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Citrix XenServer vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
Citrix XenServer offers virtualization benefits, cost savings, improved management, and value with high availability despite higher licensing costs.
Sentiment score
7.8
Red Hat OpenShift improved productivity, scalability, and ROI with seamless cloud integration, benefiting sectors needing high security like banking.
My clients generally maintain their Citrix infrastructure without shifting, suggesting stability and reliable operation as Citrix XenServer is fully established.
Moving to OpenShift resulted in increased system stability and reduced downtime, which contributed to operational efficiency.
With OpenShift combined with IBM Cloud App integration, I can spin an integration server in a second as compared to traditional methods, which could take days or weeks.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Citrix XenServer support is knowledgeable and helpful, but slow response times and accessibility challenges can affect user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.8
Customer service varies, with quick attention to urgent issues but mixed feedback on response times for complex problems.
They do not provide adequate support for midsize businesses.
Since being acquired, Citrix's customer service has experienced delays in response time.
Red Hat's technical support is responsive and effective.
I have been pretty happy in the past with getting support from Red Hat.
We have dealt with many cases with Red Hat support, and while they eventually solve issues, it sometimes takes them a long time to reach a resolution, particularly with complex matters related to IBM Cloud.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Citrix XenServer is praised for its scalability, seamless expansion, ease of use, and suitability for diverse deployment sizes.
Sentiment score
7.6
Red Hat OpenShift excels in scalability, efficiently managing large deployments with features like Horizontal Pod Autoscaling for extensive workloads.
Familiarity with Linux can enhance its performance and usability.
OpenShift's horizontal pod scaling is more effective and efficient than that used in Kubernetes, making it a superior choice for scalability.
Red Hat OpenShift scales excellently, with a rating of ten out of ten.
OpenShift is highly scalable, allowing us to manage thousands of pods effectively.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Citrix XenServer is praised for stability, effective updates, strong support, and minimal issues, supporting enterprises of all sizes.
Sentiment score
7.6
Red Hat OpenShift is stable and reliable, with improved performance in recent versions, rated highly by users for stability.
I've had my cluster running for over four years.
It provides better performance yet requires more resources compared to vanilla Kubernetes.
It performs well under load, providing the desired output.
 

Room For Improvement

Citrix XenServer needs enhancements in startup, memory, backup, support, interface, and community, with better integration and reduced costs.
Red Hat OpenShift users seek improved documentation, configuration simplicity, enhanced security, and better integration, deployment, and interface accessibility.
Although the product is technically competitive, it is not widely known or used due to poor marketing.
Citrix needs to improve the hypervisor, specifically in security and performance.
Learning OpenShift requires complex infrastructure, needing vCenter integration, more advanced answers, active directory, and more expensive hardware.
The removal of Grafana and HPA from monitoring caused some issues.
We should aim to include VMware-like capabilities to be competitive, especially considering cost factors.
 

Setup Cost

Citrix XenServer offers free and paid versions, with paid providing enhanced features and support at a notable price.
Red Hat OpenShift pricing is cost-effective with flexible licensing, extensive features, and strong support, though improvements are needed.
It is cheaper compared to its competitors.
The pricing and licensing policy of Citrix XenServer is not transparent and quite confusing.
The cost of OpenShift is very high, particularly with the OpenShift Plus package, which includes many products and services.
Red Hat can improve on the pricing part by making it more flexible and possibly on the lower side.
The cost is a crucial factor, particularly with licensing.
 

Valuable Features

Citrix XenServer is favored for its high availability, ease of use, affordability, and seamless integration with Citrix solutions.
Red Hat OpenShift excels in security, scalability, Kubernetes integration, CI/CD support, and multi-cloud flexibility for efficient application management.
It provides secure access to applications and resources, which is crucial for us and our clients.
It is user-friendly and easy to deploy, making it an attractive option.
OpenShift offers an easy-to-use graphical user interface for cluster management, making it more accessible for administrators.
A valuable feature of Red Hat OpenShift is its ability to handle increased loads by automatically adding nodes.
The concept of containers and scaling on demand is a feature I appreciate the most about Red Hat OpenShift.
 

Categories and Ranking

Citrix XenServer
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (3rd), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Citrix XenServer is 5.0%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 0.3%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Tonatiuh Torres Zamorano - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers comprehensive solutions for small and medium businesses with a straightforward setup
I find Citrix XenServer valuable for small to medium-sized businesses. It is user-friendly and easy to deploy, making it an attractive option. When included with Citrix virtualization solutions, it provides a comprehensive package with existing licenses. Despite being effective for small to medium infrastructures, it may not be the best hypervisor for larger deployments.
Mikhael Ibrahim - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamlessly monitor microservices with streamlined DevOps capabilities
Most benefit from it, however, I work with Kubernetes, and installing Vanilla Kubernetes is easy. That said, it introduces many tools that need to be set up individually. OpenShift comes ready out of the box, with all tools installed and configured. Red Hat certifies and confirms that all the components are compatible with each other. OpenShift's superior dashboard is a notable strength, especially when compared to Kubernetes. The integrated DevOps capabilities, such as pipelines and the container registry, are extremely beneficial. Additionally, its capability to monitor microservices and containers with integrated tools like Prometheus is a major advantage. The horizontal pod scaling exceeds the scalability features I found in Kubernetes.
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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
54%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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?
XenServer is considered cost-effective, as its licensing allows users to utilize the hypervisor as part of Citrix virtual app or desktop licenses. It is cheaper compared to its competitors.
What needs improvement with Citrix Hypervisor?
Citrix needs to improve the hypervisor, specifically in security and performance. Additionally, the response time from customer support has room for improvement, which could enhance the overall use...
How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
What do you like most about OpenShift?
OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.
 

Also Known As

Hypervisor
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

U.S. Army Shared Services Center, SoftLayer, Educational Services of America, Independent Bank, and SK Telecom.
UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix XenServer vs. Red Hat OpenShift and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.