We performed a comparison between Citrix Hypervisor and KVM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Server Virtualization Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Citrix Hypervisor integrates easily and I can manage the infrastructure better. If I need to take a machine down to expand the hard drive, I do not have to physically be here. I do not need to order new equipment or new hard drives. I can shut it down, increase the drive space and bring it back up."
"What I find most valuable in Citrix Hypervisor is its licensing policy, because you'll get it for free if you buy a Citrix XenDesktop license. You don't need to spend additional money on the Citrix Hypervisor because you can manage both the Citrix XenDesktop and the Citrix Hypervisor with just one license, so you can save on cost. I also like that the solution is good support-wise. Hardware support is also faster compared to other solutions."
"The solution is easy to deploy. It's very easy to understand problems and read logs."
"The feature I find most valuable, is its performance"
"What I like the most is the support of the GPU Graphics and the VM Live migration."
"The solution integrates well with other solutions, which makes it really strong as a primary solution to deploy."
"Citrix is easy to use and is stable."
"Ability to move your virtual machines from one host to another."
"I find the density of the product most valuable. It is density that a technologist can just assign page merging. This is what makes KVM one of the important players of the virtualization market."
"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."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"Very cost-effective."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"I find that the features in Citrix Hypervisor are not as rich as with VMware. It would be a benefit if they had some of the other features VMware has, such as the ability to expand a drive on the fly. You do not have to take down the machine to do it but in Citrix you do."
"Citrix Hypervisor is expensive if you get it as a stand-alone product, so this is one area for improvement. Its price could be cheaper. We also found other areas for improvement in Citrix Hypervisor, for example, we can't use SCIM provisioning, and there are limitations to the size of the HDD. Another area for improvement is the pass-through storage, in particular the removable storage, because that also has limitations where you can't connect to the drive if it is more than one TB."
"There's a learning curve, especially for those coming from a Microsoft background. Setting it up and managing it can introduce some complexity."
"The solution needs better backup facilities that are available for virtual machines to create servers on."
"The licensing costs are too high on the solution. They should work to make the costs more reasonable."
"I am not very sure about how flexible Citrix Hypervisor is with different types of infrastructures. I only know it is flexible with Nutanix, but I am not sure if it is also flexible with others. They can make its integration with other platforms or OEMs easy. They should also make it easy for users to manage their infrastructure. Citrix should make compatibility information related to a hypervisor easily available in a datasheet. Citrix isn't really recognized in this part of the world, and they need to expand their solution and make it more available. There are a lot of customers and companies that are looking for a solution like Citrix, and it should be available in this part of the world. They need to educate people more. Technically, it is good and flexible and has good ability, but it is not as much known as VMware or Microsoft. Their support should also be improved. Currently, if you don't have an updated version, they will not give you the attention."
"The product could be faster and licensing options could be improved."
"The built-in networking features are a little limited."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"I have previously used VMware and KVM is easier to use. However, they both have their strengths depending on their use cases. They are mostly equal. One of VMware's advantages is it has better support."
"I believe KVM offers a unified answer, while ProxMark addresses orchestration. KVM lacks orchestration. If the aim is to centrally oversee multiple KVMs – let's say to freeze them – a centralized management solution is absent."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"We would like to have a software lifecycle solution included in this solution. We can handle the software needed for KVM, but also the software that we provide. A lifecycle component would be very beneficial."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
Citrix Hypervisor is ranked 8th in Server Virtualization Software with 46 reviews while KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 39 reviews. Citrix Hypervisor is rated 8.2, while KVM is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Citrix Hypervisor writes "Allows us to allocate CPU, memory, storage, and network resources across VMs and minimizes downtime in case of hardware failure or maintenance". On the other hand, the top reviewer of KVM writes "Delivers good performance because of kernel-based virtualization". Citrix Hypervisor is most compared with Proxmox VE, VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, Oracle VM VirtualBox and Nutanix AHV Virtualization, whereas KVM is most compared with Proxmox VE, Oracle VM VirtualBox, Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and IBM PowerVM. See our Citrix Hypervisor vs. KVM report.
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