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 key aspect is that the KVM directly interacts with the Kronos. There's no clear indication of indirect communication with Kronos. It is not linked to Kronos, and interaction is straightforward without any intermediaries."
"Very cost-effective."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"A very reliable solution which can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with reasonable overhead."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"There is a strong emphasis on availability, and they have numerous API interfaces for distributed storage and the solution is quite known for its openness."
"Red Hat is the most stable system."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"It is very stable."
"The most valuable feature of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is its pricing."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the popularity of the OS."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."
"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."
"I believe KVM offers a unified answer, while ProxMark addresses orchestration. KVM lacks orchestration. If the aim is to centrally oversee multiple KVMs – let's say to freeze them – a centralized management solution is absent."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"Technical support is not top-notch."
"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."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"Its resource usage can be improved."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"It would be better to have more patches, especially kernel-level updates, live and online so that we can keep the business up and running during this period."
"The biggest improvement would be more third-party direct support for things like backups and provisioning through third-party portals."
"The solution could use network virtualization."
"It lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements. They should not be halted or delayed innovation because over the past quarter the enhancements have not been as fast as they have been previously."
"The solution has a very small lifecycle."
"There is not any proper documentation on the site to reference."
"Configuring the network interfaces is much better in Ubuntu and should be improved."
KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 39 reviews while RHEV is ranked 10th in Server Virtualization Software with 32 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 "Offers frameworks with well-documented API and easy to use". 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.