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.
"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."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"KVM is stable."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"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 initial setup was very easy."
"You see more responsiveness, especially now with having the HTML5 client. It feels like a much snappier product."
"It is easy to manage the solution. It is scalable and very stable."
"The virtualization is set by itself. vSphere is the best way to have a non-host based fixed solution. We always try to find an agnostic environment where we can restore agnostics or just say, "I need resources, capacity." That's why VMware vSphere in particular, has been the best in the past but now also with the evolution of their product. Nowadays, you don't have to use any STEM infrastructure anymore because the bandwidth and the land speeds are getting steeper."
"The most valuable feature of the solution would be the basic feature of server virtualization, we use it everywhere."
"This solution's most valuable feature is its High Availability."
"We scale it both vertically and hortizonally. We have many data centers on it."
"The latest innovation always comes from VMware."
"The most valuable features for me are a very easily scalable infrastructure. I can have a couple of hosts to do basic workloads. I can have a lot of hosts to do a lot of workloads. vSAN integrates my storage so I don't need an external storage SAN. I love having everything integrated in the same UI. The new HTML5 interface doesn't require any plugins anymore and it's super-fast."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"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."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"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."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"The latest version of the solution has a few bugs."
"The price could be better. The licensing is definitely expensive and tech support is sometimes frustrating."
"I would like to see AI in future releases."
"The installation is complex and you need to have a good understanding in regards to what you are doing when you are setting it up."
"It would be great if VMware could have a consolidated way of delivering this as software rather than pieces and several add-ons so that you could enjoy the product in its entirety."
"Sometimes you can't find items and you need to log onto different physical servers to do technical tasks. I don't fully understand why this is the case."
"It could improve the hyper-conversions."
"A fully **automatic** and lightweight Virtual Center. Another time this has a huge improvement in last releases. However, a more automatic and simple deployment is required."
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, Oracle VM, VMware Workstation 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.