What Are the Best Proxmox Backup Solutions in 2026?

Proxmox can run a homelab, a company's internal systems, or workloads an MSP manages for several customers. The platform stays the same, but the backup requirements don't. This drastic difference in scale often leads administrators to ask: what are the best proxmox backup solutions for their specific environment? In a homelab, a backup might save you from rebuilding a home automation VM after a failed update. An IT team may need to restore a file server to a replacement host before staff can work again. Meanwhile, an MSP has to handle those recoveries across customer sites while tracking failed jobs and keeping each client’s data separate.

This roundup sorts the options into three categories: best overall, free and open-source tools, and commercial platforms. We’ve included the limits for each solution, since a free license is only useful if it covers the machines and data you need to protect.

Key Takeaways

• You don’t need PBS to back up Proxmox. Proxmox VE’s built-in vzdump schedules full backups to file storage. PBS adds incremental transfers, deduplication, and integrity checks on top.
• Check container coverage first. MSP360, PBS, vzdump, and Comet back up LXC containers. Veeam, NAKIVO, Vinchin, and BDRShield protect Proxmox VMs only.
• Cloud backup works differently from product to product. PBS reaches S3-compatible storage through a running PBS server with a local cache. MSP360 writes backups directly to cloud or local storage, with no PBS server involved.
• “Free” isn’t one thing. MSP360 Community Edition, Vinchin, and BDRShield have permanent free editions with workload limits. NAKIVO and Comet offer time-limited trials. Veeam Community Edition can’t be used to back up customers’ data.
• Test a restore before you commit. Back up a representative workload and run the recoveries you’d actually need: a file, a full VM, and a restore to new hardware.

What Is Proxmox Backup Server?

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is Proxmox’s own open-source software for backing up virtual machines and Linux containers. It works alongside Proxmox VE, using incremental backups and deduplication to reduce the data transferred and stored. Encryption and backup integrity checks are also included.

You can back up Proxmox workloads without installing PBS, too. The built-in vzdump tool saves full backup archives to file storage, and it can use PBS as a backup destination. You would add PBS when you need its storage and management features; it isn’t required for basic backup.

PBS itself is free. Proxmox offers paid subscriptions for technical support and access to the enterprise repository, with the same software available for homelabs and production use. The other vendors in this roundup protect Proxmox workloads through their own backup software and supported storage destinations.

What Are the Criteria for Selecting Proxmox Backup Solutions?

Start with a list of your VMs and containers, where their backups will go, and what you would need to restore after a failure.

Workload coverage

Check which parts of your Proxmox environment the product covers. VM support doesn’t necessarily include LXC containers, and applications, additional disks, or mounted data may need separate attention.

Recovery options

A deleted document and a failed Proxmox host call for different restores. Look for file recovery as well as full VM restore, and check whether you can recover to a different Proxmox host. 

Cross-Hypervisor Recovery

If you’re moving to Proxmox from VMware or Hyper-V, or want a second platform to fall back on, check which direction recovery works in. Some products restore Proxmox backups to other hypervisors. Others restore VMware or Hyper-V backups to Proxmox. Instant recovery often has its own list of targets, so confirm where the recovered VM will actually run.

Storage and offsite copies

Decide where backups will live and how a copy stays available if the original host or location fails. Then price it properly. Cloud storage, retrieval charges, and local capacity all belong in the calculation.

Backup efficiency

Longer retention means more backup data to store. Incremental backups limit how much you transfer after the first run; deduplication and compression help reduce the space those copies take up. Allow enough time for jobs to finish and enough capacity for the recovery points you plan to keep.

Security and administration

Check who can restore or delete backups, how you’ll hear about a failed job, and whether encryption and immutable storage are available. For MSPs, the console also needs to keep customer accounts separate while giving technicians a view of backup activity across them.

Licensing and support

Licenses may be priced or limited by workload, host, CPU socket, or data volume. Check support costs, too, when comparing paid licenses, permanent free editions, and time-limited trials. None of them helps if the license doesn't cover your intended use.

How Did We Select These Tools?

We checked each product against the vendor’s Proxmox pages, technical documentation, release notes, and blog articles. Only capabilities listed in those sources are included in the comparison. Where a feature belongs to a particular edition, we say so. Roadmap items don't count as current features.

We also went through Reddit discussions, Capterra, and TrustRadius to understand what administrators were struggling with. Questions about needing PBS, keeping an offsite copy, and recovering from a failed host helped shape the comparison and FAQ. Product claims, however, were checked against primary sources.

