We performed a comparison between Hyper-V and KVM based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below
Comparison Results: Hyper-V is the clear winner in this comparison it is easy to install, robust and high performing. Hyper-V, as a Microsoft product, also offers stable and ongoing customer support.
"The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy."
"The solution allows us to take advantage of our physical environment."
"I have found the GUI user-friendly and having the solution be a Windows application makes it familiar to users."
"The replication, creation, and import wizard, as well as the integration with reporting tools, are the most useful features."
"The solution is easy to configure."
"One of the most valuable features of Hyper-V is ease to use."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate the Hyper-Visor center from one console."
"The initial setup of Hyper-V is far easier than VMware."
"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."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"The initial setup was simple."
"This solution is open source and easy to configure."
"When it comes to Hyper-V the worst thing is it's based on the Windows operating system. For the installation of Hyper-V, you're supposed to install the right operating system. For me, it's strange."
"The biggest problem with Hyper-V is that the virtual machines are mostly running on top of the Windows Server, so we often need to reboot the machine and virtual machines when updating the host level. That's why we prefer VMware. It's much easier to patch the host. Also, Hyper-V has security vulnerabilities. It's easy to attack and compromise the host."
"Hyper-V's management platform falls short in terms of scalability, especially when handling multiple Hyper-V servers. VMware has a central console to pull in all your VM servers, so you can easily manage them all through one console. You can manage servers in Hyper-V's admin centers, but it's not as scalable. It's doable with a couple of Hyper-V servers, but it becomes harder to manage when you get over two or three Hyper-V servers."
"I think there is room for improvement in terms of the cloud solutions."
"If a person has never implemented the solution before, they might find the process difficult."
"Sometimes it is a mess, and it is getting hanged. It should be something that could be easily fixed. It made us have to deal with fixing the bugs."
"Disaster recovery capabilities are the primary choice for improvement."
"Hyper-V isn't a lightweight solution like VMware. Management could be more straightforward. Even as far as disk management tools are concerned, it would be better if that could be made simpler. The same applies to performance."
"Its resource usage can be improved."
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
Hyper-V is ranked 3rd in Server Virtualization Software with 134 reviews while KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 39 reviews. Hyper-V is rated 8.0, while KVM is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Hyper-V writes "It's a low-cost solution that enabled us to shrink everything down into a single server ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of KVM writes "Delivers good performance because of kernel-based virtualization". Hyper-V is most compared with VMware vSphere, VMware Workstation, Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox and Nutanix AHV Virtualization, whereas KVM is most compared with Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox, VMware vSphere, VMware Workstation and Oracle VM. See our Hyper-V vs. KVM 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.