Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) vs. VMware Workstation Player

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

VMware will work great for the following test scenarios:

• Testing windows updates on a system
• Testing a new software or a new software version
• Creating a sandbox to test options/features of an OS
• Creating different VM to test a software on different OS without the need to have physical machines for all of them

You can also use it as a "player" only where you have that static VM that you run from time to time as with my use for SAS University. Whenever you need to use the software, you simply start that VM.

Incentivized

• 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

• VMware Player is easy to use.
• VMware Player supports a wide variety operating systems.
• Unity mode makes it easy for the end user to utilize needed legacy applications while maintaining their familiar Host OS desktop. It's seamless to the point where the end user doesn't know they're running applications from a VM.

Incentivized

• 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

• Would be nice to use more VMs at once, but this is basically trial software, so it's hard to fault them.

Incentivized

I give a rating of 8 because VMware Player has its use cases, for example it requires the host OS to be logged in, and the VMware Player application to be opened and the Guest VM started. Only one VM can run at a time. I'd give a 9/10 to VMware Workstation because you can run shared VMs at startup without logging in or starting the workstation application. and i'd give ESX a 10/10 because ESX is the leader in enterprise visualization.

Incentivized

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

Great product. Its user-friendly GUI and overall performance are really the biggest strength of this tool. The reason why I don't give a higher note is because of the price. Although it's decent (starting at around $200 for a license), there is a good free alternative in VirtualBox. Not everyone values friendly GUI as something worth paying for. For people that are more tech-savvy, I would recommend looking into VirtualBox as they might actually like the model better (with downloadable add-ons and packages).

Incentivized

Integration isn't really relevant here but I see this question more as an OS compatibility for the VM. They state that they support over 200 different OS versions. I honestly have never tried anything else other than Ubuntu and Windows myself but nonetheless, this is impressive. I have not hit any limitation in my use of this software in terms of limitation or conflicts with other software.

Incentivized

VMware support is very knowledgeable on their products, eveything from AirWatch to ESX clusters. VMware is easy to contact, they stay in touch and see the issue through to the end and a final resolution. They keep you up to date on your issue status and don't leave you waiting for answers.

Incentivized

Installing the application was easily completed on the twenty computers that needed VMware Player. Once those 20 users were configured we copied our virtual machine template to the 20 users and turned on their newly provisioned virtual machines. We then configured unity mode so the user could easily work from within the virtual machine from their host desktop.

Incentivized

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

Both free, VMware supports USB 3.0 while VirtualBox does not. VMware supports nested hardware-assisted virtualization while VirtualBox does not.

Incentivized

• 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

• A positive impact is that it require little to no funding to use.
• Negative impact is that because it is free it can be hard to get support.