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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 19.4%, up from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Hyper-V19.4%
RHEV2.4%
Other78.2%
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

"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."
"It is stable."
"The technical support for Hyper-V is excellent, and I rate it as nine out of ten."
"The virtualized applications and real time audition of the VMA is quite a good feature."
"The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy."
"I definitely track savings in terms of time saving and money saving."
"It is familiar, it's very comfortable with Windows, and I can configure it easily, with no hassle."
"The most valuable feature is being able to do checkpoints then roll back to the checkpoint because that's what we need to test the software."
"Whenever there's an issue or problem, I contact customer support and they take it seriously."
"It is very stable."
"It's a scalable solution."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support portal."
"The platform is scalable, allowing for the installation of multiple nodes."
"RHEV’s cost is much less compared to VMware."
"Red Hat is the most stable system; it's better than other OS solutions."
 

Cons

"Hyper-V is hosted on OS but if your OS scratches you are in big trouble. In addition, if a host fails, automatically the machine and the virtual machine should boot from another source. Those type of features would benefit Hyper-V."
"The weakness of Hyper-V is in its interaction with iSCSI protocols."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support with Microsoft is crazy because we never get it."
"Virtualizing Linux isn't as easy as virtualizing Windows."
"SCVMM needs to be more user-friendly. Without SCVMM, automating is not easy to use and we look forward to the upcoming versions of SCVMM becoming simpler and more admin friendly."
"The documentation is not as good as it should be. There is a need for making it descriptive and in sequence."
"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."
"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"The biggest improvement would be more third-party direct support for things like backups and provisioning through third-party portals."
"The solution should be made more user-friendly."
"There is not any proper documentation on the site to reference."
"There are two things that I would like to see improvement in when it comes to Red Hat. First is the pricing and second is the support."
"The solution could use network virtualization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is competitive, and a bit less than other options on the market."
"Microsoft Hyper-V is not expensive and is easy to set up."
"The Hyper-V pricing and licensing are very good."
"The product comes with Windows Server."
"I think I'm okay with the cost. There are no monthly or yearly costs or additional costs."
"We previously used VMware, but we switched because Hyper-V is cheaper and delivers the same stability for less money."
"This is a fairly expensive product because it balances the needs of security."
"We chose this solution because of the pricing and the simplicity of the product."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"We are using the free version of Red Hat."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"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."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
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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
10%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
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: April 2026.
890,071 professionals have used our research since 2012.