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Proxmox VE 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

Proxmox VE
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
62
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 December 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Proxmox VE is 14.7%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.6%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Proxmox VE14.7%
RHEV2.6%
Other82.7%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Toby Champion - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent Consultant at Toby Champion Associates
Ensures a robust, user-friendly virtualization platform with seamless VM management, efficient resource allocation and a strong community for support
Improvements are needed for the API. Currently, there are several features inaccessible through the API, necessitating the use of either the WebUI or the command line interface. While the command line interface suffices, it's apparent that efforts are underway to enhance this aspect. In future releases, one potential feature enhancement could be improved remote screen access, allowing users to connect to the screen of another machine more seamlessly. Additionally, integrating with Terraform or providing better support for Terraform workflows might be beneficial, as there seems to be some lacking in that area. There's a minor inconvenience where you have to switch the license file from the open-source community license to an enterprise license.
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

"I like that it's secure, and I find its Software RAID very useful. It's way better than the Hardware RAID I was used to. I'm really impressed by their Software RAID feature."
"The solution is open source and free to use."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is that its storage container, LVM, and everything else work out of the box."
"Its compatibility is most valuable."
"Proxmox is free, very stable, and doesn't require more resources for memory RAM. It's fine for a small data center."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration."
"It has a good performance and you can cluster it."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"The platform is scalable, allowing for the installation of multiple nodes."
"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 solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"It is very stable."
"The biggest aspect for me is the disk usage, the virtual manager, and the deployment of machines."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support portal."
 

Cons

"The management can be better. It's not like VMware where you can get all clusters on a single dashboard. In VMware, you can literally see all the VMs running in one cluster regardless of the host."
"It is difficult to remove a virtual machine."
"I would like to see more monitoring in the next release of this solution."
"It might be interesting to have the ability to integrate with other cloud solutions."
"Proxmox VE can improve by importing OVF or OVA files directly from OVA. I need to convert all the images to raw images before importing them to Proxmox VE. If there is a solution that I can import directly from VMDK, it would be better."
"The virtualizer in Proxmox VE could improve."
"The Windows drivers could be easier (unlike manually installing Ballon, QEMU and optionally SPICE, VIRTio, etc.)"
"An area that could be improved is the replication of virtual machines from site to site for disaster recovery."
"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."
"There is not any proper documentation on the site to reference."
"While everything needs improvement in some way, I have no specifics."
"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."
"The UI should be more interactive with additional features."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"We'd like it if it would be possible on Red Hat Virtualization to possibly connect two or three VMs to the same disk."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Proxmox VE is free of cost."
"The product is open-source and I rate its pricing an eight out of ten. You need to pay for support and it is costly."
"The way the licensing of Proxmox is structured, you can use it for free. It is an open-source solution, and you can use it for free, but if you do need support, then you have to pay for the support. So, you can use it in a way that you don't have to pay anything, which is a plus point for me. For people or users who have huge and more intense use cases, the advice or the recommendation is to always pay for support. In case something goes wrong, you can fall back on the team that will attend to your request. For me, at the moment, the cost is zero."
"The price of the solution is priced low."
"We are using the free community version of Proxmox VE."
"The product is free."
"The only thing you pay for is support and it is between $2,500 and $3,000 a year. It depends on the support plan you choose. Support is optional."
"I cannot subscribe to Proxmox VE's support because it is expensive."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"It's a budget product as far as I'm concerned. It's way cheaper than any of its competitors. The only thing cheaper than Red Hat is that the people who take the Red Hat code clone it and then self-support it."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"This is an open-source solution."
"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."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"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."
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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
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
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...
Proxmox VE or KVM?
I use Proxmox VE and have been very happy with it. In my opinion, it is a complete and stable solution with excellent tools for managing servers. It has a lot of different features, and I also love...
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

Municipality of Trento, SwitchMIA, inDenova, Valmeita City Council, Alpha IT AS, Grupo Inversor Veracruzano S.A.P.I. de C.V. (GRIVER), Laut und Schoen, IT-Services - Hamburg e.K., KMI Learning, Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., Serwise AG
Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox VE vs. RHEV and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.