Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) vs. VMware vCenter

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

VMware vCenter

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
VMware vCenter	Score 8.7 out of 10	N/A	VMware vCenter is an advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling vSphere environments for visibility across hybrid clouds. VMware vCenter is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.	$6,044 per year

Pricing

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

VMware vCenter

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

Basic: 6,044
per year
Production: 6,244
per year

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
KVM	VMware vCenter
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)	VMware vCenter
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?	VMware vCenter Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter In my experience, Red Hat Virtualization was cumbersome. I think VMware vCenter is definitely a better product. Red Hat discontinued their Virtualization product but still offers other virtualization platforms that I haven't tested. In my opinion, Proxmox isn't as polished but … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter We initially used Citrix XenServer and made the switch to VMware vCenter due to it being less expensive at the time. That was some 15yrs ago and is no longer the case as Broadcom has changed the licensing scheme for their products which greatly increased the costs. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter Not really a competition. Proxmox and Hyper-V both lacks the manageability and easy to use access for multiple nodes and clusters. Also Hyper-V has the ability to use Multiple nodes but it does not compare to the level of VMware vCenter Server. All the integrations possible … Incentivized Helpful? Veli-Matti Mäkelä System Administrator Chose VMware vCenter VMware as a product was most advanced hypervisor when we made the decision for our datacenter. Over the years VMware vCenter has kept it's edge and we have seen no reason to change to any other product as we have gained experience over the years. We do still continue to … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter I was not involved in the evaluation, but my understanding from colleagues was that the years of experience in VMware vs. Hyper-V were very evident. VMware vCenter was simply a much more mature product. Incentivized Helpful? Manfred B. Zysk Network and Systems Administrator Chose VMware vCenter vCenter is much more complete as a solution than other products that I have looked at and it works very well for our environment. vCenter is very easy to configure and does not have the unnecessary steps to set up and configure. Also, the different storage vendor support … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter Citrix Xen Server.... Great Hypervisor but very limited in terms of functionality MS Hyper-V... [VMware vCenter Server] is better for almost everything and appliance form makes a clear winner for security and ease of deployment Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter VMware vCenter Server's biggest competitor is Microsoft's Hyper-V Server. We prefer VMware vCenter Server because the hypervisor is much less resource intensive. It also gives us a different environment so that a specific Microsoft bug wouldn't take down all of our VMs if the … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter [VMware vCenter Server] is the true leader in this space. The functionality and ability to offload tasks to other teams makes this a no brainer. The granularity in permission allows [VMware vCenter Server] to be secure and isolate teams to only the objects they are allowed to … Incentivized Helpful? AR Adam Radics Production Data Systems Superintendent Chose VMware vCenter There was not much competition, VMware has been in the market the longest and other systems are still catching up. VMware is proven, trusted, and has a good support base, the other main differentiator is VSAN for storage, reducing the need for physical SAN(s) which can become a … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter VMware runs in the cloud. I do not have the experience with cloud based VMware to comment. Incentivized Helpful? Adam Friedli Support Analyst Level 2 Chose VMware vCenter Hyper-V is not a bad product by any means, and it does have the benefit of not costing money for the software itself since it comes with the OS. That being said, it did start quite far behind VMware in features when it first came to market. Microsoft has been catching up, and … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter vCenter beats the daylights out of Microsoft Hyper-V. Actions that take multiple clicks with Microsoft can be achieved in a single click with vCenter. It’s less expensive and easier to deploy and maintain. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter VMware vCenter Server is a much more simplified, in my opinion, platform for managing a virtual infrastructure stack. There are a number of features that are available at the Enterprise and Enterprise+ tiers of service that other hypervisor environments do not excel at, or do … Incentivized Helpful? Rick Lupton Systems Programmer Analyst Chose VMware vCenter Citrix XenCenter used an isolated client that directly connects to the hosts instead of using a management agent. This causes a number of issues if the host is not optimally configured. Microsoft Hyper-V has been behind VMware in feature set for many years, but is starting to … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter We considered Microsoft Hyper-V very briefly. At the time we considered Hyper-V you still needed to purchase an extra management product to get features similar to vCenter; and even then, it didn't seem fully baked, yet. The situation may, and probably has changed, with later … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter We only selected vCenter as there wasn't really any alternatives. Incentivized Helpful? Jewemars Christian Riano System Administrator Chose VMware vCenter Based on the Gartner leader board, VMware is a pioneer in terms of virtualization, it is also API based which is easy to integrate on other systems via REST API's, the technology itself is powerful and it's corresponding other added value features that makes administering … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter VMware is much easier to use, much easier to configure, and does not rely on having another OS layer like windows to run off of. This was they key for us because whenever we had to update windows we would have to migrate everything off just to apply some simple updates. VCenter … Incentivized Helpful? Ben Liebowitz Server and Storage Engineer Chose VMware vCenter Our desktop team uses Citrix XenApp for remote connectivity of our employees. However, this environment runs on our VMware vSphere hosts which are managed by VMware vCenter Server. :) XenApp was never considered to replace VMware vCenter Server or our vSphere hosts. Incentivized Helpful? Muhammad Mulla Systems Administrator, Core Infrastructure & Microsoft Systems Chose VMware vCenter VMware vcenter server is way ahead of the competition in terms of features and thought that has gone into the product. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter Proxmox VE is also a very powerful tool and is free, but vCenter has really hit the nail on the head as far as simplicity and ease of use, as well as, reliability. Incentivized Helpful? Greg Goss SQL Database and Business Intelligence Manager Chose VMware vCenter When we were selecting a hypervisor a few years ago, VMware was the clear leader at the time. Now the gap has lessened but I still like the feature set and feel of VMware. VMware is also moving in a direction I generally like, so I don't have any reason to replace what we've … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose VMware vCenter There are similar products in the market, both commercial as well as open source. We only tried open source products such as Ovirt and ProxMox, however they did not possess the range of features of this product. In addition, the majority of such options do not provide an easy … Incentivized Helpful? Victor Arana IT Manager Chose VMware vCenter I've selected VMware vCenter Server among the other Virtual Server solutions because it reduces the amount of time and effort to run and set up maintenance tasks, create hosts and back them up. Replication is so easy when you have a second vCenter Server linked remotely that … Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

