We use the tool for virtualization. We have virtual servers so that we do not have to have individual servers for every service. We use it to create mirrors of the primary server. We can deploy a number of services on one server.
Manager ICT at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees
A very stable tool that is easy to set up and gives very good returns on investment
Pros and Cons
- "The restore function of the virtual server is valuable to me."
- "VLAN is not very easy to configure."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The restore function of the virtual server is valuable to me. It cuts down the time of redeploying a service that is down.
What needs improvement?
VLAN is not very easy to configure. The product must provide automation of virtualization across VLANs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for ten years. I am using the version that came with the original Windows Server 2016.
Buyer's Guide
Hyper-V
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Hyper-V. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
879,986 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. In my organization, 3000 people use the solution. Everyone has to access at least one of the services. The product is extensively used in our organization. If the organization grows, we might increase the number of users.
How are customer service and support?
We reach out to a consultant for technical support. We do not use Microsoft’s technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not so difficult. It is quite easy. It took us a week to set up the solution and get it working properly.
What about the implementation team?
We deployed the solution in-house. To deploy the product, we must set up the physical Windows Server. It is a prerequisite for setting up Hyper-V. Then, we put the virtualization software and deploy other servers on the primary server. The deployment process is relatively straightforward. We need a system administrator to manage the tool.
What was our ROI?
We get a very good return on investment from the tool. We don't have to invest too heavily in any other solutions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product comes with Windows Server. It is updated every time there's a new version of Windows Server. There is no separate license for the solution. It is part of Windows Server. There's no additional cost other than having a backup solution to back up the virtual machines. It might just be the cost of any backup software license.
What other advice do I have?
The product is mandatory. It's required for any organization that needs to deploy more than two servers. If any organization uses Windows Server, it is critical to use Hyper-V. I would highly recommend it. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Despite offering exceptional visualization capabilities, the solution must take into account the lack of support from reputable vendors
Pros and Cons
- "The virtualization aspect of the solution functions similar to VMware is one of its most valuable features…It is a stable product."
- "Many vendors, such as Cisco and HPE, are discontinuing support for Hyper-V as they believe it does not have a significant market share."
What is our primary use case?
Mainly, I use Hyper-V to analyze whether it fits the customer's needs as a solutions architect. First, we determine whether the customer is a Microsoft user. Then, we consider pricing and compare it against the features of VMware or AHV to determine which solution would be most helpful.
How has it helped my organization?
In terms of how the solution has helped the organization, I would say that cost-wise, it is a cheaper solution than VMware.
What is most valuable?
The virtualization aspect of the solution functions similar to VMware is one of its most valuable features. Even though it costs significantly less than VMware, it has enough features to compete with it, especially in terms of virtualizing VMs, data stores, NICs, and VNX.
What needs improvement?
Many vendors, such as Cisco and HPE, are discontinuing support for Hyper-V as they believe it does not have a significant market share. This poses a significant problem for our Hyper-V customers since several major vendors will no longer provide support for it.
Hyper-V doesn't need additional features. They just needed to be well-defined. So, people aren't using it as much as before, and so they need to market it better. Everybody knows VMware, but not a lot of people know Hyper-V.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Hyper-V for at least five years. Also, I don't remember the version of the solution I am using.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Even though Hyper-V is not as scalable as VMware, it can be considered scalable in general.
We don't have any plans in our organization to increase the usage of the solution. On the contrary, I see a decrease in its usage. Nowadays, we work with customers who are going to migrate to VMware from Hyper-V, even though we don't want them to do that. But there is nothing else we can do to stop them from our end. This downfall of Hyper-V is related directly to the fact that other vendors are not supporting Hyper-V anymore.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the technical support an eight out of ten since it is embedded with Microsoft support. So, their support is okay.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup process for Hyper-V was not that hard. If one knows about Microsoft and virtualization, it's not a hard product to manage or install.
What was our ROI?
I have experienced an ROI using the solution, especially when considering SLED customers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is one of the cheapest products in the market. So, even though Nutanix gives away AHV, one still has to pay for Nutanix home.
What other advice do I have?
My suggestion to those planning to use the solution is that they use it in a smaller or simpler environment, and it'll easily do the job for them while being cost-effective at the same time. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Hyper-V
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Hyper-V. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
879,986 professionals have used our research since 2012.
System Administrator at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Easy to set up and manage and quick to deploy
Pros and Cons
- "It's a very manageable product."
- "They could work on lowering the cost of the solution."
What is our primary use case?
We're using the mail correspondence and other applications which are running using Hyper-V.
What is most valuable?
The solution offers many useful features.
It's a very manageable product.
The deployment was pretty quick. It's also easy to set up.
It is a stable and scalable solution.
What needs improvement?
They could work on lowering the cost of the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using the solution in 2022. I've used it for six to eight months so far.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product scales well. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.
There are maybe 400 or more users on the solution, and there are between 300 and 500 users in our environment.
It can actually connect to PC users, and 200 PCs are connected now.
How are customer service and support?
We have used technical support in the past without issue.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not overly complex, and the deployment time is rather fast. It offers a straightforward implementation. We had some requirements for configuration setups, et cetera, and were able to implement them as required. We had one project set up and then set up another.
