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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
11th
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 April 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 19.1%, up from 14.4% 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 Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Hyper-V19.1%
RHEV2.4%
Other78.5%
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

"Using cluster with Hyper-V had a major impact on our protection environment. So all applications were virtualized using Hyper-V."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is storage virtualization."
"The solution has good scalability."
"The most valuable features are ease of use, and it gets the job done in a straightforward manner."
"The solution is easy to configure."
"We have a higher capacity server (specification wise) so there is no need to buy another additional hardware."
"Windows Server Hyper-V is one of the best visualization servers in the market today."
"We can illustrate all of the infrastructure very easily."
"There aren't any bugs on the solution."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable with good performance."
"Performance and security are key advantages of RHEV."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support portal."
"The solution is a great all-round product. The virtualization is especially good."
"The support for this solution is very good."
 

Cons

"It lacks a built-in cloning function, you have to use the traditional export/import."
"Hyper-V serves its purpose, but some areas may not be as feature-rich as alternatives like VMware ESXi."
"In general, based on my little experience with Hyper-V, I see a lot of obstacles. I think it falls behind the other competitors."
"Hyper-V is not stable - we've had many errors and have had to do a lot of patch fixes for it."
"For Hyper-V, the copy and paste function could be improved."
"The operating system is very, very heavy."
"In my opinion, read the documentation carefully. If you do not, you will have problems."
"Sometimes there's a bit of slowness in the VMs."
"This solution could be more secure."
"Configuring the network interfaces is much better in Ubuntu and should be improved."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
"We would like the dashboard feature of this solution to be improved, as it is not very detailed at present."
"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements."
"I found it a bit more difficult to manage than version seven, which was much easier."
"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."
"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not expensive."
"The licensing is pretty straightforward."
"Cost-wise, what one gets is directly proportional to the price paid. If the need for capacity doubles, then the price also doubles."
"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."
"Once we bought the datacenter version of the server, we did away with worrying about the cost of licensing our VMs separately"
"The Hyper-V pricing and licensing are very good."
"Thanks to our enterprise agreement with Microsoft, Hyper-V is free for us."
"The pricing is competitive, and a bit less than other options on the market."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"It's a budget product as far as I'm concerned. It's way cheaper than any of its competitors. The only thing cheaper than Red Hat is that the people who take the Red Hat code clone it and then self-support it."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"This is an open-source solution."
"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
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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: March 2026.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.