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.
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of KVM is its stability."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"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."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."
"We find the ease of use of this solution to be invaluable. It is user-friendly and integrates well with other software."
"The solution is stable."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward and well-documented. The process is very similar to its competitors. The success of your setup depends on how well you plan."
"It is easy to deal with when comes to application migration and its compatibility with the multiple component applications."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"The stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"We still occasionally build Interlaced Wireless Protection within our environment. The ecosystem entails areas, where we support agents, and release backup and security solutions. Collaboration with independent software vendors (ITOLs or ITOLED) is necessary to offer these solutions to customers. However, the scope of the ecosystem in KVM is not as extensive as that of VMware's. In contrast, VMware boasts a robust partner network, allowing for comprehensive customer solutions. On the other hand, KVM’s ecosystem is comparatively limited in comparison. I would like to see FT features in KVM."
"The main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery."
"One thing that maybe could be improved is making it easier to scale. It needs to be more clear on how to scale the storage space for virtual machines."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"We'd like it if it would be possible on Red Hat Virtualization to possibly connect two or three VMs to the same disk."
"I heard that there are big differences between Red Hat eight and seven, but it's still quite difficult for me to judge it. I found it a bit more difficult to manage than version seven, which was much easier. In term of features, though, it is still not yet clear which is better. I have no clear idea of which features need to be changed at the moment."
"We would like the dashboard feature of this solution to be improved, as it is not very detailed at present."
"Customers are not aware of this solution, they can improve by providing more awareness and solution availability."
"While everything needs improvement in some way, I have no specifics."
"This solution could be more secure."
"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."
"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 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.