KVM Reviews

Our primary use case for KVM is our test environment. We utilize numerous servers and applications to test our core software, essential for operating mission-critical mobile networks. 

Mission-critical communication solutions support advanced push-to-talk devices, akin to 4G devices, and comply with European and US standards. We perform tests using software that runs on Linux, atop KVM. 

In production, we aim to offer these solutions to our clients, who are typically public transport companies and public safety organizations like police, fire brigades, and ambulances, as well as sectors like oil and gas and electricity companies.

KVM has benefited our organization by enabling us to assess different virtualization solutions with reduced latency, which is crucial for guaranteeing the reliability and real-time performance of our communication systems. This real-time capability of KVM enhances our capacity to deploy mission-critical solutions efficiently.

The most valuable feature of KVM is its superior real-time performance, which results in lower latency compared to alternatives like VMware and Microsoft. The ability to switch from one VM to another efficiently, thanks to the implementation of a real-time kernel, ensures delays remain minimal, thereby meeting our organization's performance requirements. This improved latency is critical because any delay in voice transmission could lead to life-threatening situations. 

Additionally, KVM being open-source means that we are not obligated to pay for licenses, which significantly reduces costs and simplifies license handling for ourselves and on behalf of customers.

Although KVM meets our expectations, it can be somewhat fragmented with numerous management tools available, making it difficult to determine which tool to use. In comparison to VMware, which offers a more balanced set of management features, KVM could improve in terms of user-friendly tooling.

We have been using KVM for approximately six months, in addition to our previous use of VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V technologies.

We are content with the stability of the solution. It is entirely stable, and we have not encountered any significant issues.

The solution is well equipped to run our workloads, so scalability is not an issue.

KVM is a community effort, and support is available through bulletin boards and help platforms. Paid support is also obtainable from companies like Red Hat for more critical issues. 

Overall, I would rate the support experience as quite good.

Positive

We previously used VMware and are transitioning from VMware to KVM. However, we still utilize VMware when customers request it. Our IT department also uses Microsoft Hyper-V when necessary.

The initial setup of KVM is simple and uncomplicated.

We have not found the implementation of KVM to be complicated. It requires only one technician for deployment.

KVM definitely saves costs since it is open-source and does not obligate us to pay for licenses as necessary with other virtualization solutions.

KVM is free, but for confidence in business-critical environments, paid support is available. Compared to VMware and Microsoft, KVM offers better pricing and licensing options.

We evaluated VMware, Xen and Microsoft Hyper-V as alternatives to KVM.

I would rate KVM nine out of ten points due to the variety of management tooling, which makes configuration and operation somewhat more challenging compared to VMware.

The most valuable features of KVM for us are the console, which allows us to build or clone VMs quickly, and the ability to take snapshots and recreate new VMs rapidly. That's one of the things we love about KVM.

The built-in management console, Auto KVM, is the most valuable tool for managing our virtual environments. We use it most to create and fire up new VMs or clone them for customers based on requests.

The  migration tools have worked quite well for us. We're moving from an Oracle Solaris platform for KVM logical domains, upgrading, and using KVM from Red Hat. It's slightly different but very similar to Oracle Unbreakable Linux, which is basically a clone of Red Hat. Oracle's console is easier to use than Red Hat's, though.

I think the management console has room for improvement. It could be more straightforward and user-friendly, like VMware's Console Management. This would make it easier for system admins to use and reduce training needs.

Regarding new features, we'll see when we have a chance to upgrade to a new version. We don't have any projects planned as we just upgraded to Red Hat 9.4 for some customers. Our environment is quite stable, so I don't expect any big changes until at least June next year.

I have been working with the product for a couple of years. 

I would rate the tool's stability an eight to nine out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability between eight and nine out of ten. Our clients are primarily enterprise businesses.

Regarding technical support, I don't need to call support often as we have a strong internal team. Support for Linux is pretty good, but support for Windows on KVM is more complex than VMware.

Neutral

On a scale of one to ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy, I would rate our experience with the initial KVM setup as eight. From my experience, it's very easy if you're doing it a lot. But for beginners, there might be a learning curve.

We currently deploy the tool more on-premises and in private clouds for our clients' organizations.

