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Hyper-V vs Nutanix AHV Virtualization comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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
6.8
Hyper-V reduces IT costs as a cost-effective virtualization option, often achieving significant ROI through server maintenance and energy savings.
Sentiment score
6.3
Nutanix AHV dramatically cut costs and optimized efficiency, offering 45% savings, improved scalability, and reduced downtime within three years.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.9
Hyper-V support experiences vary; first-level is inconsistent, second-level better, with documentation often helpful for troubleshooting.
Sentiment score
8.8
Nutanix AHV Virtualization support is efficient and knowledgeable, providing proactive solutions and quick issue resolution with high satisfaction.
Technical support from Microsoft is excellent, rated ten out of ten.
The technical support for Hyper-V is excellent
The technical support is very good
Their engineers are excellent and provide great supportability.
They provide prompt and quality responses.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
Hyper-V is flexible and scalable, accommodating growth well, but effectiveness depends on infrastructure and has some VMware limitations.
Sentiment score
8.4
Nutanix AHV Virtualization offers exceptional scalability, allowing easy node addition, minimal downtime, and flexible horizontal and vertical scaling.
The scalability of Hyper-V is great; I would rate it nine out of ten.
Hyper V can support over two hundred virtual processors and around 12 TB of memory.
We can scale our systems easily without any downtime, making it a highly effective solution for dynamic environments.
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is very scalable; however, I might be underutilizing its capabilities.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Hyper-V is generally stable but less so than VMware, dependent on configuration and occasionally impacted by updates and resource limits.
Sentiment score
8.5
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is praised for stability, reliable performance, and seamless management, despite occasional patch delays affecting ratings.
Automation is unavailable, and reporting is difficult.
Frequent Windows updates can impact stability compared to VMware ESXi.
The solution is very stable.
Issues such as patch delays and the OVF format challenge affect its stability rating.
I would give the stability a seven out of ten at the moment, primarily due to the issues I've had with updates.
 

Room For Improvement

Hyper-V requires improvements in cloning, licensing, features, performance, configuration, networking, storage, management, and integration compared to VMware.
Nutanix AHV needs enhancements in deployment, support, interface, and integration, with focus on stability, pricing, and documentation.
Hyper-V could be improved by implementing the same set of features that other tools provide.
Hyper-V should ensure the features of VMware are covered within its platform.
Hyper-V should improve features such as Quality of Service enhancements and VLAN management.
This delay in patching creates risk, especially for government projects that require timely updates.
These menus often show options like host, memory, and disk, however, they fail to provide insight into what's happening.
Using Lenovo hardware seems problematic with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which demands careful consideration during updates.
 

Setup Cost

Hyper-V is cost-effective with favorable licensing, though additional costs for features and support can impact the overall expense.
Nutanix AHV provides cost-effective virtualization with no licensing fees, offering significant savings compared to competitors like VMware and Citrix.
Hyper-V is completely free and requires no licensing fee.
Until 2019, Hyper-V was a cost-effective solution because it was available as a free product.
Hyper-V's licensing costs are lower compared to VMware, making it cost-effective for smaller workloads.
This has been advantageous as it does not require additional licensing costs for the hypervisor, contributing to overall cost savings.
Other solutions like Citrix and VMware have seen a significant price increase, whereas Nutanix hasn't increased as dramatically.
The pricing was reasonable compared to other competitors, though the storage was expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Hyper-V provides cost savings, scalability, and seamless Windows integration, making it ideal for efficient business virtualization.
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is praised for its user-friendly interface, cost-effectiveness, automation, and robust disaster recovery features.
It is completely free, which is a significant advantage.
I find the quick provision feature in Hyper-V to be extremely helpful.
The most valuable features of Hyper-V include high availability and management for virtual machine management.
It is easier to manage than VMware in some ways, providing a good level of interaction.
The technology behind the backups is very efficient, enabling a reliable virtual environment.
 

Categories and Ranking

Hyper-V
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix AHV Virtualization
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 14.5%, down from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is 8.2%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ananth Narayana Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective and good for small workloads while addressing update-driven challenges is needed
I use Azure Monitor and other monitoring solutions to support clients in Accenture's managed services. We support multiple environments, primarily on cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and also on-premises environments with operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Solaris, among others…
Zack Baraci - PeerSpot reviewer
High availability and user-friendly interface enhance manageability
I primarily use the core features of Nutanix AHV Virtualization ( /products/nutanix-ahv-virtualization-reviews ) at the moment. The high availability (HA), replication, and site-to-site replication are quite useful. Additionally, the usual hypervisor management functionalities are beneficial. Nutanix AHV Virtualization delivers a system that is very manageable, with a well-designed user interface. It is easier to manage than VMware in some ways, providing a good level of interaction.
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
How does Nutanix AHV compare with VMware vSphere?
To understand which is better - Nutanix AHV or VMware vSphere - you need to do a product comparison. Both products support hypervisors. However, Nutanix supports some of the most popular ones and m...
What do you like most about Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
Integration is the most valuable feature of the product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
Compared to the competition, the pricing for Nutanix AHV Virtualization is reasonable. Other solutions like Citrix and VMware have seen a significant price increase, whereas Nutanix hasn't increase...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Find out what your peers are saying about Hyper-V vs. Nutanix AHV Virtualization and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.