Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) vs. VMware vSOM (discontinued)

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

VMware vSOM (discontinued)

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 vSOM (discontinued)	Score 10.0 out of 10	N/A	VSOM from VMware was a solution that delivered vSphere server virtualization, and also added capacity management and performance monitoring features. It is discontinued as of February 2019. Users were migrated to VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus and VMware vRealize Operations Standard.	N/A

Pricing

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

VMware vSOM (discontinued)

Editions & Modules

No answers on this topic

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
KVM	VMware vSOM (discontinued)
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 vSOM (discontinued)
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 vSOM (discontinued) Kurt Pritchett Senior System Engineer Chose VMware vSOM (discontinued) vSphere with Operations Management has a much better way of automating the re-IPing of servers so you can stand them up in a different environment or location. You do, however, need another way of replicating your servers to your DR site, VSOM will not do that. We used EMC … Incentivized Helpful?

Features

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

VMware vSOM (discontinued)

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 vSOM (discontinued) 10.0 Ratings 20% above category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning	9.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Management console	9.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup	9.70 Ratings	00 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration	9.00 Ratings	10.00 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security	9.50 Ratings	10.00 Ratings

Best Alternatives
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	VMware vSOM (discontinued)
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	Scale Computing Platform Score 8.1 out of 10
Enterprises	VMware vSOM (discontinued) Score 10.0 out of 10	IBM PowerVM Score 9.0 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend	9.3 (0 ratings)	8.0 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)	VMware vSOM (discontinued)
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	Vsphere Operation Management is suitable for automating the process of bringing up an alternate data center in case of a disaster. It also is a great way for testing your readiness of disaster. You have the ability to bring up a server in a "bubble" for testing. This way you can show your admins how the failover process will work. Incentivized Kurt Pritchett Senior System Engineer 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	The best thing about VSOM is that it's built into VCenter so you only have one point of administration VSOM does a great job of making applications intuitive Re-IPing virtual machines are a must and VSOM does a great job of making this a simple process Incentivized Kurt Pritchett Senior System Engineer 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	The installation of VSOM is very tedious It uses an MS SQL database It should be able to adjust for hardware modifications in VCenter Incentivized Kurt Pritchett Senior System Engineer 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	vSphere with Operations Management has a much better way of automating the re-IPing of servers so you can stand them up in a different environment or location. You do, however, need another way of replicating your servers to your DR site, VSOM will not do that. We used EMC Recover Point for replication. Incentivized Kurt Pritchett Senior System Engineer 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	In the case of a disaster, the ROI would be substantial. The license for VSOM is pretty expensive initially. Support for VSOM is terrific. Incentivized Kurt Pritchett Senior System Engineer Read full review
ScreenShots