The deployment time depends on what you're asking. To set up a brand new server with KVM, I would say it takes about half a day. But if you're just building a KVM from an existing setup, it depends on the user's method.

The product's pricing is above average but cheaper than that of VMware. I can't provide specific licensing costs, but we have a contract with Red Hat for client support that covers everything. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees.

I would recommend KVM for virtualization needs, especially for Linux environments. However, it may not work as well with certain software licenses like Oracle or IBM that control the entire server instead of by VM.

I rate it an eight out of ten. 

We use the solution for production systems. We use it a lot in the Kubernetes environment. We are investing in microservices and Kubernetes. The tool enables virtualization.

Our whole microservice environment runs on the solution. We have quite a few Windows environments that run on it.

I've never had an issue with the tool. The performance is great. The product runs on Linux. KVM comes in as a standard with Linux. It integrates perfectly with Linux. KVM is written in Linux.

The product must provide better performance monitoring features.

I have been using the solution for four years.

The tool is very stable. Since we provisioned the box, it hasn't been rebooted yet. It has been 1400 days. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

I've never had any issues with scalability. It doesn't even occur to me. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. We have around 1000 users in our organization.

The initial setup is simple. I rate the ease of setup a nine out of ten. If the systems are already virtualized, the deployment takes a few minutes. To deploy the product, we must unload our previous virtual environment and reload the tool. It does the migrating for us.

The solution saves us time and money.

The tool is free.

KVM is similar to products like Acropolis and Nutanix. Nutanix’s virtualizer is based on KVM.

We use another security tool on top of KVM. It checks for encryption. We must go online and find a solution if we have any issues. People who want to use the solution must ensure they have a technical team. We are on our own. We should not use the product if we do not have the infrastructure expertise. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use KVM for virtualization needs across various clients, allowing us to run different operating systems and machine types, including Windows and Linux. It serves as a flexible solution for creating and managing virtual environments tailored to each client's requirements.

One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface.

In terms of improvement, I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift. This would enhance scalability and management capabilities, aligning KVM with industry standards and providing clients with more comprehensive features and options.

I have been working with KVM for seven years.

I would rate the stability of KVM as a six out of ten. There have been stability issues and occasional crashes with KVM, especially if incorrect commands are executed. Unlike VMware or Proxmox, which offer additional management tools, KVM is more sensitive to command errors and requires precise handling to avoid disruptions.

I would rate the scalability of KVM as a six out of ten. In our small to medium-sized enterprise, we cater to various clients, including larger companies with over 500 employees and sometimes even up to 1,000 employees.

I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as an eight out of ten. Deployment of KVM is quick and straightforward, usually taking only a short time. However, managing ongoing operations, especially for new team members or those unfamiliar with KVM, can be challenging and may require additional time and training.

KVM is quite affordable.

KVM has been a reliable solution for our on-premises virtualization needs, but as we transition to the cloud with Azure or AWS, its role becomes less significant. We are focused on migrating our workloads to the cloud platforms for scalability and flexibility.

The performance and scalability of KVM have impacted our operations positively, allowing us to efficiently manage workloads and accommodate growth. However, when onboarding new clients or managing dynamic workloads, it can sometimes pose challenges in workload management.

KVM can integrate with our existing infrastructure with some configuration adjustments. However, managing existing workloads on bare metal with KVM can be challenging and requires careful optimization of specific parameters during integration.

I wouldn't recommend KVM to new customers or clients. While it serves as the foundation of virtualization, there are other Linux flavors and applications like OpenShift that offer easier workload management, optimization, and scalability.

Overall, I would rate KVM as a five out of ten. While I have experience with it and have worked on various environments like KVM, HVM, PVM, and LVM, it hasn't consistently met all my expectations over time.

We have not explored the solution much. Once we start using the solution, we might explore much more things, like or figure out what is required to improve the solution.

We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly. So the systems are stuck, and we are not getting much help online. The online support is very less. We are not getting any kind of blogs and other things. So it is difficult to check out, like, how if some problem is coming, how we can fix it out. So that is not known to us. Hence, we are planning to get into a support contract with Oracle. Also, the Linux support we will get can help us technically with our problems and difficulties because we need to configure the cluster. We are not able to configure the cluster. So, I believe we needed some technical support or help to configure the cluster. In future releases of the product, I would like to see features and improvements in the solution that can make it have a user-friendly interface, better technical support, and easy cluster configuration. Also, blogs, and technical write-ups should be there. We should get the maximum help so that we can maximize the solution's usage.

