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IBM PowerVM vs Nutanix AHV Virtualization 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:
 

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
5.0
Nutanix AHV Virtualization offers significant ROI by reducing costs, saving time, and optimizing resources, with 45% cost savings.
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 find a 100% return on investment with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, so there's no question about it.
 

Customer Service

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
7.7
Nutanix AHV Virtualization's 24/7 support is praised for quick problem resolution, knowledgeable staff, and strong interoperability with vendors.
IBM provides strong support.
IBM offers excellent customer support.
IBM's technical support is outstanding, with seamless global coordination and prompt resolutions.
Their engineers are excellent and provide great supportability.
They provide prompt and quality responses.
We are getting the correct support personnel, who help us sort out our issues, so the support is very nice.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
IBM PowerVM excels in scalability and flexibility, efficiently managing resources and users for both small and large enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.8
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is highly scalable and flexible, ideal for medium to large enterprises, but may be costly for smaller businesses.
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.
We can scale our systems easily without any downtime, making it a highly effective solution for dynamic environments.
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is very scalable; however, I might be underutilizing its capabilities.
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is very much scalable, and we can scale up to 32 nodes easily, which is a huge size.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
IBM PowerVM is praised for exceptional stability and uptime, outperforming competitors like SPARC, Nutanix, and VMware in reliability.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix AHV is highly stable, well-integrated, and user-rated, with occasional update issues but strong performance overall.
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.
The solution is very stable.
Issues such as patch delays and the OVF format challenge affect its stability rating.
Upgrades and updates occur without any downtime, so it is 100% stable.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM PowerVM needs usability, pricing, automation, integration improvements, and a GUI to better compete and enhance user experience.
Nutanix AHV requires enhanced support, improved GUI, better cloud integration, affordability, documentation, and advancements in AI and database capabilities.
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.
This delay in patching creates risk, especially for government projects that require timely updates.
These menus often show options like host, memory, and disk, however, they fail to provide insight into what's happening.
Using Lenovo hardware seems problematic with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which demands careful consideration during updates.
 

Setup Cost

IBM PowerVM pricing is high but offers reliability, flexible licensing, and potential TCO savings despite cheaper alternatives.
Nutanix AHV offers cost-effective virtualization with no license fees, competitive pricing, and annual support, suitable for enterprises.
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.
This has been advantageous as it does not require additional licensing costs for the hypervisor, contributing to overall cost savings.
Other solutions like Citrix and VMware have seen a significant price increase, whereas Nutanix hasn't increased as dramatically.
The pricing was reasonable compared to other competitors, though the storage was expensive.
 

Valuable Features

IBM PowerVM offers stability, flexibility, and high availability with robust virtualization, cloud integration, and optimized workloads for Oracle and SAP HANA.
Nutanix AHV Virtualization offers efficient, scalable management with user-friendly features, strong automation, cost-effectiveness, and seamless cloud integration.
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.
It is easier to manage than VMware in some ways, providing a good level of interaction.
Using Nutanix AHV Virtualization in a single management pane is very important to me, as it allows us to see everything related to our hardware, software, servers, and VMs from one console.
The technology behind the backups is very efficient, enabling a reliable virtual environment.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM PowerVM
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix AHV Virtualization
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of IBM PowerVM is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is 7.6%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nutanix AHV Virtualization7.6%
IBM PowerVM1.3%
Other91.1%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
TAIYAB HASAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Has provided seamless virtualization and centralized control with strong security and reliable performance
I find almost every feature of Nutanix AHV Virtualization useful, as it's a very nice HCI solution from Nutanix. AHV is their native product, so it's very integrated with all the hardware they provide. Integration is very nice with the baseline hardware. We are using all built-in security features of Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which include encryption. It is very effective in protecting our VMs, and it is very secure. The impact of AHV, such as micro-segmentation, is very effective for us and it's working as per our requirements. We are very happy with the features. Role-Based Access is also a very nice feature for us to define to whom to give admin access and to whom to give read-only access. This kind of authentication helps us distribute tasks within the teams. Using Nutanix AHV Virtualization in a single management pane is very important to me, as it allows us to see everything related to our hardware, software, servers, and VMs from one console. We can reach everything from this one console, which provides a nice inside view for our software, hardware applications, server details, issues, alerts, or any unwanted activity. We are using the non-disruptive operations feature because Nutanix AHV Virtualization is in our production environment, and this feature helps us perform any activity without any downtime.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

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 introduced a subscription-based model for some systems, creating a more cost-effect...
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 ( /products/ibm-power-systems-reviews ). While the product has robust features and ...
How does Nutanix AHV compare with VMware vSphere?
To understand which is better - Nutanix AHV or VMware vSphere - you need to do a product comparison. Both products support hypervisors. However, Nutanix supports some of the most popular ones and m...
What do you like most about Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
Integration is the most valuable feature of the product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
Compared to the competition, the pricing for Nutanix AHV Virtualization is reasonable. Other solutions like Citrix and VMware have seen a significant price increase, whereas Nutanix hasn't increase...
 

Also Known As

PowerVM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sto, Soitec, SNO, Bundesrechenzentrum GmbH, Al Mansour Holding, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Huhtamaki, ELK Group, IT-Informatik, Arkansas Tech University, Pneuhage
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM PowerVM vs. Nutanix AHV Virtualization and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
871,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.