What about the implementation team?
We did not use an integrator or consultant when we set up the solution. We could handle the process ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
You do need to pay for a license in order to use the solution. It is a bit expensive and could be cheaper.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We do plan to look into other options in the future.
What other advice do I have?
The solution is easily manageable, and the setup process isn't too bad. Therefore, I would recommend the solution to others. I'd rate the product ten out of ten overall.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT Director at a outsourcing company with 1-10 employees
It's a low-cost solution that enabled us to shrink everything down into a single server
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "Hyper-V's management platform falls short in terms of scalability, especially when handling multiple Hyper-V servers. VMware has a central console to pull in all your VM servers, so you can easily manage them all through one console. You can manage servers in Hyper-V's admin centers, but it's not as scalable. It's doable with a couple of Hyper-V servers, but it becomes harder to manage when you get over two or three Hyper-V servers."
What is our primary use case?
We use Hyper-V for our on-premise servers, and we have a couple of Hyper-V desktops that remote salespeople use to log in remotely. They have an on-premises station they can remote into and utilize everything at our other office. We replicate everything there, so if anything happens to our facility here, we can get spun up at our other location.
There are 40 people in our organization. We have sales engineers, technicians, and our standard office staff. Three servers are running off of Hyper-V, including our SQL server for our main CRM and QuickBooks databases, our central files storage server, and another files server that holds our backup domain controller. Then we have another domain controller that handles some other internal things. That is pretty much our organization in a nutshell.
We plan to expand usage of Hyper-V. For example, we have a terminal server that isn't on Hyper-V at the moment. It is session based, and we're working on transitioning over. Also, we got a brand new server two weeks ago, so we're transitioning everybody off of the terminal server to local Windows 10 and Hyper-V VMs.
Everyone will have their own desktop environment versus having a session-based terminal. That way, if there's an emergency patch update or something like that for one person on the terminal server, we don't have to take the whole terminal server down. We can take down that person's desktop. We'll deploy as many as 12 additional Hyper-V desktops running in that.
That will be our future deployment based on what we've seen in the Hyper-V desktop environment and its performance. It runs great. All users who have already transitioned to that environment are enjoying it compared to the old terminal server that we had.
How has it helped my organization?
We were running three servers, but Hyper-V enabled us to shrink everything down into a single server running NVMe drives in it. Using Hyper-V's virtualization, we can operate all our servers on one physical server. We're seeing better performance off of that thanks mainly to the NVMe drives.
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
The most significant issues have with Hyper-V are the snapshots, local backup, and retention. VMware handles their backups are a lot better. I'd also like to see the ability to virtually hook an input-output device directly to the Hyper-V and the VMs, whether it be a card reader or disk drive. This is something you can do in VMware.
We still use customer or software solutions that come on a disk. I often have to rip the data and transfer it over. If I could just throw it in my disk drive and link my disc drive to that VM, that would be beneficial, or if I had a card reader that I could hook straight in. It's not a make-or-break thing, but that would make everything a little bit easier on some installs.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using Hyper-V in production for about three years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Hyper-V has been highly stable. I'm impressed with the performance. Granted, this was my first Hyper-V install, so I was a bit worried about it, but with the hardware platform that we have it on, everything's been excellent stability-wise, and I haven't had any issues with that server. It's been up and working for the past six months. I only had to reboot once to do an update. Everything has been working great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Hyper-V is less scalable than VMware. It's excellent for smaller environments like ours, but VMware is still the go-to solution if you want to scale up.
Hyper-V's management platform falls short in terms of scalability, especially when handling multiple Hyper-V servers. VMware has a central console to pull in all your VM servers, so you can easily manage them all through one console. You can manage servers in Hyper-V's admin centers, but it's not as scalable. It's doable with a couple of Hyper-V servers, but it becomes harder to manage when you get over two or three Hyper-V servers.
How are customer service and support?
I've never had to deal with their technical support. Everything has gone smoothly with Hyper-V. When I had a few minor issues, I was able to find solutions on the Microsoft forum.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had VMware ESXi, but it came down to what we needed as a business. Hyper-V was the best bet for the cost. It all boiled down to cost and ease of deployment.
How was the initial setup?
The Hyper-V setup was straightforward. I transitioned all three of our servers by myself on New Year's Eve. I came in at 8 a.m. and had all three servers transitioned over to Hyper-V within about six hours. The initial setup for VMware took a little longer.
First, we needed to get the Hyper-V server in place. Once we had that in place, we transitioned from the bare-metal servers to the Hyper-V transition for our initial servers. We used a solution — I believe it was called StarNet or something like that — to do our initial conversion from bare-metal to VM.
Over the next six months, we spun up our new servers and did conversions because we were running server 2008. Once we had everything on the VM's, we split up the new VM servers and transitioned to the server 2019 platform.
We have two IT staff members for deployment and maintenance. I do 90 percent of the maintenance. The other IT person does little things as needed, but Hyper-V requires little maintenance.
What was our ROI?
