Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) vs. Red Hat Virtualization

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

Red Hat Virtualization

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
KVM	Score 2.1 out of 10	N/A	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.	N/A
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV)	Score 6.1 out of 10	N/A	Red Hat Virtualization (formerly Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, broadly known as RHEV) is an enterprise level server and desktop virtualization solution. Red Hat Virtualization also contains the functionality of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktop in later editions of the platform.	$999 Per Year Per Hypervisor

Pricing

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

Red Hat Virtualization

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

Standard: $999.00
Per Year Per Hypervisor
Premium: $1,499.00
Per Year Per Hypervisor

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
KVM	Red Hat Virtualization (RHV)
Free Trial
No	No
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

—

More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	Red Hat Virtualization
Considered Both Products	KVM Verified User Anonymous Chose KVM Kernel-based Virtual Machine is an open-source and free solution, compared to Virtualbox which is a product from Oracle. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose KVM The key points why I made my decision for KVM in comparison with VMWare are: Freeware software (I am using an Ubuntu server OS), Fewer resources usage, vSwitch using that provides the ability to configure dot1q trunks to/between VMs, Stability, and simplicity of … Incentivized Helpful? RM Robert Munteanu Software Engineer Chose KVM Compared to VirtualBox, KVM has simpler licensing terms and is supported by the operating system vendor. KVM also has more mature integrations with other open-source projects. Automating provisioning is simple with KVM since it is available in the package repositories of … Incentivized Helpful? Valentin Höbel Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure Chose KVM KVM is free and provides environments where guests can run their own Kernel while still performing very well. It is also very native to work with KVM since it is integrated within the Linux Kernel. Incentivized Helpful? Stenio Pereira Filho IT Group manager Chose KVM It is a very reliable solution that can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with low overhead. It is a free and open source software. Easy to use withOpenStack. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose KVM We've found KVM to be less problematic, both from a stabilty standpoint, but also in a flexibility and licensing standpoint. We love being able to deploy the hardware we want, as we want it, without needing the blessing of a specific vendor. Incentivized Helpful?	Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) NS Naveen Sharma Consultant Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) Red Hat Virtualization is the best enterprise-level virtualization software for an organization that needs cost-effective and flexible solutions for its environment. We can easily integrate RHEV with other Red Hat software like OpenStack...etc. RHEV is highly customizable … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) RHV has the following advantages: They have relatively cheaper subscriptions compared to others. With the future going to Openstack and containerization migrating to KVM-based virtualization will be easier to migrate to future products. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) Compared to oVirt, RHEV is more stable but has fewer capabilities. ESX is far more difficult to automate. Incentivized Helpful? Emile Swarts Developer Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) Red Hat Enterprise is more expensive but better supported when it comes to support. Amazon WorkSpaces had more online documentation and resources to scan through. Incentivized Helpful? Matthew J. Fitzpatrick President/CEO Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) RHEV is an excellent product, includes more features, is less expensive, and has rock solid reliability and is backed with the best Red Hat Support in the industry. RHEV uses KVM under the hood which is used by all the big players in the industry (AWS, Rackspace, etc) to lower … Incentivized Helpful? Valentin Höbel Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) RHEV offers a decent GUI and many management features, such as an API. Incentivized Helpful? IN Ian Neveu Cloud Services Engineer Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) We use them both, as one is not better than the other at all facets required. There is still a need to use both products, as we have not fully switched to RHEV due to Vsphere still having an edge over them with edits available to the systems while they are operational or they … Incentivized Helpful? Charles Inglese Senior System Engineer Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) VMware ESXi is a more mature technology, as it has been around for a longer period of time. However, automating ESXi installations requires hacking OEM media and an intense amount of knowledge of how ESXi operates under the hood. The WebUI and associated functionality for ESXi … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) Pretty much Open Source sums it up. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) RHEV is more stable than ovirt but less capability. Much easier to automate than esx Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

Red Hat Virtualization

Server Virtualization

Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) 9.2 Ratings 12% above category average	Red Hat Virtualization 7.7 Ratings 6% below category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning	9.00 Ratings	7.90 Ratings
Management console	9.00 Ratings	7.30 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup	9.70 Ratings	7.20 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration	9.00 Ratings	6.90 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security	9.50 Ratings	8.90 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	Red Hat Virtualization
Small Businesses	DigitalOcean Droplets Score 8.7 out of 10	DigitalOcean Droplets Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	Red Hat Virtualization
Likelihood to Recommend	9.3 (0 ratings)	6.6 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	Red Hat Virtualization
Likelihood to Recommend	Kernel-based Virtual Machine is very well suited when one needs a single-node virtualization host or needs to build a complex demo setting on their own notebook (e.g. when demonstrating solutions to a customer). Incentivized Valentin Höbel Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure Read full review	Red Hat Virtualization is suitable for small implementation and hosting VMs. However, when you start asking for additional features or enhancements, the engineering team is not the flexible as other engineering teams in Red Hat. It is very likely they will not accept adding features or in the best case. They wouldn't commit to a plan when it is possible to be available. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Pros	Lightweight built-in implementation for all *nix based OS. Easy to deploy and manage VMs. Freeware (is you are using a free OS). Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	RHV issues/bugs can be reported via Bugzilla to RH support. The service is great and typically responds soon. Red Hat distribution integration is seamless as it is integrated into the kernel. OpenStack support enables more customized VM templates and network configuration control. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Cons	KVM itself doesn't ship with a management interface KVM itself is a bit complicated to handle KVM needs Qemu to virtualize Windows guests Incentivized Valentin Höbel Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure Read full review	Documentation of RHEV needs more improvement. RHEV GUI needs a lot of improvements in some versions of RHEV, GUI will not work properly (shows incorrect details of VM ). Need fast rollout of patch releases. Need good linux Knowledge to manage the RHEVM. Incentivized NS Naveen Sharma Consultant Read full review
Usability	It does the job and stays out of the way. The specifics of usability relies on the implementation, but with things like Icarus and libvirt, things are standardizing nicely. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered	The key points why I made my decision for KVM in comparison with VMWare are: Freeware software (I am using an Ubuntu server OS), Fewer resources usage, vSwitch using that provides the ability to configure dot1q trunks to/between VMs, Stability, and simplicity of using/troubleshooting, Well-known interface (for Linux geeks). Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Red Hat Virtualization is the best enterprise-level virtualization software for an organization that needs cost-effective and flexible solutions for its environment. We can easily integrate RHEV with other Red Hat software like OpenStack...etc. RHEV is highly customizable software, which helps us to customize our environment. Since RHEV is an open-source tool, we can install it on any hardware. There is no proprietary dependency. Incentivized NS Naveen Sharma Consultant Read full review
Return on Investment	Capital expenditure costs are low, because is open-source and free Operational expenditure costs are medium because it's necessary [to have] an IT team with experience in Linux First step to the virtualization world. Wake up, we are in the 21st century Incentivized Stenio Pereira Filho IT Group manager Read full review	It has had an extremely positive impact on my overall business and has allowed me to utilize and leverage it as an offering to my clients. It's an extremely solid, robust, and reliable product built off of KVM Virtualization technology. Less expensive solution than VMware and includes more features! Incentivized Matthew J. Fitzpatrick President/CEO Read full review
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