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.
"It's a stable product."
"The solution has good scalability."
"We chose this solution because of the pricing and the simplicity of the product."
"We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time."
"I like that it's easy to use."
"The simplicity and intuitiveness of the platform. It was a very simple adaptation, if you have any experience in virtualization."
"It works very well. Its performance, stability, and redundancy are all very dependable."
"Live migration, SMB3."
"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"There is a strong emphasis on availability, and they have numerous API interfaces for distributed storage and the solution is quite known for its openness."
"The key aspect is that the KVM directly interacts with the Kronos. There's no clear indication of indirect communication with Kronos. It is not linked to Kronos, and interaction is straightforward without any intermediaries."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"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."
"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."
"Very cost-effective."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"Hyper-V systems need a lot of admin effort because security updates and monthly updates require rebooting after the update."
"The interface could be more user friendly. In addition, the documentation and security could use improvement."
"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 corrupted volume is a problem."
"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."
"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"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."
"Hyper-V needs to improve its support."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"The only negative aspect of needing hardware support is a fully functional KVM can be dropped. It would be nice if the support for other platforms, like ARM or Risk, were as good as the x86 one. However, with the democratization of Chromebooks based on these chips and mobile devices, it will not take long for that to happen."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"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."
"The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
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.