RHEV vs VMware vSphere comparison

Red Hat and VMware are both solutions in the Server Virtualization Software category. Red Hat is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.7, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4. Red Hat holds a 3.6% mindshare in SVS, compared to VMware’s 16.1% mindshare. Additionally, 79% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of VMware users who would recommend it.

RHEV

Read 36 RHEV reviews

4,351 Views
3,509 Comparison Views

79% willing to recommend

VMware vSphere

Read 454 VMware vSphere reviews

24,020 Views
20,394 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

RHEV

VMware vSphere

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

RHEV and VMware vSphere are well-known virtualization platforms in competitive data center management. VMware vSphere appears to have an advantageous position because of its extensive feature set and perceived value relative to its higher price, while RHEV remains appealing due to competitive pricing and robust support.

Features: RHEV has strong security, scalability, and efficient resource management suitable for open-source settings. VMware vSphere includes comprehensive high-availability features, mature disaster recovery tools, and advanced network management which are attractive for companies seeking advanced virtualization.

Room for Improvement: RHEV could enhance ease of use, further integration options, and improve initial deployment processes to lower technical hurdles. VMware vSphere might benefit from reduced complexity in licensing options, enhanced cost efficiency, and further simplification of its comprehensive management tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware vSphere is known for its straightforward deployment, extensive documentation, and dependable customer support. RHEV, as an open-source platform, offers flexibility but can require significant technical knowledge, which might increase setup complexities for some businesses.

Pricing and ROI: RHEV is attractive for its low setup costs, providing a favorable ROI thanks to cost-efficient open-source solutions. VMware vSphere, although expensive initially, offers substantial long-term ROI due to its rich features that optimize operational efficiencies, thus balancing the investment for those seeking high performance.

To learn more, read our detailed RHEV vs. VMware vSphere Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

RHEV vs. VMware vSphere

June 2025

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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

RHEV

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

12th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware vSphere

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

454

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of RHEV is 3.6%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 16.1%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Virtualization Software

Featured Reviews

Sujeet-Kumar

Project Manager Cloud Infrastructure at Path Infotech ltd

The solution is scalable and affordable, but it lacks features, and it is not easy to manage

Management of RHEV is not as easy as VMware. Some features do not work. The product does not provide features similar to VMware’s VMotion. After creating the cluster, the VM is moved to another node if we move down. However, the VM does not move the parent node automatically. It has to be moved manually. VMware moves it automatically. RHEV moves it to the parent node only if we restart. Everything can be handled in VMware through the GUI. However, in RHEV, some things can be managed through UI, and others cannot. We have to troubleshoot and use CLI. A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware.

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Neeraj Mehra

Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When you purchase RHEV, you are essentially buying a subscription license. This license can be integrated with various client types, including these integrations with the subscription."

"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."

"The solution makes migration easy."

"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."

"Technically, the main reason why I'm using Red Hat is because of its stability."

"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 a scalable solution."

"I advise keeping an open mind. It's an excellent solution."

More RHEV pros

"Technical support is helpful and always available."

"The tool's most valuable features are CPU virtualization and RAM allocation, which are better than those of other hypervisors."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the overall good ease of use and the good interface which makes it very easy to migrate from one bare metal to another. These are the two things which I like about it."

"The most valuable feature of vSphere is its modularity. I also like the maturity updates. It's available everywhere and almost all the data centers are using it."

"Performance; We have seen a performance boost because we have been able to more dynamically allocate either memory or processors."

"The roadmap for the product itself covers all of the features that we are looking for."

"It cuts down on hardware costs by being able to virtualize multiple hardware and multiple machines on a single piece of hardware."

"Our customers opt for virtualization because it's cheaper and better than non-virtualized solutions. VMware is probably the best on the market now."

More VMware vSphere pros

Cons

"The biggest improvement would be more third-party direct support for things like backups and provisioning through third-party portals."

"I heard that there are big differences between Red Hat eight and seven, but it's still quite difficult for me to judge it. I found it a bit more difficult to manage than version seven, which was much easier. In term of features, though, it is still not yet clear which is better. I have no clear idea of which features need to be changed at the moment."

"My teammates and I often complain that VMware is well-documented and has a large community since it is the de facto standard. I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."

"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."

"When we do a direct comparison, then obviously VMware does better in terms of having Fault Tolerance and doing active disaster recovery and these kind of things. This is something that can be improved within Red Hat."

"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."

"We would like the dashboard feature of this solution to be improved, as it is not very detailed at present."

"The solution has a very small lifecycle."

More RHEV cons

"My biggest suggestion would be some kind of a mechanism - and it's almost an AI-type thing, a Siri/Cortana - for where to find how to do certain things. If there was the ability to just type in a basic question and say, "How do I change the VM settings for this?" and it could bring me right there, that would be really awesome."

"I would like to start to using NSX in the next release."

"It could be more composable. At present, a fluid pool is not available to us. It would be great to have the flexibility."

"In the next release, I would love to have Java as a service, platform as a service, and container as a service."

"The license fee could be more affordable."

"The VMware vSphere app is faster, compared to its web-based client. The web-based client is very slow, freezes, and is challenging to use."

"VMware vSphere needs to increase the datastore volume."

"We previously had a hard time using tech support."

More VMware vSphere cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."

"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."

"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."

"Its price depends on the use cases."

"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."

"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."

"I would say the price is acceptable."

"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."

More RHEV pricing and cost advice

"A customer can buy a license and support on a yearly basis."

"The tool is a bit expensive."

"Pricing is insanely expensive."

