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Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) vs. Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    KVM

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/AKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.N/A

    Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)

    Score6.1 out of 10
    N/ARed Hat Virtualization (formerly Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, broadly known as RHEV) is an enterprise level server and desktop virtualization solution. Red Hat Virtualization also contains the functionality of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktop in later editions of the platform.

    $999

    Per Year Per Hypervisor

    Pricing
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard
    $999.00
    Per Year Per Hypervisor
    Premium
    $1,499.00
    Per Year Per Hypervisor
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Considered Both Products
    Red Hat
    Chose KVM
    KVM is free and provides environments where guests can run their own Kernel while still performing very well.
    It is also very native to work with KVM since it is integrated within the Linux Kernel.
    Incentivized
    Discontinued Products
    Chose Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    RHEV is an excellent product, includes more features, is less expensive, and has rock solid reliability and is backed with the best Red Hat Support in the industry. RHEV uses KVM under the hood which is used by all the big players in the industry (AWS, Rackspace, etc) to lower …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    RHEV offers a decent GUI and many management features, such as an API.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    VMware ESXi is a more mature technology, as it has been around for a longer period of time. However, automating ESXi installations requires hacking OEM media and an intense amount of knowledge of how ESXi operates under the hood. The WebUI and associated functionality for ESXi …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    RHEV is more stable than oVirt but less capability. Much easier to automate than esx
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Feature
    Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
    9.2
    6 Ratings
    13% above category average
    Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    7.7
    10 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning7.05 Ratings7.910 Ratings
    Management console10.04 Ratings7.310 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup10.04 Ratings7.29 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration10.05 Ratings6.910 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security9.04 Ratings8.99 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    6.6
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KVMRed Hat Virtualization (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Red Hat
    KVM is the best solution in the case you need to test and turn up any virtual environment with limited vCPU/RAM resources. The obvious area of its use is a network environment when we want to avoid being tied to one type of hardware/vendor and being able to swap from one instance to another with no downtimes. The use of a vSwitch (that supports VLAN tagging) is a significant bonus for network engineers that some other hypervisors do not provide.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    RHEV is well suited for organizations that need a cost-effective and flexible solution for their environment. As its vendor-independent software, easily install on any type of hardware. RHEV provides a GUI interface to manage the software, which makes the management of the software easier for the end-user. RHEV is best for non-production or less critical applications. RHEV can be easily integrated with other REDHAT software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Red Hat
    • KVM is really good at providing fast and reliable virtualization for Linux guests
    • Since KVM is a kernel module, every VM is a Linux process which can be managed by Linux system tools
    • KVM integrates very well with the management framework libvirt, which is why KVM can be integrated in automation tools as well
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • RHV issues/bugs can be reported via Bugzilla to RH support. The service is great and typically responds soon.
    • Red Hat distribution integration is seamless as it is integrated into the kernel.
    • OpenStack support enables more customized VM templates and network configuration control.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Red Hat
    • KVM itself doesn't ship with a management interface
    • KVM itself is a bit complicated to handle
    • KVM needs Qemu to virtualize Windows guests
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • 1- RHVM API is pretty slow, especially after creating a VM it is not possible to retrieve the VM details (i.e VM's MAC Address) fast enough, where we need to place a pause in our Ansible Playbook, make the automation process slow.
    • 2- RHV is still using collected to monitor the hypervisors which is deviating from Red Hat policy for other RHEL based applications to use PCP to monitor, which is richer in features.
    • 3- It will be great if it is possible to patch the hypervisors using other tools such as satellite and not only via RHVM.
    • 4- In the past Red Hat used to present patches in the z release (i.e. 4.3.z), and features in the y release (i.e 4. y), but starting from 4.4 that is mixed together wherein the Z release you get both patches and features, that is not good because that requires a lot of time to test when we patch as it includes features as well.
    • 5- Engineering team has to be more reactive when new feature is requested.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Red Hat
    It does the job and stays out of the way. The specifics of usability relies on the implementation, but with things like Icarus and libvirt, things are standardizing nicely.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Red Hat
    It is a very reliable solution that can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with low overhead. It is a free and open source software. Easy to use withOpenStack.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    RHEV is an excellent product, includes more features, is less expensive, and has rock solid reliability and is backed with the best Red Hat Support in the industry. RHEV uses KVM under the hood which is used by all the big players in the industry (AWS, Rackspace, etc) to lower their overall costs and improve efficiency and profits and that's why RHEV is an excellent solution!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Red Hat
    • Fast provisioning of new servers.
    • Huge drop of the cost of servers compared to bare metal.
    • Easy upgrades of resources, sometimes now even requiring a server restart.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • RHEV has provided a positive ROI as our customers are not experiencing as many outages during maintenances.
    • We have not experienced any catastrophic failures as a result of vsphere losing connection to the ntp.
    • There has been a level of stability in our environment that was not previously experienced with our previous vendor.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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