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Citrix XenServer vs Hyper-V comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Citrix XenServer
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hyper-V
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
138
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Citrix XenServer is 4.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyper-V is 14.8%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Siva Kuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 29, 2024
Allows us to allocate CPU, memory, storage, and network resources across VMs and minimizes downtime in case of hardware failure or maintenance
It is a scalable product and provides great benefits for virtualization needs. However, there are a few considerations: * Cost: Citrix Hypervisor can be fairly expensive. * Complexity: There's a learning curve, especially for those coming from a Microsoft background. Setting it up and managing it can introduce some complexity. * Hardware Support: Not all major hardware vendors fully support Citrix Hypervisor. * Third-party Integration: Integrating Hypervisor with other technologies within a large ecosystem can sometimes be challenging. * Community Support: Compared to solutions like Microsoft Hyper-V, the community support for Citrix Hypervisor is somewhat less extensive. It is not vast. If there are any issues or errors, the community support is not that good. Those are definitely important disadvantages.
Tommy Myo Min Aung - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 18, 2021
Highly stable, simple installation, and helpful support
In our environment, we have a special custom configuration for the Hyper-V switches we use. We have a full-scope VM in our environment and especially for certain Cisco configurations, such as the spam folder in the Hyper-V. It is really difficult to configure from scratch. In this scenario, the…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This is a good product for virtualization and it is easy to use."
"Citrix Hypervisor does a great job overall, such as the virtualization of the host. It's very easy to manage the virtual machine, to create, and configure high availability."
"Citrix is easy to use and is stable."
"The continued uptime of our virtual machines is good."
"The price is the solution's most valuable feature."
"Citrix Hypervisor is quick to deploy and easy to manage."
"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."
"This is a dependable solution for virtualization with a good community for product support."
"The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy."
"It is good for small installations."
"I like the functionality."
"The solution is very powerful, easy to use, user-friendly, and integrates well with Windows. If you are looking for a hundred percent Microsoft environment it would be a good idea to go with Hyper-V. They work wonderfully together."
"It's a stable product."
"It's good for what it does. If you have a small or medium-scale acclimatization, it's an excellent solution."
"The virtualized applications and real time audition of the VMA is quite a good feature."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The solution would benefit from faster technical support."
"I think the technical support could be better."
"The manageability of the solution needs improvement. It's an extremely bad product to handle."
"Network management needs improvement because it is not very stable."
"The solution is too expensive and people are kind of moving away from Citrix. It's starting to become a problem. It is a primary reason that while we are rebuilding we're going to seek out open-source solutions."
"The self-service user portal needs to be more granular and be more customizable."
"The product could be faster and licensing options could be improved."
"You need a licensed account to look up technical support."
"The solution should be compatible with different systems."
"It's not completely stable because your stack becomes bloated."
"I'd like to see better predictive diagnostics, so I know what's going on with the machines."
"The operating system is very, very heavy."
"There needs to be more functionality overall in the Hyper-V manager."
"An improvement I suggest is having more guest operating systems."
"The pricing and technical support can be improved."
"It would be nice if they had video acceleration, they got rid of that and VMware has video acceleration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While it is free for small networks, the pricing is high if your network grows past a certain size."
"The pricing and licensing is so important. Customers do consider the price seriously."
"We migrated from VMware to XenCenter to cut costs."
"The licensing is straight forward based on usage and features."
"I am fine with their license support. What we have right now is permanent, so I don't have a problem with their license."
"The most valuable feature is the cost; it is a free product."
"To subscribe to the paid version with support, it is approximately $6,000 per year."
"Citrix is a good low-cost alternative to VMware, so if budgeting is an issue then I would recommend it."
"The product is a bit expensive, but it is worth the money."
"Because we're an NGO or a charity, we get discount rates from Microsoft. The costs are not astronomical for us. To give you an example, Office 2019 would only cost 30 or 45 for us. We tend to use the on-premises version rather than the cloud version. The reason is that the subscription service works out more expensive after a few years than the on-premise version. We're not worried about having the bleeding edge stuff. We just want it to be functional."
"This product costs less than other competitor products on the market."
"I do not have any comments about pricing or licensing of the product."
"Hyper-V is included in the Microsoft Azure license for no extra cost. However, they charge for technical support calls on an hourly basis."
"We rent our licenses for this solution, which means that we also have access to premium-level support. The rental cost is payable annually and includes a number of products that work with this solution. It also allows us to run unlimited virtual machines without needing a license for each one."
"Microsoft recently tacked on a higher price for their software to use the storage migration in the Storage Spaces Direct array. That was just terrible."
"It's cheap, but not the best."
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Comparison Review

VL
Jan 13, 2015
vSphere vs. RHEV vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer
We have used the following functions: 1. Hypervisor: to ensure that the virtual server provide web and email services to the company, thus providing a stable operation a with single sign-on integration of an AD server and vCenter. 2. Network and Storage: centralized data server…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Citrix Hypervisor?
The core function enables multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server. This maximizes hardware utilization and efficiency.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Hypervisor?
I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being very inexpensive and ten being very expensive.
What needs improvement with Citrix Hypervisor?
It would be very helpful if I could browse the data store directly in the GUI, similar to VMware and Hyper-V. This feature would be particularly useful when something goes wrong with a virtual mach...
How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to virtualize Server or Client OS as it is a feature on Windows Server since 2008 a...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same features as with the more well-known products. Proxmox VE is very easy to deploy - it...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
 

Also Known As

Hypervisor
No data available
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

U.S. Army Shared Services Center, SoftLayer, Educational Services of America, Independent Bank, and SK Telecom.
Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix XenServer vs. Hyper-V and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
813,161 professionals have used our research since 2012.