Top 3 Tools for Proxmox VE Reporting and Monitoring

Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) is one of the most popular alternatives to VMware. Many SMBs had already migrated their workloads because VMware/Broadcom licensing policies has changed and become too expensive. Proxmox VE stands out for its open-source approach and flexibility in managing KVM-based VMs and LXC containers. Also for the cost, you only pay for support and access to the stable Proxmox repos. If you are running without support (which I would not recommend), you still get access to the updates, but support via forums works only to some extent, right?

Ok, let’s get to the target of our article which is Reporting and monitoring tools for Proxmox VE. While the built-in web interface provides solid day-to-day management, admins often need more specialized tools for reporting and monitoring.

Such a tools can help track resource usage, generate summaries for stakeholders, and set up alerts for potential issues. Based on recent community discussions and tools I’ve evaluated, here are three practical options worth considering (there is probably more, I’m sure). They focus on PDF reporting for one and real-time dashboards for the others, keeping things straightforward without overcomplicating your setup.

For each tool, I’ve added a simple step-by-step installation guide based on official documentation. These assume a basic Linux environment and knowledge. You can adjust as needed for your setup. I’ve also included links to source repositories where you can further explore the details.

ProxmoxReportGenerator – A Simple PDF Overviews

For those occasions when you need a quick, printable summary of your Proxmox cluster – think quarterly reviews or handovers – ProxmoxReportGenerator is perhaps perfect tool to consider.

This Python-based script pulls data via the Proxmox API and compiles it into a clean PDF document. It’s not a full monitoring suite, but it excels at snapshot reporting.

The tool covers the essentials:

• Cluster status
• Node details like CPU and memory usage
• VM and LXC lists with utilization stats
• Storage breakdowns, and network configurations.

If you enable SSH access, it even grabs accurate NIC speeds from the nodes. Pages include tables for VMs showing uptime, IP addresses, and resource allocation, plus charts for disk usage. It’s lightweight, runs in seconds, and doesn’t require a persistent service.

Drawbacks? It’s command-line only, so no web UI, and it’s best for one-off reports rather than ongoing surveillance. If your workflow involves sharing cluster health with non-technical teams, this tool saves time over manual screenshots from the Proxmox GUI.

Step-by-Step Installation

1. Ensure Python 3.8 or later is installed on your system.

2. Install the required packages via pip:

pip install requests urllib3 fpdf2 paramiko

3. Download the script from the GitHub repository:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AungThuMyint/ProxmoxReportGenerator/main/ProxmoxReportGenerator.py

4. Run the script with your Proxmox details, e.g.:

python ProxmoxReportGenerator.py --host your-pve-host --username root@pam --password your-password --logo /path/to/logo.png

This generates a PDF named ProxmoxReport.pdf by default.

The sample screenshots look like this:

 

Example of report page 1 of 6, from the source page

Source: GitHub – ProxmoxReportGenerator.

Prometheus and Grafana: Metrics with Alerts

Prometheus and Grafana combination are great duo is often used in the community for scraping metrics from Proxmox nodes and visualizing them in customizable dashboards. Proxmox has native support for exporting data to external metric servers like Prometheus, making integration seamless.

Prometheus collects time-series data on everything from host CPU load to VM network traffic, while Grafana turns that into interactive graphs – dashboards.

Community dashboards, like the Proxmox VE Cluster Flux one available on Grafana’s site, provide out-of-the-box views for cluster-wide overviews, per-node breakdowns, and even ZFS storage health.

From the tests on a three-node setup, it handles real-time monitoring well, with low overhead. You can drill down into specifics, like LXC container I/O rates, which the built-in Proxmox graphs sometimes gloss over. The main caveat is the learning curve if you’re new to YAML configs or Docker deployments. But you can perhaps go through some AI online tools help to adjust your YAML config, right? If you think that your small environment needs more than the Proxmox default dashboards, this might be probably the way to explore.

Step-by-Step Installation

This guide uses Docker for simplicity on a Proxmox LXC or host. First, create an LXC container (e.g., Ubuntu 22.04) for Prometheus if desired.

1. Install Docker on your container/host:

apt update && apt install docker.io docker-compose -y

2. Create a directory for configs and download a sample docker-compose.yml (adapt from sources below):

mkdir prometheus-grafana && cd prometheus-grafana

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prometheus-pve/prometheus-pve-exporter/main/examples/docker-compose.yml

Edit prometheus.yml to add Proxmox scrape job:

- job_name: 'pve'

 static_configs:

 - targets: ['your-pve-host:8006']

 metrics_path: /metrics

3. Pull and run the services:

docker-compose up -d

4. Access Prometheus at http://your-ip:9090 and Grafana at http://your-ip:3000 (default login: admin/admin). Import a Proxmox dashboard from Grafana Labs.

For detailed guides with screenshots (e.g., dashboard setups and config edits), see: Setting up Prometheus and Grafana on Proxmox LXCs or Installing Grafana & Prometheus for Proxmox Monitoring.

 

Example of Grafana from the sources

Pulse: Automated Discovery and Guest Tracking

For a more hands-off approach to monitoring multiple Proxmox nodes, Pulse stands up. This open-source app deploys as an LXC container and automatically scans your network for Proxmox hosts, pairing them via API for real-time stats. It’s designed for admins juggling VMs and LXCs across clusters, pulling metrics on CPU, RAM, disk, and network without manual polling.

What sets Pulse apart is its focus on guest management: it lists all VMs and containers with hyperlinks to their Proxmox console, plus an alert system for downtime or high load. In a recent deployment on a home lab setup, it detected two nodes instantly and provided a clean, responsive UI with heatmaps for resource spikes. It’s not as feature-deep as Grafana for custom queries, but the auto-discovery and guest-specific views make it easier for quick checks. Resource-wise, it’s efficient, running fine on modest hardware. If your Proxmox environment spans sites or you want something beyond the basics without a full stack, Pulse delivers without the bloat.

Step-by-Step Installation

Pulse works best as an LXC on Proxmox. The installer handles creation.

1. SSH into your Proxmox host.

2. Run the official installer:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rcourtman/Pulse/main/install.sh | bash

Choose “Quick” mode for defaults or “Advanced” for custom ports/auth.

3. The script creates an LXC container (e.g., ID 999) and starts Pulse. Note the access URL (default: http://your-ip:7655).

4. In the web UI, set up an admin user, generate an API token, and add your Proxmox nodes (it auto-discovers most).

Check out the source GitHub repo: GitHub – rcourtman/Pulse. Additional visuals in guides like This is hands-down the best monitoring utility for Proxmox.

 

Screenshot from the source

Wrap Up

Proxmox community is very active in developing cool monitoring and reporting tools. In this article I just scratched the surface on the real possibilities and gave you some ideas what exists and what is possible to achieve, with short step-by-step.

Many VMware admins are in a situation where they actively look for alternatives for VMware expensive VCF bundles while they need just bare minimum – run their workloads (VMs and containers) within a robust environment with support. Within Proxmox VE, they can do so, for a fraction of the cost they are paying for VMware VCF. Attention, I’m not saying that VMware VCF is bad, but imho there are many products inside those bundles, that admins do not use for what they must do within their company.

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