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KVM Valuable Features

BB
Chief Technology Officer at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees

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.

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Lan Tuong - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology and System Infrastructure Architect / Senior Technical Support at TELUS Communications Inc.

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.

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MP
CTO at DPD south AFrica

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.

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Buyer's Guide
KVM
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about KVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.
XP
Eco System Building Director at SmartX

There is a strong emphasis on availability, and they have numerous API interfaces for distributed storage and the solution is quite known for its openness.       

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Rohail Aslam - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

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

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Nayan Gohel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Support Engineer at Microlink Solutions Pvt Ltd

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. 

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Christophe JOBARD - PeerSpot reviewer
President at Direction GRID SAS

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

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reviewer1453941 - PeerSpot reviewer
Virtualization and Cloud Solutions Architect at a university with 10,001+ employees

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

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GN
Business Engineer and Consultant at All-Tech

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. 

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GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Consultant at Xerif

The platform's most valuable features are stability and ease of management.

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DK
CEO at iSolute Ltd

The most valuable feature of KVM is its stability.

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GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Consultant at Xerif

Documentation and problem-solving troubleshooting are the most valuable features. Performance (when fine-tuned and with "special" HW) is awesome, equal to or more than other enterprise closed-source solutions.

Performance-wise it's very similar to other hypervisors, and it is the hypervisor core for other virtualization solutions (just like Proxmox).

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AshutoshKumar4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Quality Engineer at KML

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.


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reviewer1977888 - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Owner at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

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. 

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AL
Owner at Simplify IT (Thailand) Co., Ltd.

The solution overall is just okay. We moved since we are sharing the commercial term from publisher to subscription.

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reviewer2291406 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

The most valuable feature of the solution is that KVM is much more flexible than Oracle VM. Multithreading in KVM is also a very good feature. Oracle VM supports only serial ports, so executions happen one after the other, while KVM supports parallel ports, allowing you to do multiple tasks at the same time, which also makes it a more flexible choice.

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MS
IT expert/sys admin at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

The key aspect is that the KVM directly interacts with the Kronos. There's no clear indication of indirect communication with Kronos. It is not linked to Kronos, and interaction is straightforward without any intermediaries.

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Konstantin Anisimov - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Rusonyx

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

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SonuSingh - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect at Micro Focus

The most valuable feature of KVM is the hypervisor environment and how we can configure it with ease. Additionally, the interface is intuitive.

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Muhammad Harun-Owr-Roshid - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at BRIGHT-i SYSTEMS LIMITED

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.

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Mostafa Khadem - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Linux System Administrator at Dana Energy

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

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BP
Founder at Element Flux

The solution is really easy to use. Basically, it takes just a few command-line statements to install and have it set up and running. From there, you can use the virtual manager, which is command-line. However, there's also a graphical user interface for it. It's just really easy to use. all-around

If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options. You can pretty much run and manage all of the virtual machines straight from the command line, or you can use the practical user interface and do the same thing.  

I noticed that there are even other services like Multitask. You can use Multitask on KVM.

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KS
CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

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.

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SC
Technical Solution Manager at OneAsia

The screen and keyboard sharing feature is valuable. 

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MB
Solution Architect, IT Consultant at Merdasco - Rayan Merdas Data Prosseccing

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

The performance of this solution is great.

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it_user1455690 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at a retailer with 1-10 employees

It is easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox.

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EH
Project Leader at Logicalis

KVM is a very good solution for the user ecosystem.

The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface.

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VC
System Engineer at NoBoring Lda

I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy.

When you install Hypervisor with KVM, you can transform it into a server with the graphical QEME in minutes, then look at what you have and remove all graphical things and then you can restore what you had originally.

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GN
Business Engineer and Consultant at All-Tech

The solution is very light when you are putting your Operating System on it. You forget that there's a virtual layer on your solution. You are using it as if it was a whole computer. It's like having an entire computer that you've launched and have running with the Operating System that you need to work with.

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reviewer807690 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

simplicity of installation

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Software512a - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Architect with 501-1,000 employees

I find the density of the product most valuable. It is because of kernel same page merging technology (KSM) that is integrated into Linux kernel. That high density makes KVM one of the important players of the virtualization market.

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AR
IT-Leiter (IP) at IN-telegence GmbH
  • Open source
  • The ability to execute live migrations
  • Linux, a base OS.
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it_user781875 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees

There is a lot of value with an open source solution because you have some freedom of changing how the system behaves and looks because it's open source. You can modify to your requirements which you cannot really do with VMware.

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it_user781875 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees

A big strength with KVM is that it is an open-source component. It gets improvements from Intel, for example, and the other semiconductors. It can be sized-down to a very small package. It can be used in embedded systems as well, so it has a very good performance and it is suitable from embedded IT to big servers and supercomputers.

This solution integrates nicely with other soft-open-software components.

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reviewer849252 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Our infrastructure is based on KVM and Linux Containers (LXC). We had a lot of VMware legacy, but it was converted to Ubuntu and KVM hypervisor for about the last year. Management and backup is a lot easier with with Ubuntu and KVM, especially combined with ZFS and snapshotting.

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it_user667986 - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at Universidade de Brasília at a tech company with 51-200 employees
  • Low cost, if not lowest.
  • Great performance and scalability.
  • Security is top-notch.
  • Free.
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it_user302112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

KVM runs virtualized guests with its own kernel, which is very important to me.

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FR
IT Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

It gives us live VM migrations.

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Fausto Kenji Natsumeda - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I appreciate the network passcode feature in KVM, as it provides a convenient way to manage DNS and cloud hosting.

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Buyer's Guide
KVM
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about KVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
859,687 professionals have used our research since 2012.