We performed a comparison between KVM and RHEV based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: KVM wins out in this comparison. Users find it very fast and super easy to use and manage. It provides excellent security and scales easily. Many users feel RHEV is lacking in some documentation capabilities and security features and that it can be challenging to scale up when needed.
"The tool's most valuable feature is backup. The product makes it easy to manage virtual machines. Other tools require third-party applications like VMware and vSphere. However, KVM doesn't require these applications."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"If you are a Linux desktop user, KVM is the solution to go with if you have to start virtual machines with Linux or other operating systems with almost zero extra configuration needed."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space. I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."
"The solution is a great all-round product. The virtualization is especially good."
"Technically, the main reason why I'm using Red Hat is because of its stability."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"RHEV’s cost is much less compared to VMware."
"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."
"This solution is very stable. Much more so than similar products."
"In our setup, we do not have any dashboards or orchestration, and it is hard to manage. We have 25 gig network cards, but the software driver we have only supported 10 gigs."
"Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"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."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"I have previously used VMware and KVM is easier to use. However, they both have their strengths depending on their use cases. They are mostly equal. One of VMware's advantages is it has better support."
"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."
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."
"In comparison to VMware, this solution isn't as stable. We're testing it right now, and we're not trusting the stability of the product."
"It lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"While everything needs improvement in some way, I have no specifics."
"This solution could be more secure."
"With RHEV, the cyberattacks should be fewer. I want RHEV to be better protected."
"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."
"Red Hat by itself is not scalable. But you can have third party add-ons like Ceph to make it massively scalable."
KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 38 reviews while RHEV is ranked 10th in Server Virtualization Software with 31 reviews. KVM is rated 8.0, while RHEV is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of KVM writes "Delivers good performance because of kernel-based virtualization". On the other hand, the top reviewer of RHEV writes "The solution is scalable and affordable, but it lacks features, and it is not easy to manage". KVM is most compared with Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and Citrix Hypervisor, whereas RHEV is most compared with VMware vSphere, Proxmox VE, Hyper-V, Oracle VM and Nutanix AHV Virtualization. See our KVM vs. RHEV report.
See our list of best Server Virtualization Software vendors.
We monitor all Server Virtualization Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.