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Hyper-V vs RHEV comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Hyper-V
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
145
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
RHEV
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 18.2%, up from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hyper-V18.2%
RHEV2.4%
Other79.4%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Tomas Basus - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at NIPOS
Virtualization has reduced licensing costs and improved integration but still needs better performance insight
Integrations bring the biggest benefit to us. We use half of our virtual machines that are Microsoft, so it works better hosted in Hyper-V compared to VMware. Clustering and failover capabilities in the product help with our availability. It helped because we switched to Hyper-V because it was lower cost than paying for high availability in VMware. We need Microsoft licenses for virtual machines, so it costs less than buying two solutions for that. We have data center editions, so it did not cost us additional money compared to paying for high availability from VMware. I think it helped a little, but not so different compared to VMware regarding security and bandwidth optimization.
Mike Neuliep - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has supported virtualization projects in side jobs but has required workarounds due to lack of maintenance
In my opinion, the best features of RHEV are that it is a real hypervisor and it is free, so it performs better than VMware. I have used the live migration feature in the past with RHEV. There is a free clone of it that is based on the open source. Live migration is a nifty feature if your app is not highly available and you need to do maintenance on a machine. You can migrate the VM off of it, do your maintenance, and move it back when you are done. RHEV has a high availability architecture with a built-in monitoring feature where you could see machines other than the one you are operating on. I tend to implement high availability not so much in RHEV, but by using standard application high availability strategies. Red Hat has another product specifically for high availability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time."
"My understanding is it's easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate the Hyper-Visor center from one console."
"Hyper-V improved the infrastructure drastically, not only from a performance perspective but from a control/administration view as well."
"Hyper-V deployment is very user-friendly. It supports partial scripting and offers a UI for a smooth experience. There's also PowerShell scripting available for advanced users."
"II prefer customers to use Hyper-V because Hyper-V is mostly integrated with Microsoft solutions."
"The support with Microsoft is great."
"The ease of use of Hyper-V is the most valuable feature."
"In my opinion, the best features of RHEV are that it is a real hypervisor and it is free, so it performs better than VMware."
"It is very stable."
"It's a scalable solution."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"RHEV’s cost is much less compared to VMware."
"The solution is a great all-round product. The virtualization is especially good."
 

Cons

"An improvement I suggest is having more guest operating systems."
"The pricing and technical support can be improved."
"Status and availability became an issue and need."
"Security, computing balance, and taking snapshots could be improved. Features like DRS and memory ballooning could be added."
"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"They could work on lowering the cost of the solution."
"The solution should improve its native integration with other public cloud solutions."
"Hyper-V systems need a lot of admin effort because security updates and monthly updates require rebooting after the update."
"We'd like it if it would be possible on Red Hat Virtualization to possibly connect two or three VMs to the same disk."
"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"The solution could use network virtualization."
"We would like the dashboard feature of this solution to be improved, as it is not very detailed at present."
"The support is tricky in a few places. We're facing some challenges within Malaysia where we don't really have the system integrators available who can provide extended support. When we need personnel on-site, we can't get them."
"The Administration of the Oracle database and the SAP ERP needs improvement."
"It would be better to have more patches, especially kernel-level updates, live and online so that we can keep the business up and running during this period."
"The documentation is not as good as it should be."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Microsoft Hyper-V is not expensive and is easy to set up."
"We have an agreement with Microsoft, so this came with that solution. The pricing is OK for us."
"We previously used VMware, but we switched because Hyper-V is cheaper and delivers the same stability for less money."
"I would not say that it is a totally reasonably priced product as it is merged with our overall costs associated with Microsoft products. We bought some enterprise licenses for our company's data center for Windows Server 2019."
"There is nothing extra required for Hyper-V apart from the licenses that one purchases to use Microsoft Windows."
"I think it is expensive. I think if they want it to be more competitive, they should lower the price."
"This product costs less than other competitor products on the market."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"The price of RHEV is high. It is an open-source solution, the price should be less. The price should not be on par with a solution, such as VMware. It's not more or equal to VMware, it's less, but the difference should be more substantial."
"This is an open-source solution."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"This product has a variety of licensing options available. However, the level of licensing, and therefore the cost of licensing, is dependent on the number of servers being utilized."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"We are using the free version of Red Hat."
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Comparison Review

VL
CIO at Robusta Technology & Training
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
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business70
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
 

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.
What do you like most about RHEV?
The initial setup is fairly straightforward and well-documented. The process is very similar to its competitors. The success of your setup depends on how well you plan.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for RHEV?
It's the open source. There's not much cost. It's very minimal comparably. Compared to what I am paying for VMware, it's negligible.
What needs improvement with RHEV?
RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years. I would love to get back into RHEV, but the job market is difficult and no one is hiring. RHEV is designe...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.
Find out what your peers are saying about Hyper-V vs. RHEV and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.