We performed a comparison between KVM and VMware VSphere based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: VMware VSphere is the winner in this comparison. It is a powerful solution with good customer support and a proven ROI. It is, however, more expensive.
"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"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."
"The most helpful aspect of KVM is the fact that the interface is so minimal. It includes just what you need to set up the VMs and manage them, and it's very simple to do so."
"KVM is stable."
"I like that it's easy to manage. It's also more powerful when it comes to security than others. That point of view is the one consideration. The other consideration is that it's cost-effective."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"The performance is great."
"It is highly scalable. We can add new hardware and expand the infrastructure easily."
"It is easy to deploy and find troubleshooting articles as well."
"VMware vSphere is easy to scale. We haven't had any problems scaling what we're scaling now."
"The roadmap for the product itself covers all of the features that we are looking for."
"The solution is easy to use, user-friendly interface and has high availability features. When comparing it to other solutions it is more robust."
"The product is very easy to install."
"VMware vSphere has very good applications and services."
"It is very easy to use and very stable."
"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."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"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."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"Some things are pretty basic, and they could be more robust with more detail."
"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 stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category."
"The main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"In addition, I think some of the backup features or the prediction features can be improved."
"I do not find it to be simple and efficient to manage. The tools, the interface to manage it, are a pain. In the latest version, they moved us to web-only, the Web Client and it's terrible. It's slow. It crashes. It's annoying. I used the Web Client in the older version and was happy. I would go back to the regular thick client but I don't have that option anymore, so I am always fighting it."
"Higher cost than other similar solutions."
"The biggest problem in this solution is the incompatibility of some of the features with some of the drivers installed on servers. For example, if I want to install vSphere on an HPE server, the driver is really different from a Dell server or a Fujitsu server. I need to download different drivers and install them manually, which can be improved by VMware. They can offer a special image to match different servers. We face different problems when we install vSphere on an ESXi server and have different drivers on the storage. ESXi cannot detect different kinds of storage, and they should improve this. We updated our existing version to vSphere 7 in a private environment, but it seems that this version is not very stable. We are facing issues with restarting the host. In earlier versions, such as vSphere 6 or 6.5, we didn't have any such problems. It would be good if VMware can offer specific applications for mobiles to enable us to control the management of all servers by mobile. They should also improve the vCenter GUI because it is currently not compatible, and there are a lot of problems. Some of the options do not appear well in the browser. VMware should spend more time resolving the problems in the GUI."
"OS templates should be readily available, so there is no need to get an OS separately. Only the activation part should be different, which is not presently available due to the need to get the OS from a different location, then create VMs."
"In addition, I think they should come up with a backup feature which is more product enrichment-based. It should be a full-fledged backup solution. It just is not there right now."
"This solution should have a better backup policy. Furthermore, there should be an ability to expose the universal machine. In the current version, you need to shutdown and use an offline virtual machine to backup."
KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 39 reviews while VMware vSphere is ranked 2nd in Server Virtualization Software with 446 reviews. KVM is rated 8.0, while VMware vSphere is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of KVM writes "Delivers good performance because of kernel-based virtualization". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSphere writes "Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems". KVM is most compared with Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMware Workstation and Oracle VM, whereas VMware vSphere is most compared with Hyper-V, Proxmox VE, VMware Workstation, Oracle VM and Nutanix AHV Virtualization. See our KVM vs. VMware vSphere 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.