Best Proxmox Backup Solutions Overview

The table below compares container support, typical use cases, and free-edition or trial limits. All eight products can back up Proxmox VMs. A feature shown at product level may require a paid edition.

The free editions listed above have no time limit, but business and MSP use comes with conditions. MSP360 Community Edition covers one locally managed host. Proxmox’s tools are free for production, but support requires a subscription. Veeam Community Edition rules out backing up customer data. Vinchin's Free Edition is available to individual users and small or micro businesses, with a limit of three VMs.BDRShield’s Free Edition relies on community support only. Storage costs and usage restrictions apply separately.

A Closer Look at the Best Proxmox Backup Solutions

Best Overall: MSP360 Backup

MSP360 Backup for Proxmox is our best overall pick for its direct approach to storage. It backs up VMs and LXC containers at the hypervisor level and writes them straight to the storage you choose: local disks, a NAS, or Amazon S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, Azure, and Google Cloud Storage. There’s no PBS server in between. Full and incremental backups support compression and encryption, with Default Object Lock on compatible storage.

Recovery covers single files and folders, complete VMs and containers, and standalone virtual disks. Restores also work across platforms. VM backups created on VMware or Hyper-V can be restored to a Proxmox server, and so can image-based Windows backups. That gives you a migration path if you’re moving workloads onto Proxmox.

Community Edition is the free starting point, covering one host per installation, with up to two CPU sockets and up to 5 TB of backup data, with no expiry date. It’s built for IT specialists and small teams running a single host, such as a homelab or a small single-host deployment, who want backups on independent storage without deploying PBS. 

For MSPs, Managed Backup brings Proxmox protection into a multi-tenant web console, with Proxmox backup covered by a VM license. Technicians configure backup plans remotely, keep each customer’s environment separate, monitor job status across all of them, and get reports and alerts when a job fails.

There are requirements to plan for. MSP360 runs on a supported Windows machine with network access to Proxmox. Storage isn’t included in the license, so your cloud provider bills it separately. Community Edition is managed locally, relies on community support, and doesn't cover VMware or Hyper-V backup. To manage multiple installations from one console, you’ll need Managed Backup.

Best Free and Open-Source Options

Proxmox Backup Server

PBS lets you schedule VM and LXC backups in the Proxmox VE interface. After the first backup, incremental transfers send changed data, while deduplication and compression save space. You can restore an entire workload or just a file, schedule integrity checks, and synchronize copies to another PBS server. PBS can also store backups on S3-compatible object storage, but the data still goes through the PBS server. An S3 datastore needs that server running, plus a persistent local cache. Proxmox’s storage documentation recommends 64–128 GiB for that cache. Organizations running PBS in production also have an established support route through optional subscriptions.

PBS leaves server maintenance, storage, and permissions in your hands, so plan how you’ll reach the backups if the production host fails. Its S3-compatible backend still needs a persistent local cache and doesn’t currently support native S3 Object Lock. That matters if Object Lock is a requirement for your backup storage.

Proxmox VE Built-In Backup / vzdump

For a basic setup, you can schedule VM and container backups from the Proxmox VE interface you already use. Choose local or supported network storage, set compression, and decide how many backups to retain. There's no separate backup server to deploy. That makes this a straightforward choice while data volumes and recovery requirements stay manageable.

The catch is the archive format. Backups to ordinary file storage are full archives, so keeping multiple recovery points consumes substantial capacity. Offsite copies and broader management need their own arrangements. Containers need a closer look too, because native container backups exclude bind-mount and device-mount contents. You can point the built-in workflow at PBS instead, but the storage and transfer behavior changes with it.

Commercial Proxmox Backup Platforms

Veeam Backup & Replication

Veeam Backup & Replication adds Proxmox VMs to the workloads you can protect through an existing Veeam setup. Along with backup and replication, it supports application-aware processing and lets you restore a whole VM, a file, or an application item. Supported immutable repositories add storage protection, and cross-platform recovery can help during a virtualization migration. Community Edition counts Proxmox within its ten-workload allowance.

Native LXC protection isn't supported. The deployment also involves more components: a backup server plus Linux-based Proxmox workers. Free backup requires the Windows backup-server deployment, because under Community Edition the Linux appliance is recovery-only. Community Edition is for your own environment. MSPs therefore need a different license for customer backups, since the free edition prohibits providing services to third parties or processing their data.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication

With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, Proxmox VMs become part of the same backup setup as your other supported workloads. You can run incremental backups, replicate VMs, and choose from full VM restore, granular recovery, and Flash VM Boot. Backups can be stored locally, on network storage, or with supported cloud providers, and administrators can configure backup verification.

