Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 released - a real vCenter Server Alternative?

Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 has just been released. The product was officially released in stable version 1.0 on December 4, 2025, following an alpha release in December 2024 and a beta phase in September 2025. I have blogged about the 0.9 release not long ago at StarWind.com blog and I really liked it. Now, with the 1.0 I'll have a second look. It is certainly a missing piece for VMware administrators seeking an alternative for mid/large virtualization environments. With Veeam's support for Proxmox the move to Proxmox based environments seems easier as Proxmox is now supported Hypervisor solution in Veeam Backup and Replication.

Proxmox Datancenter Manager – The features

The platform provides a unified, real-time dashboard that aggregates health status, CPU, RAM, and storage I/O metrics across all connected environments, enabling administrators to monitor infrastructure performance and identify bottlenecks. It supports dynamic, role-based custom views, allowing teams to access tailored overviews without direct access to underlying hosts or virtual machines, enhancing security and operational efficiency.

Key features include cross-cluster live migration of virtual machines and containers, which enables responsive load balancing and maintenance without downtime.

It also offers centralized management of virtual infrastructure, including starting, stopping, and configuring VMs and containers, along with a powerful search function inspired by query languages like Elasticsearch and GitHub for rapid resource discovery.

PDM integrates with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to manage EVPN zones and VNets across multiple remotes from a single interface, simplifying complex network overlays.

It includes a central Update Management Panel for monitoring and deploying updates across the entire Proxmox VE and Proxmox Backup Server infrastructure, improving security and compliance.
The platform supports authentication via LDAP, Active Directory, and OpenID Connect, and provides unified SSH access to all managed remotes.

My quick test install

I quickly spun the solution and as you can see, it takes the same branding as Proxmox VE. BTW, it is officially supported solution by Proxmox, not some github personal repo….

It's a Debian ISO bundled with the solution so if you have a Debian Linux running somewhere, you can install it on the top too. But I just downloaded the ISO and installed it as is. It took less than 5 min.

The power of community and languages! I like it! See the screenshot below…

Add new node – they call it Remote

Simple stuff here. Like in vCenter – Add new host… In Proxmox language, host means remote. So adding remote you adding a new host to your environment. Really simple stuff here.

I had my 3 hosts added it straight away…. They're “empty” – no vms running -:) as I'm nesting it within my virtual lab.

Note: I have created my DNS entries on my domain controller (DNS server) before I started the test. So I had 1 dns entry for Proxmox datacenter manager and 3 entries for my 3 Proxmox hosts.

The UI is super fast tbh…

Built on Debian 13.2 “Trixie” with a Linux kernel 6.17 and ZFS 2.3, PDM is fully developed in the Rust programming language, featuring a modern, high-performance frontend built with the new Rust/Yew Proxmox UI framework.

It is licensed under the GNU AGPLv3 and is available as a downloadable ISO image for bare-metal installation, with seamless upgrades possible via APT from older versions.

Enterprise users with active support subscriptions for their Proxmox remotes gain access to PDM updates and technical support, and the solution is designed to scale from local installations to globally distributed data centers.

I'm quite impressed, yes. The UI is super clean, snappy.

For VMware admins, CEOs, business owners, is this looks like a real VMware alternative?

I think yes. Many VMware users at Reddit shows their “Good by” to VMware and they have their valid reason – price!

quote:

VMWare doubled (maybe a little more) than last years, and last years was doubled from our previous year. Ended up migrating 300+ VMs in roughly 3 weeks (a long 3 weeks). Had to setup a small Hyper-V cluster for a handful of appliances that where not supported on KVM. So far no major show stoppers on Proxmox (miss DRS though). Not going to miss our VMWare renewals though.

So yes, some features are still missing, like DRS. True, DRS makes life easier. But hey, it might be comming in the future.

Other alternatives, such as XCP-NG and Xen Orchestra (vCenter equivalent) does not have DRS either. XCP-ng, when managed through Xen Orchestra (XO), does not include a built-in Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) equivalent to VMware's DRS.

While XCP-ng supports live migration, high availability (HA), and cluster management through pools, the automated workload balancing feature found in VMware vSphere is not natively available in XO.

Some users have noted that features like load balancing (DRS) are not configured at the pool level in XO, requiring users to test and configure such functionality rigorously if needed. Although XCP-ng offers strong capabilities in areas like live migration and centralized management, the absence of DRS is a notable difference compared to VMware's vSphere ecosystem.

Screenshot from Proxmox website

Final Words

The VMware Brexit is happenning. It is not a single week, single month event. It's happening progressively. Compagnies do not want to spend tripple, quadruple or more amount of money what they've been paying in the past. However, the deadline for vSphere 8 is aproaching. Slowly, but surely….

The End of General Support for VMware vSphere 8.0 is scheduled for October 11, 2027. Then you would need to have Active SnS on it to keep applying updates/patches after that date. While users can continue running the software after the End of General Support date, doing so poses significant risks, including the absence of security patches, support services, and potential compliance violations. It is recommended to plan for an upgrade to vSphere 9 or a migration to an alternative platform before the October 2027 deadline.

If you're in this situation, and willing to stay with unsupported platform, you risk to put your company in danger, and if you're paying a cyber insurance, they most likely won't aprove it.

The alternative platforms they'll grow up. They are already capable. They are getting integrated into the backup products or they are bringing their own backup products too (the case of Proxmox AND XCP-NG!) so if you're really tight on the budget, you can use those bundled with those virtual alternatives.

Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 released – a real vCenter Server Alternative?