Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere comparison

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53,710 views|44,243 comparisons
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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Apr 28, 2022

We performed a comparison between Hyper-V and VMware VSphere based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions report that the initial setup and deployment is straightforward and fast.

  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

    Hyper-V users report that it performs well and is user-friendly but utilizes a high amount of memory and resources.

    VMware VSphere users say it is flexible and easy to use and has good virtualization, and fast data recovery. A few VMware VSphere users say that the solution should improve its security and monitoring features.
  • Pricing: Hyper-V users agree that it is a low-cost solution, whereas most VMware VSphere users feel it is an expensive product.

  • Service and Support: Most users of both solutions report being satisfied with the level of the support they receive.

  • ROI: Both Hyper-V and VMware VSphere users are satisfied with the ROI.

Comparison Results: VMware VSphere is the winner in this comparison. It is easy to deploy, reliable, robust, and has excellent customer support. Hyper-V does come out on top in the pricing category, however.

To learn more, read our detailed Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere Report (Updated: May 2023).
706,951 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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.""The solution allows us to take advantage of our physical environment.""The initial setup was very easy.""Hyper-V is much easier to deploy because Hyper-V is already installed inside Windows Server OS. You only need to turn on Hyper-V as a service, and then you can use it. The most convenient thing about Hyper-V is the operating system.""The interface is quite good.""The solution is stable.""The initial setup of Hyper-V is far easier than VMware.""It's a stable product."

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"VMware vSphere is user-friendly and simple.""Overall, it is a pretty good solution. We do not have to worry about upgrading the versions that people use for our in-house software. We just create ThinApps, and as soon as they log in, they always get the upgraded version. This part really works well for us.""I definitely like the stability, performance and ease-of-use.""The technical support is good and they are available over the internet.""The fact that vSphere is an on-premise solution is beneficial for the user. It's easier to manage the infrastructure. It's more straightforward to scale and configure virtual machines.""It's easy to use and very user-friendly.""Its scalability potential is good.""The ability to create or clone a virtual environment in a short period of time for testing is most valuable."

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Cons
"When one server or one virtual machine fails, or one is turned off, the virtualization stops, and we have to initiate again with human intervention.""They could work on lowering the cost of the solution.""Failure capabilities are insufficient for disaster recovery.""I'd like to see better predictive diagnostics, so I know what's going on with the machines.""The solution should improve its native integration with other public cloud solutions.""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.""Hyper-V could improve the management tools.""Hyper-V requires improvement with manageability."

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"The solution could be more stable.""To manage it properly, you have to know this product really well.""The integration with containers should be addressed.""We've been using vSphere on Windows 7, and it had less fluff associated with ThinApp. Currently, with Windows 10 version that we have, it adds a lot of bulk to ThinApp. We have offices spanning across Canada from the east coast to the west coast. A ThinApp that is roughly around 400 MB in size would take minutes to open up. With Windows 7, the same ThinApp used to be close to 75 to 80 MB in size. So, I'm really not happy with the extra fluff that is bundled in Windows 10. It really messes things up for us at times.""The licensing costs for the solution are quite high.""VMware vSphere does not permit hard partitioning.""The performance of the solution could be better and there could be an extra level of security.""The solution could be cheaper and less expensive."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Hyper-V is cost-effective and is a one-time purchase. Microsoft has multiple licensing options available, such as a subscription model and an outside purchase model that customers can choose as per their requirements."
  • "There is a perpetual license to use the solution and there are additional fees for support."
  • "There is a license required to use Hyper-V and there are bundle packages you can purchase making it cheaper than other solutions, such as VMware. Additionally, if there is a lot of guest OS that requires Windows, then Microsoft becomes cheaper."
  • "Thanks to our enterprise agreement with Microsoft, Hyper-V is free for us."
  • "I think I'm okay with the cost. There are no monthly or yearly costs or additional costs."
  • "I recommend Hyper-V to customers with budget constraints."
  • "The licensing costs depend on the environment you have. If you have an environment of less than 10 or 30 VMs, It's nice to have a Hyper-V, but if you have more than 100 or 200, I would recommend using VCenter, VMware virtualization, especially for an on-premise solution."
  • "Hyper-V is more cost-effective for the size of our business One of the Hyper-V's biggest advantages over VMware is the cost. We are a small business, so Hyper-V allowed us to virtualize everything we need without breaking the bank."
  • More Hyper-V Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "There is an annual cost for the use of this solution. The price is a little high in developing countries. If they were able to reduce the price they would receive more customers now and even more in the future."
  • "If I have three hosts, just three hosts, a minimum of three hosts plus the vSphere and Center, I'm almost spending close to $250,000 a year."
  • "There is a standard license required for this solution."
  • "I think the licensing cost depends on the number of users."
  • "I'm not a pricing or budgeting person, but I know that its price is a little bit high, and they can consider reviewing it. Its price is probably the highest in this domain."
  • "When comparing the price of VMware solutions to other vendors, such as Nutanix, they are costly."
  • "The licensing could be lower."
  • "We pay for our license."
  • More VMware vSphere Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The solution is very user-friendly.
    Top Answer:DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It… more »
    Top Answer:We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We found… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    53,710
    Comparisons
    44,243
    Reviews
    45
    Average Words per Review
    447
    Rating
    7.5
    Views
    48,446
    Comparisons
    37,756
    Reviews
    83
    Average Words per Review
    405
    Rating
    8.9
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Overview

    Hyper-V is a hardware virtualization tool that allows users to create virtual computer environments with multiple operating systems on a single physical server. Each virtual machine has computer parts, such as memory, processor, storage, and networking, and acts like a standard computer - running its own operating system and software programs. Each component of the virtual machine can be configured to meet your specific requirements.