Also, some kind of help tutorials should be made available so that the new users who are trying to install it can get help.

The fact that it is not a user-friendly tool should be considered for improvement.

I have started using KVM in my company for a couple of weeks now. It's new for us, and we are not able to utilize the solution. I am using KVM Version 9.1.

I can't comment on whether it is stable or not since I have not yet used it to that extent.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution around one to two out of ten.

We are not getting any technical support, maybe because it is kind of an OEM they are providing support for over Oracle or Red Hat platforms. There are a lot of write-ups I can see available, but the useful write-ups are very few.

Earlier, we were using Oracle VM, which was a little better than KVM, especially in terms of user-friendliness and implementation.

The installation part of the solution was okay. The problem is that we are targeting the cluster part, and we are not able to configure it. It took us an hour to install the solution.

The solution's maintenance is the next step. First of all, we have to figure out the clusters. Then we can think about any kind of maintenance requirements.

I was involved in the process since I am a technical person.

KVM is a common license tool, which can be utilized on any other tool, like Red Hat, Oracle, or Linux platform.

Until I'm not familiar with the solution, I cannot recommend the solution to others because we have taken a risk by switching over to KVM, and we are still in the process of configuring it. Probably, after we can take advantage, I can recommend it to others.

KVM is a little better than Oracle VM since it has been made with some better thoughts behind it to bring it out in the market. One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization. So it should be able to provide a performance-oriented template.

The product is really good, but the only thing is that we are not able to get the things we need in the product.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We use KVM for virtualization. 

The tool's most valuable feature is backup. The product makes it easy to manage virtual machines. Other tools require third-party applications like VMware and vSphere. However, KVM doesn't require these applications. 

I have been using the product for six to seven years. 

The data is in high availability. If my servers undergo maintenance, we switch to another virtual machine host. We delete the maintenance activity, restoring it to the original state, ensuring the users have no downtime.

We can add multiple hosts. Currently, we have three physical hosts with 30-40 virtual machines running. If there is a requirement change, we can easily add more rules or expand the cluster without any issues.

We rely on community support since we use the tool's open-source version. Tech support is available for subscription-based versions. 

I have worked with VMware before KVM. You need a subscription and license to work with VMware. VMware has features like vMotion and storage vMotion. KVM has the same features as well. The main difference between the two is in licensing costs. 

KVM is easy to install and manage. After installing the hypervisor, you can manage changes easily from the web console. You can modify policies, adjust settings like high availability, and access other advanced configurations by logging in. You can complete the deployment in one host in 10-15 minutes. 

KVM is an open-source solution. 

I rate the product a nine out of ten. 

The use cases for KVM depend on the customer's needs, and I deliver different customer services. For example, if a customer wants a virtual machine for a certain purpose, I give them a finished solution.

The most valuable feature of KVM is its stability.

The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly.

I have been using KVM for five years.

I rate KVM a nine out of ten for stability.

I provide other solutions like VMware virtual desktop and ESXi server.

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.

We deployed the solution through an in-house team in 10 to 15 minutes.

I use the free version of KVM, and I'm not sure if there is a paid version.

I would recommend KVM to other users.

Overall, I rate KVM a nine out of ten.

I use KVM for my data center, test environment, architecture, and integration environment.

Regarding features, you can update your system without products. So, it's probably the product's main feature for hospitals and critical systems.

KVM is better than Oracle VM since it is better to manage. Oracle VM is terrific when you update it. Also, Oracle VM is not stable. In fact, KVM is better. KVM did an audit last week on the performance. According to the audit, KVM is 40% better than Oracle VM.

The main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery. If you have two data centers, which are very, very far from each other, when your latency on the network is very high, you may have some problems. So, sometimes it is better to deploy a cluster on the first data center and use some technologies which are valuable, like Data Guard, between the two data centers. It's better than using a storage application because the console has some constraints with the latency. When you have more than 100 milliseconds of network latency, it is not possible to use disaster recovery. So, the aforementioned details can be taken into consideration for improvement.

I have been using KVM for a few years. Also, I am a partner, especially a partner for Oracle products.

