KVM Reviews

We are using KVM on-premises with Ubuntu 20.04 for the primary purpose of reducing operating expenses (OpEx) and to make maintenance and security easier for us. Of note, with this kind of virtualization technology, you can very easily create backups and restore data in case of disaster.

The services that we have running on our virtualized KVM environment are currently being used by everyone at the company, numbering in the range of thousands of end-users.

We also make use of Proxmox VE and, less often, VMware.

The most helpful aspect of KVM is the fact that the interface is so minimal. It includes just what you need to set up the VMs and manage them, and it's very simple to do so. You don't need to go with the typical black-screen command-line interface; instead, you just have a small graphical interface with which you can create VMs, edit them, upgrade calculations, and perform other administration tasks. And, because the interface is so lightweight, it has very low memory usage.

KVM, as a native virtualization solution, is a complete and fully adequate system for small businesses that need to reduce costs, and also to make maintenance easier. 

One problem I have is that it's not very scalable when it comes to resizing the VM disk dimensions. For example, if you have initially set a virtual drive to 10 GB and you want to upgrade it to 15 GB, it's not that easy. For this kind of task, you have to get behind the command-line to set it, and this process isn't easy for a newcomer. However, if you have planned your virtualization project well and you know exactly how much RAM and storage space you will need for each different VM, you can simply set it and forget it, because everything you set is permanent.

Another improvement I would like to see is better functionality when it comes to making snapshots automatically while the VM is still running. For example, when a VM is running and you want to back it up, occasionally the VM backup that you obtain is not usable. Thus, I would propose that in the next edition of KVM there should be better "hot" backup features (as opposed to "cold" backups which are performed when the VM is powered down). 

I have been using KVM for about six years.

KVM is extremely stable, to the point where I would give it 5/5 stars for stability.

In terms of expanding the dimensions of your virtual disks, KVM is not easy to scale. Let's say you have a 10 GB disk, and you want to scale it up to 15 GB, the process requires that you enter a basic console and use the command-line interface to set the new size. It's not always an easy process for beginners. On the other hand, it is easy enough to scale other resources such as the CPU and RAM.

However, in general, when it comes to supporting a large number of users, it is scalable enough for us as we have thousands of users in the whole company using the services that are being virtualized with KVM.

Additionally, it's not hard to scale when talking about labor and maintenance. For example, I'm the only one administrating the infrastructure, by setting up and managing the VMs (e.g. adding VMs, editing configurations, etc.), for all these thousands of users in all different positions of the company.

I provide support for the system myself and I have not yet needed additional support, mainly because I only use it for basic operations.

KVM is a perfect alternative to commercial solutions in the market such as VMware, especially when it comes to stability. In my experience, KVM is more stable than VMware.

I performed the initial setup and I did not need to contact support. Instead, I provided the support I needed by myself, in order to become comfortable with the basic operation of KVM. Compared to Proxmox, the setup is very similar, although admittedly Proxmox offers a more user-friendly interface to manage VMs.

In all, the setup took about two hours. If the internet connection is good, I install the operating system, then set up the hypervisor and perform the updates before installing the VMs. Two hours is about enough for this entire procedure. 

There is no cost involved in the use of KVM, as it is open source.

On the whole, I would certainly recommend KVM to new users. Going further, I would give the following advice: although it's true that deep administration can be a bit difficult for newcomers who are not used to Linux, if you just follow the tutorial on KVM deployment and plan your deployment properly, you will be able to set up a stable virtualization system with ease. That's one of the perks of KVM — it's natively very stable once it has been set up correctly.

I would rate KVM an eight out of ten.

We are a consulting company and I work with a lot of solutions to compare them and find out which ones are good for my customers.

The primary use case for this solution is virtualization.

I use this solution in on-premises data centers.

Compared to other virtualization solutions KVM is much faster and better at managing resources. For example, we compared XEN, KVM, and Vmware for creating development infrastructure for our programmers, we ended up using KVM.

The GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before.

The performance of this solution is great.

This solution is lacking in features such as management and integration.

• This solution needs better integration with desktop virtualization.
• Better integration with storage solutions is needed.
• Business continuity features need to be added.
• The live migration needs to be improved.
• You cannot run this application in a data center using only the GUI, so you have to have some knowledge with Linux in order to best manage it.
• Better network management software is needed.
• Features like vSAN are not available on KVM.
• Integration with Kubernetes would be an improvement.

Generally, this solution should be made easier to use. Many customers don't have enough experience with Linux or a deep understanding of operating systems, and they just want to use the product. This together with a lack of features has led customers to choose VMware.

I have been working with this solution for more than ten years.

This solution is limited in terms of scalability. I think that it is suitable for a mid-range company, but for a larger company, it is not quick. It does not have features for companies that need expandable solutions.

This solution is not used directly by the end-users. If KVM is installed in their data center then they just use the virtual machine. Users don't care about infrastructure, they're just looking for stability and use the operating system for their service. It is the administrators who use this product. Typically, there are two or three administrators in each data center. In terms of end-users, I have seen more than one hundred concurrent users.

