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.
"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."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"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."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy."
"KVM is stable."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"This solution is very stable. Much more so than similar products."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the popularity of the OS."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"The solution is a great all-round product. The virtualization is especially good."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is the support portal."
"We find the ease of use of this solution to be invaluable. It is user-friendly and integrates well with other software."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."
"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."
"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."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"The main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"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."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"In KVM, snapshots and cloning are areas where there could be a little more sophistication, like VMware."
"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."
"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."
"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."
"This solution could be more secure."
"The solution should be made more user-friendly."
"It lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"We would like the dashboard feature of this solution to be improved, as it is not very detailed at present."
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.
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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.