deputyOS vs Proxmox VE
Proxmox is a mature virtualisation platform for running anything; deputyOS is a single-purpose appliance. Where each one is the right tool.
Last reviewed
Short answer: Proxmox is the better platform; deputyOS is the better appliance. If you already run Proxmox, run deputyOS as a guest on it — that is a supported target, not a workaround.
Where Proxmox VE is the better choice
- Genuine clustering, live migration and high availability
- Runs anything — any OS, any workload, not just AI
- ZFS, snapshots, replication and mature backup tooling
- GPU passthrough support that is well documented and widely used
- Enormous homelab community and years of production deployment
Where deputyOS is the better choice
- Nothing to build: the assistant is already installed and hardened
- Managed remote access per device without configuring networking
- Signed, attested images rather than a VM you assemble and maintain
- Cost tracking and audit evidence for the assistant workload itself
- Runs on a Pi or a $5 VPS, not just server-class hardware
Different layers, again
Proxmox VE is a hypervisor. deputyOS is a workload. The honest comparison is not “which should I run” but “do I want to operate a virtualisation platform”.
Proxmox is the default recommendation for serious homelabs for good reason: clustering, live migration, HA, ZFS, snapshots, GPU passthrough, and Terraform and Ansible integration. Nothing in deputyOS approaches that, and nothing is trying to.
The overlap
The two genuinely overlap on multi-machine management, and it is worth being precise. Proxmox manages hypervisors and VMs — it will tell you a guest is running and let you snapshot it. It will not tell you the assistant inside is healthy, which model it is calling, or what it spent yesterday.
deputyOS manages assistants. Its fleet view shows profile, version, heartbeat, tunnel status and per-device spend, and it can push allow-listed commands into the running assistant.
Those are complementary rather than competing. A common arrangement is Proxmox underneath with deputyOS guests on top.
When Proxmox alone is enough
If you are comfortable building a VM, hardening it, wiring up TLS and remote access, scripting encrypted backups and testing restores, then Proxmox plus a hand-built VM does everything deputyOS does, with more control. You are trading your time for flexibility, which is a perfectly reasonable trade.
Where it stops being reasonable is at scale. Ten hand-built VMs is ten configurations that have each drifted slightly.
Running deputyOS on Proxmox
proxmox is a supported target. The image ships as a template plus qcow2 wrapping
the qemu-x86_64 build, so it appears as a normal guest with KVM acceleration and
Proxmox snapshots and backups apply to it as they would to anything else.
You get Proxmox’s storage and virtualisation guarantees underneath, and deputyOS’s fleet management, signed updates and tunnel on top.