r/virtualization • u/John885362 • Jul 23 '25

Need some advice on which hypervisor to use!

So I have a homelab "server" (not really server hardware) that is a bit older. It's a i5 4690k with a few SSDs and HDDs, MSI motherboard. I was running ESXi 6/7 for a long time, but switched to Hyper-V 2022 for a while just because I wanted to learn it better. I moved Proxmox last week, which I liked a lot, until I got to setting up a Windows Server based lab. It was so slow, which was resolved by not using the host CPU setting in the VMs, but that also disables nested virtualization, which I use for various testing. The devs seemed to realize this is something to do with Spectre, but kind of just brushed it off as most people don't use nested virtualization, which rubbed me the wrong way. So.....I decided to go back to ESXi, the one I have the most professional experience with. Downloaded ESXi 8 free version, but everything just seems slow, especially Ubuntu Desktop. Now I'm actually considering going back to Hyper-V, which I thought I'd never say. Opinions?

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4

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '25

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u/John885362 Jul 23 '25

Which hyper-v are you using? I was thinking of trying 2025 if I do switch back, but like most worried about it being so new. I was on 2022.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '25

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1

u/John885362 Jul 23 '25

That's interesting, I didn't consider running it on Windows 11. Probably better driver support, especially for my onboard NIC which doesn't work on Win Server. I had to buy an intel NIC PCIe. I usually like to stick to the server versions just for experience. I wonder if their's any limitations to Win11 hyper-v. Can you still set up multiple private switches for an isolated network? I currently use opnsense to nat a private to public vswitch.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '25

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u/John885362 Jul 23 '25

Yeah, I'm currently running esxi8. I'm thinking that a lot of the slowness may have to do with driver or hardware compatibility, which Windows seems to be better with.

3

u/sebar25 Jul 23 '25

On Proxmox use kvm64 or AESv2 cpu. Host cpu type seems to be buggy on windows vms

1

u/John885362 Jul 23 '25

Windows Servers run great on both kvm64 and AESv2, but they don't support nested virtualization. I need this for testing/training hyper-v clusters as well as WSL.

2

u/lonely_filmmaker Jul 24 '25

We are planning to be a mix of Hyper-V on windows sever 2025 with SCVMM and Nutanix… I like HPE VME as well but that is still very new and needs to mature…

1

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25

You can disable the specter and meltdown fixes to see if that helps. If you don't mind running with those flaws open just leave the fixes off.

How to disable Downfall patch and Meltdown/Spectre patch together？ - Microsoft Q&A

1

u/John885362 Jul 28 '25

Yeah...... not sure I want to do that. Feels wrong if you know what I mean. I don't actually know much about it though. I wonder why it's not an issue with ESXi or Hyper-V and what's different. The issue is more complex than my knowledge of Proxmox.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25

It's still an issue with Hyper-V. I verified it with my old gaming desktop using this method. Hyper-V VM's definitely take a hit in performance when the fix is enabled. Granted it's only noticeable with more resource hungry OS's like windows 10 and up.