You don’t need a backup agent in each VM. A Transporter still runs on each Proxmox host, and application-aware processing has guest prerequisites. Its Proxmox coverage is limited to VMs. The Proxmox features are available to try for free for 15 days.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery

Vinchin Backup & Recovery starts with a free option for up to three Proxmox VMs. You can use it for basic backups and whole-VM restores without a time limit. The software also supports incremental backups, deduplication, and compression to keep storage requirements down. Paid editions offer file-level and instant recovery, while migration between supported hypervisors is available in higher tiers.

The edition boundaries deserve attention. File-level recovery, instant recovery, cloud backup, and encryption are in the paid editions. Migration and other capabilities require a higher tier still. For Proxmox, Vinchin backs up VMs only and requires a plugin on the compute nodes for LAN backups.

BDRShield

BDRShield, formerly BDRSuite, backs up Proxmox VMs and clusters without installing agents in the guests. Backups can be incremental and stored locally or with a supported cloud provider. When you need to restore something, you can bring back the whole VM, recover a file, or download a disk. Its Free Edition has no expiry date and allows ten VMs in total across Proxmox and the other supported hypervisors. That gives smaller VM environments room to evaluate before choosing a paid edition.

Proxmox containers, though, are explicitly unsupported. Instant Boot needs a closer read as well. The recovery documentation names VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM, and the options vary by deployment. You’ll need to check where the VM would actually start, especially if you expect to recover straight to Proxmox. Free-edition support is community-based.

Comet Backup

With Comet Backup, you can protect both Proxmox VMs and LXC containers. The native integration supports file recovery, disk-image export, and VM restores to Proxmox, VMware, or Hyper-V. MSPs can use cloud-hosted management or run the management server themselves.

That flexibility comes with components. A Comet backup client needs network access to the Proxmox environment, which is one more thing to provision and maintain. Pricing likewise has to include management and storage, not just the workload rate. Comet offers a 30-day free trial, with no permanent free edition. Check version compatibility and the required recovery configuration before you deploy.

Proxmox Backup Solutions FAQ

Do I Need Proxmox Backup Server if Proxmox VE Already Includes Backups?

No. You can set a backup schedule in Proxmox VE and save the backups to supported file storage. PBS adds a dedicated backup server with incremental transfers, deduplication, and integrity checks. You can also use third-party software if it offers the storage and recovery options you need.

Are Proxmox Snapshots the Same as Backups?

No. A local VM snapshot records a VM’s state so you can roll back a change, but it remains tied to the storage that holds the VM. A storage failure can take both with it. Proxmox’s snapshot backup mode is different: it backs up a running VM. The resulting backup can be kept on separate storage, giving you a recovery copy even if the VM’s storage fails.

Can I Run Proxmox Backup Server on the Same Machine as Proxmox VE?

Yes. PBS can run in a VM alongside the workloads it backs up. If that physical host fails, the backup-server VM goes down with it. Backups on separate storage may survive, but you’ll need to restore access to them before you can recover your workloads. Proxmox recommends dedicated hardware to keep the backup server available independently of the production host.

Can I Back Up Proxmox to the Cloud or Another Location?

Yes. An offsite copy can go to cloud object storage or to a second server at another site. With PBS, you can synchronize copies to a second PBS server or use S3-compatible storage. Third-party tools can write to the cloud directly. For example, MSP360 can back up Proxmox to supported cloud storage without a PBS server. For any offsite copy, work out what a restore would involve: the volume of data to download, the time your connection would need, and any retrieval charges.

Do VM Backups Also Protect the Proxmox Host Itself?

No. A VM backup protects the guest workload and its configuration. It leaves out the host’s operating system and the settings for its network and storage. Protect the host configuration separately, and document how to rebuild the host or recover its guests on another one. PBS's backup client can also protect host files on their own.

Can I Back Up Proxmox VMs Without Shutting Them Down?

Yes. Snapshot mode lets Proxmox back up a VM while it keeps running. You still need to make sure the databases and applications inside it are captured consistently, even when the backup job reports success. Depending on the workload, this may require guest-agent integration, Windows VSS, or the application’s own backup procedures.

Which Proxmox Backup Solution Should You Choose?

To choose the best Proxmox backup solution, start with the workloads you need to protect, then compare recovery options, storage destinations, and license limits. Before committing, back up a representative workload and test the restores you would actually need, including recovery to another host.

MSP360 brings local and cloud storage choices, VM and container protection, and multiple recovery options into one product family, with free, standalone, and managed offerings. Explore MSP360 Backup for Proxmox to compare editions or get started with Community Edition.