is efficient enough to run during business hours without noticeable impact on VM performance.
NAKIVO v11 introduced native Proxmox VE support, and subsequent releases have added features like instant VM recovery (booting a VM directly from the backup repository within seconds), granular file-level restore, and application-aware backup for Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server running inside Proxmox VMs. Backup data can be stored on local NAS devices, StoneFly immutable storage appliances, or cloud targets like Wasabi and Amazon S3.
Migration Path: Moving from VMware to Proxmox
For organisations currently running VMware, the migration to Proxmox typically follows a phased approach. Non-production workloads — development servers, test environments, and internal tools — move first, giving the IT team hands-on experience with the Proxmox management interface and cluster configuration. Production workloads follow once the team is confident in the platform's stability and backup coverage.
NAKIVO simplifies this transition by supporting both VMware and Proxmox environments simultaneously. During the migration period, a single NAKIVO instance can back up VMs on both hypervisors, providing consistent protection and reporting across the mixed environment. Once the VMware hosts are decommissioned, the NAKIVO configuration simply drops those sources without affecting the Proxmox backup jobs.
Delivered by Cloud Ready Solutions
Cloud Ready Solutions is the trusted distributor of NAKIVO in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, and is a leading provider of enterprise IT solutions for MSPs, resellers, and end customers.
By partnering with Cloud Ready Solutions, you gain access to expert guidance, localized support, and proven infrastructure solutions tailored to your needs.
Whether you’re deploying Proxmox in a new environment or replacing legacy infrastructure, Cloud Ready Solutions ensures you’re backed by technologies that are reliable, scalable, and cost-effective.
Together, Proxmox + NAKIVO deliver a powerful, resilient, and budget-friendly VM
infrastructure stack— without compromising on performance or protection.
💬 Thinking of making the move? Let’s chat.