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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 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 most valuable features of Hyper-V include high availability and management for virtual machine management."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the high availability of the solution."
"Hyper-V helps to make a replica server between two machines. It is very easy to learn."
"It is definitely the toughest competitor for VMware. It easily increases memory for our virtual machines."
"The setup was straightforward and easy for our company. The deployment was fast."
"I find the quick provision feature in Hyper-V to be extremely helpful."
"The solution is very powerful, easy to use, user-friendly, and integrates well with Windows. If you are looking for a hundred percent Microsoft environment it would be a good idea to go with Hyper-V. They work wonderfully together."
"What they provide is way beyond the essential requirements of customers."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."
"The solution is stable."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the popularity of the OS."
"RHEV’s cost is much less compared to VMware."
"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space. I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."
"This solution is very stable. Much more so than similar products."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if it was turned into its own product because that's the problem with it. It doesn't have a single place where you can manage things. You have to go into all different screens to be able to configure it. And then you have no idea what the performance is. It's really just a feature added to Windows, and Microsoft does not really have anything that pulls it all together well. Compared to VMware, it does not have everything collaborate on one screen."
"They should include a few more hardware components for integration with servers."
"The solution is heavily reliant on Microsoft's active directory for authentication, for coordination between nodes. Therefore, it inherits all the issues that are within the active directory."
"We have our scientific network, and it's run off the university sever, and we need two servers to optimize our scientific work, such as the mathematics work. Then you have to work with Python and Java, and Microsoft isn't the best option for this kind of work"
"Hyper-V systems need a lot of admin effort because security updates and monthly updates require rebooting after the update."
"Sometimes it is a mess, and it is getting hanged. It should be something that could be easily fixed. It made us have to deal with fixing the bugs."
"Microsoft increased the price for this solution when adding the Storage Spaces Direct feature."
"There is a hard limitation of 20 gigs per file with Dropbox, so you've got to overcome that by chunking the zip files into something smaller and manageable."
"My teammates and I often complain that VMware is well-documented and has a large community since it is the de facto standard. I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"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."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"Configuring the network interfaces is much better in Ubuntu and should be improved."
"The solution could use network virtualization."
"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"The Administration of the Oracle database and the SAP ERP needs improvement."
"We hope that Red Hat can produce a paradigm edition. We are looking for paradigm computing and paradigm storage. Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system. They should also provide local service and support. Our customers are looking for a good software vendor to provide professional services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the free version of Hyper-V."
"Hyper-V is included in the Microsoft Azure license for no extra cost. However, they charge for technical support calls on an hourly basis."
"There is nothing extra required for Hyper-V apart from the licenses that one purchases to use Microsoft Windows."
"The licensing costs depend on the environment you have. If you have an environment of less than 10 or 30 VMs, It's nice to have a Hyper-V, but if you have more than 100 or 200, I would recommend using VCenter, VMware virtualization, especially for an on-premise solution."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"The pricing and licensing is fine."
"Hyper-V is free when you buy Windows Server. You only have to pay for engaging in the management aspect in System Center."
"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."
"We are using the free version of Red Hat."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"This is an open-source solution."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"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."
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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
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.
884,656 professionals have used our research since 2012.