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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

"The excellent features included in Hyper-V are dynamic memory management, better end user virtual performance, 3D Graphics enhancements, and good quality of media streaming."
"I recommend Hyper-V because it's easy to install and supports most hardware."
"The organization has realized the benefits on smaller data center space, power, cooling, etc. apart from the benefit that the virtualization layer brings in."
"With each update, the security of this solution just gets better and better. It is very stable."
"I like the functionality."
"It has provided a good cost-saving from the management perspective."
"I think the cluster environment is a good feature of Hyper-V because, if something happens, then it will automatically move to some other mode. This is a great feature of the solution."
"Hyper-V has improved our organization by enabling consolidation, high availability, disaster recovery, backups, and more."
"Technical support for RHEV is very fast and good."
"I advise keeping an open mind. It's an excellent solution."
"They are so advanced today and so mature in what they do that they could easily give any top-notch industry leaders a run for their money."
"For the Windows side, we also initiated a digital transformation project, moving a lot of Windows applications to the container side and the open-source software side, which resulted in almost 70% savings of our past expenses."
"It is easy to deal with when comes to application migration and its compatibility with the multiple component applications."
"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable with good performance."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space, and I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."
 

Cons

"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"The networking portion of Hyper-V needs improvement."
"I attempted to use a virtual Fibre Channel connection to present a SAN volume to a VM but was not able to make that work."
"Many vendors, such as Cisco and HPE, are discontinuing support for Hyper-V as they believe it does not have a significant market share."
"There are usability issues with Hyper-V's manager."
"The only issues we have had recently are with Windows updates that are built into the Windows server with Hyper-V."
"Microsoft should have not required a data center license for the new feature of Storage Spaces Direct."
"The corrupted volume is a problem."
"When we do a direct comparison, then obviously VMware does better in terms of having Fault Tolerance and doing active disaster recovery and these kind of things."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"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."
"The GUI interface needs improvement. Not 90%, but 50% or 60% of the work is done from the command line and so on, so the GUI needs work because people are looking for an easier way to manage the environment."
"It lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"In comparison to VMware, this solution isn't as stable. We're testing it right now, and we're not trusting the stability of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is pretty straightforward."
"Thanks to our enterprise agreement with Microsoft, Hyper-V is free for us."
"We have an agreement with Microsoft, so this came with that solution. The pricing is OK for us."
"We chose this solution because of the pricing and the simplicity of the product."
"Licensing cost depends on the edition you choose. There are two main options: Standard and Datacenter. With a Datacenter license, you can only create two virtual machines that are covered by the license itself. You can create more VMs, but they won't be licensed and could result in charges during an audit."
"I think it is expensive. I think if they want it to be more competitive, they should lower the price."
"The product comes with Windows Server."
"Hyper-V is free-of-charge."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"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."
"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 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."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
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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.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.