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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."
"Hyper-V can expand storage. For instance, if I have a VM running on NetApp or another platform, I can expand the storage without interrupting operations. It is useful when I need to quickly allocate more storage without causing downtime or performing maintenance tasks."
"It is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from how my company uses Hyper-V for replication."
"It's a very manageable product."
"We have a higher capacity server (specification wise) so there is no need to buy another additional hardware."
"My understanding is it's easy to set up."
"Hyper-V's technical support is good - they're responsive and sort cases based on criticality and category, so they get dealt with quickly and by the correct team."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"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."
"RHEV’s cost is much less compared to VMware."
"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."
"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."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"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."
"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."
 

Cons

"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."
"I think there is room for improvement in terms of the cloud solutions."
"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"Microsoft increased the price for this solution when adding the Storage Spaces Direct feature."
"It needs to improve the handling of the amount of storage."
"Hyper-V could benefit with improvements to their management interface."
"Hyper-V isn't a lightweight solution like VMware. Management could be more straightforward. Even as far as disk management tools are concerned, it would be better if that could be made simpler. The same applies to performance."
"One of the network problems I face is I cannot introduce other security layers on top of Hyper-V as you can in VMware. When it comes to the network the VMware is more flexible than Hyper-V."
"This solution could be more secure."
"While everything needs improvement in some way, I have no specifics."
"With RHEV, the cyberattacks should be fewer. I want RHEV to be better protected."
"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"The solution could use network virtualization."
"Red Hat by itself is not scalable. But you can have third party add-ons like Ceph to make it massively scalable."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I use the free version of Hyper-V."
"We did not have to pay extra money for the Failover Clustering feature."
"I think I'm okay with the cost. There are no monthly or yearly costs or additional costs."
"In terms of the licensing, if you are using Microsoft Windows 100%, it is OK. But, when you start mixing other environments, it becomes quite tricky."
"Hyper-V is cost-effective and is a one-time purchase. Microsoft has multiple licensing options available, such as a subscription model and an outside purchase model that customers can choose as per their requirements."
"The tool's pricing is cheap."
"The Hyper-V pricing and licensing are very good."
"The license is free."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"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 are using the free version of Red Hat."
"This is an open-source solution."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
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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.
884,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.