We do not have access to Red Hat support from our country.

For technical support we depend on the internet and the knowledge of our administrators.

I have used XenServer and VMware, and the performance of KVM is better than these.

When it comes to management, integration, business continuity, and live migration, KVM is lacking features and VMware is better in this area.

The initial setup of this solution is not hard, but when you want to use this product in your data center, you have to use the command-line interface to better manage it. You cannot run this application using the GUI alone, so if you don't have enough knowledge with Linux then you may have some trouble.

Most of our solutions are implemented in-house as well as this one.

This solution can be used for free but if you have an expert team on Linux OS, select this one. if you don't have them, forget about it.

I evaluate options such as XenServer, VMware, and KVM every six months in order to choose the best product for my customers.

I have been using this solution since before it was owned by Red Hat, when it was community-based. It is easier to manage than ever before because you used to have to use the command-line interface, instead of the GUI.

I do not recommend this product for those looking for a stable and scalable virtualization solution because they will ultimately have problems in their data center. Just two weeks ago, I helped a friend of mine to migrate from KVM to VMware.

I think that if Red Hat worked on some business continuity features and add them to KVM then it would receive a better grade and be a more competitive solution.

I would rate this solution a five 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're a system integrator company, and we implement solutions in these categories based on the requirements and related solutions. Sometimes our logic and security concerns are feature-oriented. Due to that reason, we're working on a case-to-case basis, and we use KVM for some clients.

I like that it's easy to manage. It's also more powerful when it comes to security than others. That point of view is the one consideration. The other consideration is that it's cost-effective.

Technical support could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an improved user interface and dashboard. This type of improvement will make it easy or help our engineers understand the solution from a requirement point of view.

I've been working with KVM for about three years.

It's a stable solution. I haven't had any complaints from the customers.

It's a scalable solution.

Technical support could be better. If I compare it to other systems, support services need to be upgraded. For example, VMware provides support instantly. That's our previous experience. If a client asks for support, they give a prompt response. They even try to connect to a remote expert and solve the problems that way.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's quite user-friendly and easy for those who are used to Linux and Oracle environments. But if they're not used to it, then it could be a little complex.

We are an integrator, and we implement this solution.

The price is fair compared to others. But in our local market, it's a problem to get budget approval from management. That's why they are trying to get those products so we can give them the price benefit. But if you consider the international market or other products, it's sometimes better than their price.

I recommend this solution, especially for the banking sector, hospitals, and NGOs.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give KVM an eight.

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.

Our primary use cases are for regular hosting and traditional hosting VPSs. We are a provider of VPSs on the market. And the second use case, cloud offer, is also based on KVM.

KVM is pretty good hyper-vision technology and is pretty much the same as VMware and Microsoft.

The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows.

The speed is around thirty percent slower than another competitor. This would be something to work on.

I have been using KVM for the past two years.

The stability is better than Red Hat. I find that it is very stable.

We currently have more than ten thousand servers operating on KVM and thirty thousand customers. We do have plans to increase usage.

We previously used Red Hat but the Hypervisor is excellent with KVM and more stable.

The initial setup is easy and straightforward and takes about fifteen minutes to deploy by pushing a button.

We did our implementation in-house and deploy it ourselves.

We see savings every month of around twenty thousand dollars.

KVM is an open-source product that works well for us. 

We did look at the Virtuals option but decided to go with KVM.

KVM is one of the best in virtualization, and I would rate KVM an eight on a scale of one to ten.

We integrate KVM as part of our product. I'm the CTO of our company. 

The solution is very cost-effective. VMware is exorbitantly priced and compared with other products KVM is much cheaper especially in the public cloud scenario.

Their support for snapshot and revert could be improved. I'd also like to see the product achieve high availability across clusters and to have more support for Apache CloudStack.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

We haven't had any issues with stability. 

Scalability is fine, no problems at all. 

We have worked with certain support vendors and they're fine. In particular, we work with one of the Red Hat partners and we're quite happy.

The complexity or otherwise of the initial setup depends on the situation but generally it's not too difficult. We offer our customers maintenance support which generally involves update patching.

KVM offers both an open source and licensed version. 

Before deployment, it's worth checking whether the solution fits your use case and how it would be used across various large deployments. Test it before implementing. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10. 

I'm a senior Linux system administrator and we are customers of KVM. 

I like that this solution is open source, it was easy for me to configure and I haven't had any problems with it.

I think the UI could be developed more in the future because there are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex. A GUI for controlling the VMs would be a good additional feature. It's easy for us but it's difficult for others working with CLI.

I've been using this solution for over three years. 

KVM is stable, but the product from VMware E6 is not stable and I sometimes have issues with it and then the usage of RAM and CPU is costly in my experience. 

This solution is scalable. 

We did not initially have support but when I have used it recently it's been good. 

The initial setup is quite easy for me, I use CentOS. 

KVM is good and I recommend it. In the future, containers will be substituted by virtual machines and KVM need to adapt to be able to support that. 

I rate this product an eight out of 10.