By implementing Hyper-V and cutting down on servers, we have seen a cost reduction. If we stuck with the bare-metal servers, we would see an initial cost for the server hardware of about $4,000 or $5,000. And in the long term, we'll save money on electricity and overall server maintenance of the servers. About five years out, we'll either break even or save over the cost of bare-metal servers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There's no annual cost for the Hyper-V server version 2019. If you add up the other solutions we have on there, it totals up to around $3,000 a year.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Hyper-V around 8.5 compared to VMware. The ease of use is there, but VMware has more options and scalability. However, VMware has a lot more upfront and yearly costs. Hyper-V is a great solution and an excellent way to virtualize your servers and everything. It's a good fit for a small business.
If you're converting from Hyper-V or vice versa, make sure you run a couple of tests of your conversion strategy. I did run into one little snag the first time. The server wouldn't boot properly, but that came down to a permissions issue. Make sure you thoroughly test any server or VM's you're converting over. Test to see that everything boots back up. Also, make sure all your virtual switches are set up correctly because you sometimes run into some networking issues within the VM if you don't configure those 100 percent correctly.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
System Administrator at a construction company with 51-200 employees
Helps to make a replica server between two machines
Pros and Cons
- "Hyper-V helps to make a replica server between two machines. It is very easy to learn."
- "Hyper-V needs to improve its support."
What is our primary use case?
We use Hyper-V for virtualization.
What is most valuable?
Hyper-V helps to make a replica server between two machines. It is very easy to learn.
What needs improvement?
Hyper-V needs to improve its support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the product for four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
My company has three users for Hyper-V.
How was the initial setup?
Hyper-V's deployment is easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's pricing is cheap.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Hyper-V an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
VMware Administrator at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has an easy setup process, but the performance speed needs improvement
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is easy."
- "I encounter issues such as mouse cursor problems, dependencies, lagging, freezing, and unresponsiveness using Hyper-V."
What is our primary use case?
We use Hyper-V to test multiple virtual machines and servers to be deployed.
What needs improvement?
The product performs a bit slowly compared to VMware.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
At the end of the day, Hyper-V is a Microsoft product. Thus, it provides better stability and is convenient to use.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I prefer using VMware more than Hyper-V. It is a convenient-to-use tool. I encounter issues such as mouse cursor problems, dependencies, lagging, freezing, and unresponsiveness using Hyper-V. These challenges led to a decision to migrate to VMware for virtualization.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is an inbuilt tool included in Windows Server. There is no cost associated with it if customers are already using Microsoft products.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Hyper-V a five out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT Security Manager & Chief IT Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 51-200 employees
Easy-to-setup platform with good scalability
Pros and Cons
- "It is an affordable platform."
- "They should include a few more hardware components for integration with servers."
What is most valuable?
It is an affordable platform than VMware for hosting older versions of Microsoft Windows like Windows XP and Windows NT.
What needs improvement?
They should include a few more hardware components for integration with servers. It would work great for the Hyper-V environment. Additionally, they should consider cloud virtualization features.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Hyper-V since 2016.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product worked well for hosting a few Microsoft solutions.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable platform. We have 100 users for it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used VMware before.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup process is easy. It takes about two or three hours to complete. We have to follow the installation documentation. It requires one person to maintain.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product's price is low. We have to pay a one-time cost.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Hyper-V an eight out of ten. I advise others to go for it if they have an interactive environment.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Datacenter & Security Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
User-friendly and has native integration with Azure
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very user-friendly."
- "The solution should improve its native integration with other public cloud solutions."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution for Jira visualization and Jira workload.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution is very user-friendly. Since we have an agreement with Microsoft, it is really easy to use and doesn't cost us much.
What is most valuable?
The feature of native integration with Azure is good.
What needs improvement?
The solution should improve its native integration with other public cloud solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for the past 10-15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very scalable. However, we do not have a big cluster. At the moment, we do not have any plans to increase the usage of the solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. We did not have any issues at all.
What was our ROI?
We get ROI on the product.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Since we have an agreement with Microsoft, the solution is not very expensive.
What other advice do I have?
If someone plans to implement Hyper-V, they should seek an agreement with Microsoft to get a better value for the product. I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Hyper-V Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Product Categories
Server Virtualization SoftwarePopular Comparisons
VMware vSphere
Proxmox VE
Red Hat OpenShift
Nutanix AHV Virtualization
Oracle VM VirtualBox
Oracle VM
Citrix XenServer
RHEV
oVirt
XCP-ng virtualization platform
IBM PowerVM
VMware ESXi
OpenVZ
ISPsystem VMmanager
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Hyper-V Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- VMware vs. Hyper-V - Which do you prefer?
- Do you think there is a minimum critical threshold that justifies the deployment of the System Center suite?
- How does Hyper-V compare to alternative Virtualization solutions?
- What Is The Biggest Difference Between Hyper-V And KVM?
- How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
- How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
- When evaluating Server Virtualization Software, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- VMware ESXi or VMware Workstation?
- VMware vs. Hyper-V - Which do you prefer?
- How does VMware ESXi compare to alternative virtualization solutions?






















Some issues with VM using another OS (not windows), it is hard to troubleshoot the performance.