VMware vCenter

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	VMware vCenter - Ratings
Virtual machine automated provisioning	9.00 Ratings	00 Ratings
Management console	9.00 Ratings	00 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup	9.70 Ratings	00 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration	9.00 Ratings	00 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security	9.50 Ratings	00 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	VMware vCenter
Small Businesses	DigitalOcean Droplets Score 8.7 out of 10	NinjaOne Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10	NinjaOne Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10	No answers on this topic
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	VMware vCenter
Likelihood to Recommend	9.3 (0 ratings)	8.5 (0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Usability	- (0 ratings)	7.7 (0 ratings)
Support Rating	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	- (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	VMware vCenter
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	VMware vCenter Server is suited for pretty much any environment using virtual servers. It allows a centralized management view of the virtual servers and the physical servers that the virtual servers run on. There are so many things that VMware vCenter Server can do, including large Enterprise options that are cost-prohibitive for most organizations. 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	First and foremost, it provides a platform for us to virtualize our servers and it does it very well. Having the ability to spin up a new server from a template in a matter of seconds is amazing and saves precious time and resources. VMware vCenter Server also provides the ability to view performance & statistical data that assists my team in balancing our host environment. Leveraging the vMotion functionality, we can quickly move VMs from one host to another for maintenance purposes, etc... VMware vCenter Server also make it easy to add / modify hardware configurations within the VMs setup. Adding RAM, hard drive space, processor cores, etc...is as easy as it gets. VMware vCenter Server makes it easy to backup and restore a VM from the console. You can quickly create a backup of any VM and store it during upgrades, etc...for easy roll backs. Incentivized Joe Spradlin IT Manager 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	I still am not happy with the web interface. While convenient in that I can access vCenter from anywhere I have a browser connection, It feels slower than the thick client and if I'm doing anything that takes longer than a few minutes, I'll always opt for the thick client. Incentivized Greg Goss SQL Database and Business Intelligence Manager Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	No answers on this topic	We are very dependent on this software, it has become a much needed tool to perform the daily tasks that are required to maintain the virtual server environment. VMware has become very pricey over the years, so we are looking for alternatives for cost savings strategy, but nothing has been found to be on par to what we are currently using Incentivized Rick Lupton Systems Programmer Analyst 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	I work with vCenter for 10+ years and i love it. I can find my way around and can help building and expanding the platform. It is easy to use and there are a lot good communities for the extra support when needed. Even the Homelab community is of great value. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Support Rating	No answers on this topic	VMware support has always been fantastic and they have been invaluable in solving tougher issues that have been run into. Most of the time, any oddities encountered are fixed by available updates. This can be deduced by support quickly with logs within vCenter. We have not run into something yet that support was unable to help with. They either have a solution already, or they are able to find one quickly. Incentivized Adam Friedli Support Analyst Level 2 Read full review
Implementation Rating	No answers on this topic	Since moving away from the Windows Server hosting the vCenter application and instead using a virtual appliance, it has become much easier to implement and deploy the new versions. We can easily create a snapshot or clone of the vCenter vApp to ensure any problems encountered during the upgrade can be mitigated with a fall back to the old version to prevent unscheduled downtime. Incentivized Rick Lupton Systems Programmer Analyst Read full review
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	vCenter is much more complete as a solution than other products that I have looked at and it works very well for our environment. vCenter is very easy to configure and does not have the unnecessary steps to set up and configure. Also, the different storage vendor support makes it easy to configure and maintain without having to use separate applications or consoles. Incentivized Manfred B. Zysk Network and Systems Administrator 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	Significantly reduced the number of standalone control system servers on site Allowed scaling up of existing systems and migrating other systems onto new infrastructure without additional hardware outlay The initial licensing and hardware purchase cost was high, however will pay off by the reduction in hardware costs required for planned systems Incentivized AR Adam Radics Production Data Systems Superintendent Read full review
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