    Hyper-V creates a cost-effective, stable, and productive server virtualization environment by running multiple operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, and more, in parallel on one machine or server. Each virtual machine runs in its own isolated space, which means you can run many virtual machines simultaneously but independently of each other. This helps prevent problems such as a crash affecting the other workloads and enables different users to separately access various systems.

    Benefits of Hyper-V

    • Simplify application testing: With Hyper-V you can easily add and remove operating systems from your virtual machines, enabling you to run and test your applications on each of them all from one single computer.

    • Minimize resource usage and scalability: Virtual machines are easier to manage than physical hardware and less expensive. You can also maximize your server use by allocating its resources more efficiently than you can with physical hardware alone.

    Hyper-V key features:.

    • Replication and migration: Hyper-V can replicate virtual machines for backups onto different sites. Hyper-V also provides a migration tool for moving a virtual machine from one Hyper-V host to another without causing any downtime.

    • Remote connection: Hyper-V’s remote connectivity tool allows administrators to remotely access a virtual machine.

    • Security: Hyper-V keeps virtual machines secure from malware attacks, unauthorized access, and data breaching attempts.

     Reviews from Real Users

    Hyper-V stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, its replication capabilities, and the fact that its virtual machines utilize a small amount of resources..

    Liam L., the owner of a tech services company, writes, “It is actually very low on resources. It doesn't use many resources. It is also very easy to tailor. You can change things like the amount of memory and storage on the fly. It is very stable and reliable. I like its replication feature, which is very good. It is also very easy to move the virtual machines across push servers without any difficulty. Its performance is also very good. Now with this pandemic, a lot of workers are working from home. A lot of workers have been using laptops as their desktop computers, and they would remote into a virtual PC. There is no difficulty, and they can't tell the difference between this and the real one. It is much easier to manage.”

    Kevin E. an IT director at Homeland Technology Group, LLC, notes, “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.”

    VMware vSphere is a powerful and complete server virtualization platform that allows its users to create and manage virtual data centers and machines. VMware vSphere is designed to help IT departments set up and run applications using the most cost-effective computer resources. By using vSphere, organizations save the time and energy necessary for purchasing infrastructure and software and reduce ongoing maintenance and operational burdens on IT teams.

    Infrastructure administrators and network operators can access and manage the vSphere server by using a web-based cross-platform client application or via the vSphere client tool provided with vSphere. 

    VMware vSphere provides visibility into VMs and enables its users to carry out operations to manage VMs. This includes tasks such as:

    • Powering VMs on and off
    • Launching the VM console
    • Shutting down guest operating systems
    • Settings configurations
    • Taking system snapshots

    VMware vSphere Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using VMware vSphere include: 

    • Reduced costs: Since VMware applications are run on a server, it is not necessary to spend large amounts of your organization’s money on hardware, software, and infrastructure.
    • Increased productivity and customer satisfaction: VMware is able to operate multiple complex processes simultaneously. With all your applications being managed and run on the cloud, downtime, failures, and application errors are rare. VMware easily scales up and down to meet your computing needs. The high availability that VMware provides allows your IT staff to focus on other issues and keeps your customers satisfied with the service they receive.
    • Unlimited access to your VMs: VMware’s user-friendly cloud-based interface allows any employee to work from any location at any time.
    • Enhanced security: VMware’s security tools deliver full visibility into your entire system. This keeps your applications and data more secure, in any type of environment. VMware provides multiple protective tools including antiviruses and anti-malware, as well as backup and recovery services.

    VMware vSphere Features

    Below is a list of some of VMware vSphere’s key features:

    • Transferable virtual machine images: Export and import virtual machine images from your local environment. This gives users the ability to set up and configure their systems locally and only upload them to the server once everything is working properly. VM images can be moved back and forth between vendors, ensuring that your company is never tied up to a specific cloud vendor.
    • User-friendly interface: Using VMware’s intuitive console, you can easily create, manage, share, and deploy virtual machines.
    • API integration: VMware’s APIs support integration with third-party applications for data protection, multipathing, and disk array solutions.
    • Distributed power management: Automate efficiency by continuously optimizing server power consumption within each cluster.

    Reviews from Real Users

    VMware vSphere stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. A few major ones are its virtualization abilities, its flexibility and availability, and its user-friendly interface.

    Felix D., an Automation project administrator, DCS, I&E at Centennial Cayman Corp, writes, “The connectivity is fantastic, and many functions can run together in one server. If you need to scale, we can continue to add components or modules. It's a beautiful virtual solution that has many advantages over physical hardware, where you have to use devices and wiring to connect all your projects.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Hyper-V
    Learn more about VMware vSphere
    Sample Customers
    Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
    Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Outsourcing Company9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization16%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Retailer6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Educational Organization15%
    Government9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise27%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise52%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise53%
    Buyer's Guide
    Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
    706,951 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Hyper-V is ranked 3rd in Server Virtualization Software with 45 reviews while VMware vSphere is ranked 1st in Server Virtualization Software with 79 reviews. Hyper-V is rated 7.4, while VMware vSphere is rated 8.8. 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 VMware vSphere writes "Strong performance, works well with large infrastructures but it is quite expensive". Hyper-V is most compared with VMware Workstation, Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox, KVM and Citrix Hypervisor, whereas VMware vSphere is most compared with Proxmox VE, VMware Workstation, KVM, Oracle VM and Nutanix AHV Virtualization. See our Hyper-V 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.