We performed a comparison between IBM PowerVM and KVM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Server Virtualization Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It is a stable solution with reliable performance."
"A valuable feature of PowerVM is a feature that is used for higher availability plus stream for posting, which is very useful. There's a flash copy feature which we are using. PowerVM itself, I know, helps us to control and manage our Oracle licensing compliance, since it is our hardware partitioning. This is very important. If you use VMware, there will be a licensing issue. This PowerVM is a hardware partitioner, which is very important for license compliance. We are happy with this solution."
"What I like about this solution, is that it is easy to configure."
"IBM PowerVM has the highest clock speed."
"It's scalable. Whenever we buy another product other than hardware, it's easily integrated into the virtualization software that we download."
"The most valuable features in this solution are you do not get degradation in the performance like you could get in other solutions. There is a physical adapter that is better than a virtual one and you can assign adapters to a VM."
"PowerVM's most valuable features include swift optimisation and real-time migration."
"Active Memory Sharing dynamically reallocates memory of running partitions based on changing workload demands. The memory for the pool is carved out from Physical memory and is made logical memory. The said memory is not available to be assigned to partitions as dedicated memory. A min, max and desired as well as weight is assigned to the memory of each lpar to help hypervisor make a decision in case a condition where priority is to be given to a certain lapr to use the memory form shared pool."
"It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"The most helpful aspect of KVM is the fact that the interface is so minimal. It includes just what you need to set up the VMs and manage them, and it's very simple to do so."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"KVM is stable."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"Documentation and problem-solving troubleshooting are the most valuable features. Performance (when fine-tuned and with "special" HW) is awesome, equal to or more than other enterprise closed-source solutions."
"I find the density of the product most valuable. It is density that a technologist can just assign page merging. This is what makes KVM one of the important players of the virtualization market."
"IBM should review the price of this solution in my opinion; it is too high."
"IBM PowerVM does not integrate with Microsoft."
"SRM for site recovery is a feature that should be included."
"If it could actually virtualize the entire platform it might be better. If you're having more than one virtualization technology, maybe there's a way to actually have less - one technology to run the data center and maybe one special virtualization for power. If it integrated with other platforms more effectively it might be better."
"A GUI version of VIOS would be a great plus for people moving from Intel-based hypervisors."
"The performance should be improved."
"I would like for IBM to be more focuses on the cloud."
"The product's pricing could be less expensive compared to other competitors."
"The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
"We would like to have a software lifecycle solution included in this solution. We can handle the software needed for KVM, but also the software that we provide. A lifecycle component would be very beneficial."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"One problem I have is that it's not very scalable when it comes to resizing the VM disk dimensions. For example, if you have initially set a virtual drive to 10 GB and you want to upgrade it to 15 GB, it's not that easy."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"The speed is around thirty percent slower than another competitor. This would be something to work on."
IBM PowerVM is ranked 9th in Server Virtualization Software with 25 reviews while KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 39 reviews. IBM PowerVM is rated 8.4, while KVM is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of IBM PowerVM writes "A stable system for high-end data processing with a great support structure". On the other hand, the top reviewer of KVM writes "Delivers good performance because of kernel-based virtualization". IBM PowerVM is most compared with VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Oracle VM VirtualBox and Proxmox VE, whereas KVM is most compared with Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). See our IBM PowerVM vs. KVM report.
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