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.
"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."
"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 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 think nine out of the ten supercomputers in the world use Linux KVM, so I think that attests to the fact that it is a scalable product."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"Very cost-effective."
"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"The GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before."
"Technically, the main reason why I'm using Red Hat is because of its stability."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution is a great all-round product. The virtualization is especially good."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"We find the ease of use of this solution to be invaluable. It is user-friendly and integrates well with other software."
"It's a scalable solution."
"The most valuable features of RHEV are all the tools, such as virtualization, management of cloud platforms, and integration of container environments. The solution has good compatibility between virtualization, content management, and cloud management. Having the full set of these tools is the advantage of it."
"I have encountered difficulties in getting the tool's documentation."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"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."
"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."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"The UI should be more interactive with additional features."
"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."
"The solution has a very small lifecycle."
"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."
"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."
"With RHEV, the cyberattacks should be fewer. I want RHEV to be better protected."
"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."
"We hope that Red Hat can produce a paradigm edition. We are looking for paradigm computing and paradigm storage. Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system. They should also provide local service and support. Our customers are looking for a good software vendor to provide professional services."
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.