"I did a comparison between physical server to virtual. There was a point in time where we would size out a virtual server to be a massive size, then we'd buy a physical server of the equivalence. We saved somewhere around 20 percent going virtual, as opposed to the physical equivalent."

"I think the licensing cost depends on the number of users."

"It's a monthly subscription model."

"There is a standard license required for this solution."

"If you go with a standard license, it's very affordable."

More VMware vSphere pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

Thang Le Toan (Victory Lee)

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…

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Answers from the Community

Sridhar Battarusetty

VP-Global Supply Chain Management at mobileum

Feb 7, 2024

What are the differences between RHEV and VMware vSphere?

See 2 answers

Anne Cubarrubia

Editor at PeerSpot

Aug 21, 2023

Here is a comparison of the two hypervisors, RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization) and VMware vSphere: RHEV Pros: Open source Highly scalable Cost-effective Cons: Not as mature as VMware vSphere Not as widely supported as VMware vSphere VMware vSphere Pros: Mature and widely supported Wide range of features Easy to use and manage Cons: Not open source Can be expensive Some prefer RHEV because it is open-source and cost-effective. However, VMware vSphere may be the better option if you need a hypervisor with a wide range of features and support. As to which solution consumes fewer resources, RHEV is a lighter-weight hypervisor than VMware vSphere, so it consumes fewer resources. However, you must remember that each hypervisor's resource consumption depends on the configuration and workload.

Read full answer

Rajkumar Gera

Vice President, IT Infrastructure ( DC Operations ) at Vodafone Idea Ltd.

Feb 7, 2024

Hi Sridhar, This is Rajkumar Gera, VP IT in one of the Telecom. Below are some of the points, may help you: FEATURE RED HAT ENTERPRISE VIRTUALIZATION VMWARE VSPHERE Key differentiators Open source solution Proprietary solution Purchased via one subscription Multiple levels of functionality sold in editions with different price points Bare-metal performance for virtualized applications Application high availability (Enterprise Plus version only) Prioritized high availability so critical workloads are restarted first Desktop and server virtualization One infrastructure for managing desktops and servers Add-on products for desktop virtualization: VMware Player, VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon DaaS, and VMware Horizon Mirage Remote access to virtual desktops through SPICE Full support for multimedia applications Management server Included in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization subscription Requires purchase and license of VMware vCenter and database support Virtual machine density 40 cores: 4,682@288 40 cores: 3,824@234 160 cores: 14,061@864 160 cores: result not available Self-service portal Allows users to provision and manage VMs and templates with a browser Requires the purchase of VMware vCloud Automation Center Integration with OpenStack technology Supports the open Neutron pluggable networking API Supports VMware’s NSX networking plug-in Supports the OpenStack image service for a unified image repository between virtual and cloud platforms Does not support the OpenStack image service

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

18%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with RHEV?

My teammates and I often complain that VMware is well-documented and has a large community since it is the de facto standard. I would love to see better documentation and ease of use. For newcomers...

See all answers

What is IOMMU?

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 pr...

See all answers

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 and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.

See all answers

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 interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

See all answers

Comparisons

Proxmox VE vs RHEV

Compared 25% of the time

Hyper-V vs RHEV

Compared 11% of the time

KVM vs RHEV

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs RHEV

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle VM vs RHEV

Compared 5% of the time

More RHEV Competitors

Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere

Compared 24% of the time

Oracle VM vs VMware vSphere

Compared 14% of the time

Proxmox VE vs VMware vSphere

Compared 14% of the time

KVM vs VMware vSphere

Compared 8% of the time

Citrix XenServer vs VMware vSphere

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware vSphere Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

RHEV

June 2025

Download RHEV product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSphere

June 2025

Download VMware vSphere product report

Also Known As

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

No data available

Overview

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, or RHEV, is a leading open standard enterprise virtualization management solution. This solution supports virtualization of servers and desktops using the same infrastructure and a single easy-to-use interface.

Because RHEV is based on open standards, it is vendor-independent and a lot more cost effective and flexible than proprietary solutions.

Red Hat

VMware vSphere is a versatile virtualization platform known for its ease of use, flexibility, and high availability. It supports seamless migration, optimal resource allocation, and centralized management, making it highly suitable for diverse infrastructure needs.

VMware vSphere is widely adopted for its virtualization capabilities that enhance hardware efficiency and ensure minimal downtime through features like High Availability and Distributed Resource Scheduler. Despite criticisms about high licensing costs and limited fault tolerance, it remains a preferred choice due to its stability, scalability, and robust integration options. Users appreciate its efficiency in managing virtual machines and hosting enterprise applications, although challenges with web client performance and hardware compatibility are noted. Organizations often look for better integration with cloud services and enhanced automation and scalability.

What are the core features of VMware vSphere?

vMotion: Enables seamless migration of virtual machines without downtime.
Distributed Resource Scheduler: Optimizes resource allocation across hosts.
High Availability: Minimizes downtime by automatically restarting virtual machines.
Centralized Management: Facilitates easy management of virtualized environments.
Advanced Security: Provides robust security measures and compliance features.

What benefits and ROI can businesses look for?

Reduced Operational Costs: Efficiently utilizes hardware, saving on expenses.
Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing business demands.
Business Continuity: Ensures high availability and disaster recovery.
Integration Flexibility: Supports integration with various technologies.

VMware vSphere is implemented across sectors like healthcare, finance, and education for server virtualization, data center management, and private cloud creation. Its use in facilitating business-critical operations ensures high availability and efficient resource use, supporting both development and production environments.

VMware

Sample Customers

Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.

Buyer's Guide

RHEV vs. VMware vSphere

June 2025

Free Report: RHEV vs. VMware vSphere

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