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Hyper-V vs RHEV comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Hyper-V
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
145
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
RHEV
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 17.2%, up from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hyper-V17.2%
RHEV2.4%
Other80.4%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Tomas Basus - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at NIPOS
Virtualization has reduced licensing costs and improved integration but still needs better performance insight
Integrations bring the biggest benefit to us. We use half of our virtual machines that are Microsoft, so it works better hosted in Hyper-V compared to VMware. Clustering and failover capabilities in the product help with our availability. It helped because we switched to Hyper-V because it was lower cost than paying for high availability in VMware. We need Microsoft licenses for virtual machines, so it costs less than buying two solutions for that. We have data center editions, so it did not cost us additional money compared to paying for high availability from VMware. I think it helped a little, but not so different compared to VMware regarding security and bandwidth optimization.
Mike Neuliep - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has supported virtualization projects in side jobs but has required workarounds due to lack of maintenance
In my opinion, the best features of RHEV are that it is a real hypervisor and it is free, so it performs better than VMware. I have used the live migration feature in the past with RHEV. There is a free clone of it that is based on the open source. Live migration is a nifty feature if your app is not highly available and you need to do maintenance on a machine. You can migrate the VM off of it, do your maintenance, and move it back when you are done. RHEV has a high availability architecture with a built-in monitoring feature where you could see machines other than the one you are operating on. I tend to implement high availability not so much in RHEV, but by using standard application high availability strategies. Red Hat has another product specifically for high availability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is an affordable platform."
"II prefer customers to use Hyper-V because Hyper-V is mostly integrated with Microsoft solutions."
"It is a great advantage for any company that is using a Microsoft Windows server."
"The Failover Clustering feature allows us to be able to make our most critical workload highly available."
"There are some products that you can mount over Hyper-V that provide the features that, in today's Hyper-V, are not present."
"Hyper-V improved the infrastructure drastically, not only from a performance perspective but from a control/administration view as well."
"The simplicity and intuitiveness of the platform. It was a very simple adaptation, if you have any experience in virtualization."
"The solution is stable."
"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space. I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."
"The most valuable features of RHEV are all the tools, such as virtualization, management of cloud platforms, and integration of container environments. The solution has good compatibility between virtualization, content management, and cloud management. Having the full set of these tools is the advantage of it."
"It is easy to deal with when comes to application migration and its compatibility with the multiple component applications."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the popularity of the OS."
"It is very stable."
"In my opinion, the best features of RHEV are that it is a real hypervisor and it is free, so it performs better than VMware."
 

Cons

"Security, computing balance, and taking snapshots could be improved. Features like DRS and memory ballooning could be added."
"One of the network problems I face is I cannot introduce other security layers on top of Hyper-V as you can in VMware. When it comes to the network the VMware is more flexible than Hyper-V."
"It needs additional administration and monitoring capabilities."
"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."
"In my opinion, read the documentation carefully. If you do not, you will have problems."
"The initial setup was complex. It was nearly six years ago, but I remember it was complicated."
"There is a problem with high-availability if the load is too high."
"The solution could improve by having virtual restore."
"With RHEV, the cyberattacks should be fewer. I want RHEV to be better protected."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."
"The solution has a very small lifecycle."
"Customers are not aware of this solution, they can improve by providing more awareness and solution availability."
"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements. They should not be halted or delayed innovation because over the past quarter the enhancements have not been as fast as they have been previously."
"Configuring the network interfaces is much better in Ubuntu and should be improved."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a fairly expensive product because it balances the needs of security."
"It's cheap, but not the best."
"The licensing is pretty straightforward."
"I think I'm okay with the cost. There are no monthly or yearly costs or additional costs."
"There is a license required for this solution. I would recommend purchasing the support."
"I wish the licensing was simpler, and allowed for a greater number of VM's with the Microsoft standard licensing, but overall I think it's fair. The pricing is definitely fair."
"This product costs less than other competitor products on the market."
"The product comes with Windows Server."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"This product has a variety of licensing options available. However, the level of licensing, and therefore the cost of licensing, is dependent on the number of servers being utilized."
"The price of RHEV is high. It is an open-source solution, the price should be less. The price should not be on par with a solution, such as VMware. It's not more or equal to VMware, it's less, but the difference should be more substantial."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"We are using the free version of Red Hat."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
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Comparison Review

VL
CIO at Robusta Technology & Training
Jan 13, 2015
vSphere vs. RHEV vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer
We have used the following functions: 1. Hypervisor: to ensure that the virtual server provide web and email services to the company, thus providing a stable operation a with single sign-on integration of an AD server and vCenter. 2. Network and Storage: centralized data server…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business70
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
 

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 virtualize Server or Client OS as it is a feature on Windows Server since 2008 a...
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 features as with the more well-known products. Proxmox VE is very easy to deploy - it...
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 RHEV?
The initial setup is fairly straightforward and well-documented. The process is very similar to its competitors. The success of your setup depends on how well you plan.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for RHEV?
It's the open source. There's not much cost. It's very minimal comparably. Compared to what I am paying for VMware, it's negligible.
What needs improvement with RHEV?
RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years. I would love to get back into RHEV, but the job market is difficult and no one is hiring. RHEV is designe...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.
Find out what your peers are saying about Hyper-V vs. RHEV and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,435 professionals have used our research since 2012.