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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 March 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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
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

"I appreciate its stability and user-friendly management interface."
"Hyper-V provided freedom to spin up development and test environments. As projects were created, an environment could be created and applied."
"I have found the GUI user-friendly and having the solution be a Windows application makes it familiar to users."
"The solution's technical support is the best."
"The most valuable feature is the high availability of the solution."
"The setup was straightforward and easy for our company. The deployment was fast."
"The initial setup is simple. There's not much to do. We input one command or just one or two clicks on the UI. Initial setup in the Windows environment for any software is not that difficult."
"It is a very stable product. We have not had any issues with Hyper-V crashing itself."
"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 easy to deal with when comes to application migration and its compatibility with the multiple component applications."
"We find the ease of use of this solution to be invaluable. It is user-friendly and integrates well with other software."
"It is a scalable solution."
"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."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."
"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."
"Technically, the main reason why I'm using Red Hat is because of its stability."
 

Cons

"Storage via SMB3."
"We have our cluster connected to a Dell EMC VNX (SAN). The Hyper-V nodes are on Cisco UCS blades, and everything is interconnected via fiber. 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."
"The solution should be compatible with different systems."
"It needs additional administration and monitoring capabilities."
"We've had many issues with Hyper-V's stability, including resource crunches and memory leakage."
"I would like Microsoft to put more effort into the Admin Center interface and make it much easier. It is customizable, but you have to be a PowerShell expert to customize these things. That is a limitation."
"Status and availability became an issue and need."
"Virtualizing Linux isn't as easy as virtualizing Windows."
"The UI should be more interactive with additional features."
"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements. They should not be halted or delayed innovation because over the past quarter the enhancements have not been as fast as they have been previously."
"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."
"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 solution has a very small lifecycle."
"I heard that there are big differences between Red Hat eight and seven, but it's still quite difficult for me to judge it. I found it a bit more difficult to manage than version seven, which was much easier. In term of features, though, it is still not yet clear which is better. I have no clear idea of which features need to be changed at the moment."
"It lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing isn't too bad, because you can do the bare metal hypervisor, and it is pretty fair. Other competitors are more expensive."
"This product costs less than other competitor products on the market."
"There is a license required to use Hyper-V and there are bundle packages you can purchase making it cheaper than other solutions, such as VMware. Additionally, if there is a lot of guest OS that requires Windows, then Microsoft becomes cheaper."
"There is a perpetual license to use the solution and there are additional fees for support."
"It comes with all the features and goodies inside the box, so you do not have to purchase anything else."
"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."
"The solution is not expensive, and the subscription is annual."
"Once we bought the datacenter version of the server, we did away with worrying about the cost of licensing our VMs separately"
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"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."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"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."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"This is an open-source solution."
"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
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
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: February 2026.
883,448 professionals have used our research since 2012.