It's a very stable product.

The product's scalability is good. I work in a very small company. I have only three agents.

I use Oracle Knowledge Base and Oracle's technical support.

In fact, Oracle Knowledge Base is very good, and you always have a response or answer.

I use Oracle Linux Virtual Manager, which is KVM-based, and oVirt console.

The solution could be deployed in a day.

One only needs a subscription to Oracle Linux. So, it's cheaper with Oracle Linux's subscription. It is not very expensive. In short, the solution is open source, and you need only a subscription.

I use the solution mainly for Oracle Database because there is a functionality or feature called hard partitioning, which VMware does not provide.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use KVM virtualization on which Red Hat works very actively. We run Windows servers from it and some of our other machines as well. We also use it as a container in the way others may use Docker.

We can use the solution the same way we use Red Hat, even though we don't use Red Hat itself. 

It offers a high-availability environment. We like the way everything is distributed. If one node dies, another resource is automatically enabled.

It offers good virtualization.

The solution, generally, is very familiar to VMware. The difference it is free to use. It has all of the main features you would find on VMware.

It works 24/7 without fail. 

The setup is very simple. 

It is stable.

The solution can scale.

We have found the solution to have good forums for troubleshooting. 

If it would work a little faster, that would be ideal. It's run on a 10GB network, so it is relatively slow.

Some things are pretty basic, and they could be more robust with more detail.

I've been using the solution for ten years or more. 

It is a completely stable solution. While there may be a few bugs, in general, we didn't face any special issues. 

The solution is scalable. You can have as many servers as you want to run as a deployment. I'd rate the scalability nine out of ten. We use CEPH storage that is extremely scalable and can go up to petabytes, although we don't have a use case for that sizing. 

We likely do not have plans to increase usage. Our basic needs are covered.

I've never used technical support. There are forums, however, that are available if people need assistance. Typically, if something comes up, you aren't the first person dealing with it. 

We have used VMware and Microsoft Hyper V, among others, and then changed to KVM. I was not happy with Hyper V at all as we didn't want to use any Microsoft domain, and Hyper V needed us to use it. KVM allows us to avoid Microsoft. 

The initial setup process is pretty simple and straightforward. Even in high availability mode, the setup is simple. 

If you have, for example, three servers and all of them can run the restore machines, and one dies, and everything moves to the others, for that step, you do need some sort of storage.

The deployment takes two or three days, at least if you need to start from scratch.

If you are doing the implementation in combination with setting up separate networks and everything, you need to program the hardware and so on, and that takes a little bit. 

I'd rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. Sometimes it doesn't work as you expect at the outset. We just need one person to handle the setup as we are a small company.

The solution is free to use and open-source. You may have to pay for support, however. There is an enterprise option that can be accessed as well. 

I am an end-user.

I'm not sure which version number of the solution we're using. 

I'd warn users that if they do not have experience with systems, then it may not be suitable. You need a bit of knowledge. Most companies use system integrators, and it is hard to sell free software. You can sell your services, yet not the solution. It's easier to sell VMware. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to customers who don't have technical skills.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We deploy KVM in our lab. Our use case is container deployment in a virtual machine, where we create communities. We work with containers through KVM.

What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines.

The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful compared to VMware.

I've been using KVM for a long time. I have a lot of experience with it.

KVM is very stable. I can't compare it to Oracle VM as that's never stable, so Oracle dropped that product.

The scalability of KVM is ten out of ten.

I never had a chance to call the KVM tech support team because the solution is perfect, so everything works. In case something doesn't work, that's usually an OS issue.

KVM is straightforward to set up. Compared to other solutions, it beats everybody in terms of installation. For example, creating VMs or installing an Oracle VM is complicated. In KVM, however, that's very easy.

I have no information on the cost of KVM because I downloaded it for the lab and not for production. It's free, but I don't know if that's the case for people using it in a production environment. I believe you have to pay for it if you use it in production, but I don't know the actual KVM cost.

I have experience with many virtualization technologies, including KVM. Virtualization is simple for me.

My company has many labs—one in Texas, then Chandler, then Folsom in California. There's a lab in Germany and Poland, so I can't give you the number of KVM users in the company, but that would be a significant number.

I'm giving KVM a ten out of ten because it's the best.