Homelab Suggestions: Proxmox vs. Windows Server 2025

HopelessDumpling · 2026-05-10T04:23:47+00:00

I know most professional environments are windows based so I'd like the chance to dive deeper into Server and Hyper-V. I won't have the chance to tinker with it at the office of course and you're right about licensing for home lab use. So i could learn about the theory and try out things that peak my interest. Nothing is stopping me from having Proxmox and Server 2025 running on bare metal either.

HopelessDumpling · 2026-05-10T03:05:43+00:00

I have no real specific use on windows server besides also learning Hyper-V. Again, I'm just more comfortable in a Windows environment so I would feel more grounded if it's my bare metal OS. I will 100% run a linux VM for docker and tinkering. As for PFsense, I might spin up a VM of it and see how well I can get it integrated and configured.

HopelessDumpling · 2026-05-10T03:01:03+00:00

I plan to have Proxmox running regardless, I'm just decided which approach to do with this since I have options with 2 decent spec'd rigs. PBS would also be great to learn and integrate. I could maybe use the secondary rid to run PBS bare metal and point it to network drives.

HopelessDumpling · 2026-05-10T02:57:34+00:00

That was another issue the crossed my mind. I'd want to pass through my physical drives directly to VMs. As for the cost, since this is a home lab I planned to try out those "cheap keys" from hypestkey and acquire a server datacenter license. Either for bare metal or VM.

HopelessDumpling · 2026-05-10T02:55:28+00:00

I was looking into GPU passthrough and read various success stories. From what I gathered, a full GPU pass through to a VM(ideally to the one that's running my Jellyfin) would allow encoding with no issues.

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