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Hyper-V vs IBM PowerVM vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.8
Hyper-V is cost-effective for budget-conscious organizations, offering value with Windows Server by reducing costs and enhancing ROI.
Sentiment score
7.7
PowerVM saves costs by charging for allocated cores, proving more cost-effective and reliable than physical servers over five years.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware vSphere increases ROI by reducing server needs, costs, and deployment time, improving efficiency and hardware utilization.
The return on investment is substantial, though other platforms may offer a better ROI, primarily due to lower costs involved in setup and maintenance.
If calculated over a five-year period, IBM PowerVM is 30 to 40% more cost-effective than physical servers despite initial costs seeming high.
We can say 10% is the approximate amount of savings because most of the things are automated and streamlined, so the manual work is eliminated in most cases.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Hyper-V customer service is praised, but technical support experiences vary, with some relying on community help and finding response delays.
Sentiment score
7.8
IBM PowerVM's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, though challenges arise without subscriptions; stability minimizes service need.
Sentiment score
6.8
VMware vSphere support is efficient and knowledgeable, though delays occur for low-priority issues; community forums provide additional help.
Technical support from Microsoft is excellent, rated ten out of ten.
The technical support for Hyper-V is excellent
The technical support is very good
IBM provides strong support.
IBM offers excellent customer support.
IBM's technical support is outstanding, with seamless global coordination and prompt resolutions.
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
Recently, support has been less friendly and slower, especially after the company was acquired by Broadcom.
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
Hyper-V is considered highly scalable, supporting various workloads, though scalability may depend on the version and architecture planning.
Sentiment score
8.1
IBM PowerVM excels in scalability and flexibility, efficiently managing resources and users for both small and large enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware vSphere is praised for its scalable architecture, allowing efficient expansion with minimal downtime, despite potential hardware and licensing issues.
Hyper V can support over two hundred virtual processors and around 12 TB of memory.
The scalability of Hyper-V is great; I would rate it nine out of ten.
An IBM server can handle up to sixty-four terabytes of RAM.
The product is scalable due to PowerVM's virtualization features, such as shared processor functionality and partition mobility.
I think IBM PowerVM uses a 'pay as you grow' model, allowing customers to scale their resources as needed.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle.
It is a highly scalable solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Hyper-V is stable with proper management, but some users face issues; stability is often environment-specific, not inherent.
Sentiment score
8.5
IBM PowerVM is praised for exceptional stability and uptime, outperforming competitors like SPARC, Nutanix, and VMware in reliability.
Sentiment score
7.9
VMware vSphere is highly stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and strong performance, widely regarded as a robust platform.
Automation is unavailable, and reporting is difficult.
Frequent Windows updates can impact stability compared to VMware ESXi.
The stability of IBM PowerVM is exceptional, as industry reports have named IBM Power and Z as the most stable platforms globally for 15 consecutive years.
Our clients in India using Power Servers have been running their servers for the last four to five years without any reboot.
The product operates reliably, and following IBM’s best practices ensures robust stability.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
While they are generally stable, if outages occur, they tend to be due to brands like HP or Dell, not VMware vSphere itself.
I would rate the stability of VMware vSphere as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Hyper-V struggles with high costs, complex setup, limited features, performance issues, and lacks integration and compatibility compared to VMware.
IBM PowerVM needs usability, pricing, automation, integration improvements, and a GUI to better compete and enhance user experience.
VMware vSphere's cost, stability, integration, and usability issues lead organizations to consider alternatives and seek improved solutions.
Hyper-V should ensure the features of VMware are covered within its platform.
Hyper-V could be improved by implementing the same set of features that other tools provide.
In future updates, I would like to see improvements in reporting and a resolution to some security weaknesses.
We have a strong relationship with IBM, which aids decision-making in transitioning clients from mainframe to other platforms.
PowerVM should integrate some capabilities of VMware vCenter to improve its management features.
From a product perspective, I would like to see faster certification of open-source products on IBM Power Systems.
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
 

Setup Cost

Hyper-V offers a cost-effective virtualization solution, especially for Windows Server users, with competitive pricing against alternatives like VMware.
IBM PowerVM pricing is high but offers reliability, flexible licensing, and potential TCO savings despite cheaper alternatives.
VMware vSphere is reliable, but its high pricing and complex licensing can challenge budget-conscious enterprises compared to competitors.
Hyper-V is completely free and requires no licensing fee.
Hyper-V's licensing costs are lower compared to VMware, making it cost-effective for smaller workloads.
Until 2019, Hyper-V was a cost-effective solution because it was available as a free product.
Pricing is a concern in Argentina due to the higher cost of mainframe solutions.
PowerVM itself is free with the purchase of an IBM server.
While initially costly, the ROI over five years proves IBM PowerVM is cost-effective, resulting in a 30 to 40% reduction in costs compared to a physical setup.
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
The solution is too expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Hyper-V offers affordable, scalable virtualization with seamless integration, dynamic memory, and extensive migration support, ensuring efficient management.
IBM PowerVM offers stability, flexibility, and high availability with robust virtualization, cloud integration, and optimized workloads for Oracle and SAP HANA.
VMware vSphere provides efficient virtualization with high availability, scalability, and robust performance, enhancing agility and minimizing downtime.
It is completely free, which is a significant advantage.
It offers the stability needed for non-enterprise data centers and has improved over time.
The most valuable features of Hyper-V include high availability and management for virtual machine management.
Features like partition mobility enhance the machine's capabilities, making it an ideal tool for virtual environments with reliability, availability, and serviceability.
PowerVM excels in efficiently managing all systems and environments, including development, UI, and production.
It supports specific workloads, like Oracle and SAP HANA, much better due to its shared processor pool feature which reduces licensing costs.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
The tool is highly available, which is crucial for implementing critical applications requiring 24/7 availability.
The high availability feature is significant.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 14.5%, up from 14.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM PowerVM is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 16.4%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ananth Narayana Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective and good for small workloads while addressing update-driven challenges is needed
I use Azure Monitor and other monitoring solutions to support clients in Accenture's managed services. We support multiple environments, primarily on cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and also on-premises environments with operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Solaris, among others…
Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers mobility and you can seamlessly move a VM between different PowerVM instances
PowerVM is likely one of the most stable hypervisors available, albeit highly specialized. However, it is solely command-line based. When someone manages virtualization as a whole, they typically expect a graphical user interface (GUI) for configurations. This is the case for Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMware. But with PowerVM, you need to understand and memorize commands to operate the hypervisor. I believe PowerVM should have a GUI; that would be a significant improvement.
Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to ...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same featu...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
What do you like most about IBM PowerVM?
Managing other operating systems is also straightforward with IBM PowerVM.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM PowerVM?
IBM’s licensing model offers flexibility in subscription terms, now allowing one- to five-year options. They have int...
What needs improvement with IBM PowerVM?
From a product perspective, I would like to see faster certification of open-source products on IBM Power Systems ( /...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platfor...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerVM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Sto, Soitec, SNO, Bundesrechenzentrum GmbH, Al Mansour Holding, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Huhtamaki, ELK Group, IT-Informatik, Arkansas Tech University, Pneuhage
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: August 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.