Hyper-V vs RHEV comparison

Microsoft and Red Hat are both solutions in the Server Virtualization Software category. Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.0, while Red Hat is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.2. Microsoft holds a 19.8% mindshare in SVS, compared to Red Hat’s 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Hyper-V

Read 145 Hyper-V reviews

23,519 Views
20,462 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

RHEV

Read 37 RHEV reviews

3,987 Views
3,947 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Hyper-V

RHEV

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

RHEV and Hyper-V are competing in virtualization platforms for enterprise needs, with Hyper-V often gaining preference for its feature richness and user satisfaction despite RHEV's competitive support and pricing, indicating Hyper-V's broader capabilities may justify its cost for many organizations.

Features: RHEV provides stability, open-source flexibility, and is known for low costs and straightforward migration capabilities. It supports up to 160 cores and 2 TB of RAM and is particularly efficient in Linux environments. Hyper-V offers dynamic memory allocation, seamless integration with Windows environments, and strong security protocols. It also provides advanced features like live migration and Hyper-V Replica, which enhance dynamic scalability and disaster recovery.

Room for Improvement: RHEV could benefit from improving its feature set to match competitors like VMware, offering richer third-party support, and enhancing scalability features. It might also consider enhancing its compatibility with non-Linux environments. Hyper-V could enhance its automation features, improve the ease of navigating its UI for non-Windows users, and expand its feature set for better competition against VMware's broader capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RHEV provides a traditional Linux-oriented deployment that integrates well with existing Linux infrastructures. Users find the setup process straightforward, which benefits Linux-centric organizations. Hyper-V's deployment is more streamlined within Windows environments thanks to tight ecosystem integration, offering Microsoft users a smoother setup process and comfortable management through existing Microsoft services.

Pricing and ROI: RHEV presents an attractive pricing model with lower initial costs and good ROI especially in Linux environments. Its open-source nature makes it a cost-effective choice with competitive pricing against other virtualization options. Hyper-V might require a higher initial investment but offers considerable ROI through its advanced feature set and integration within Windows systems, suggesting that its cost is justified by its comprehensive benefits and simplified management for Windows environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Hyper-V vs. RHEV Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Hyper-V vs. RHEV

April 2026

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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

13th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 19.8%, up from 14.1% 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
Product	Mindshare (%)
Hyper-V	19.8%
RHEV	2.4%
Other	77.8%

Server Virtualization Software

Featured Reviews

Tomas Basus

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.

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Mike Neuliep

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.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Hyper-V improved the infrastructure drastically, not only from a performance perspective but from a control and administration view as well, directly benefiting the products and services offered on the platform and allowing customers to increase or decrease resources on their workloads at any given time while reducing their costs."

"With the new features and functionality in Windows Server 2016, looks like there is still a good future for the software defined server."

"It makes it easier to deploy service. All service tends to migrate onto the server house without having problems now. It is hardware independent."

"The features I find most valuable are utilizing the hardware so there is multiple applications running on one hypervisor."

"It helps us build servers."

"The solution is stable."

"We have a higher capacity server (specification wise) so there is no need to buy another additional hardware."

"With the Windows data center, I can have an infinite number of virtual machines."

More Hyper-V pros

"It is very stable."

"Technical support for RHEV is very fast and good."

"The solution makes migration easy."

"When you purchase RHEV, you are essentially buying a subscription license. This license can be integrated with various client types, including these integrations with the subscription."

"I advise keeping an open mind. It's an excellent solution."

"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."

"For any application that requires 100% uptime, 100% of data accessibility, I use these servers."

"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable with good performance."

More RHEV pros

Cons

"If you have a lot of Hyper-V servers then you will need an additional product, which is the System Center Virtual Machine Manager, so that you can control the host environments of all of your virtual machines."

"Hyper-V could benefit with improvements to their management interface."

"The support from Microsoft is very slow."

"The the only challenge for us was moving existing physical machines to virtual machines."

"Hyper-V is both stable and scalable; however, I also use VMware which I find to be more scalable and stable overall."

"If I want to create a cluster of around five to 10 physical servers Hyper-V does not get integrated with any kind of virtual sense, such as vSense."

"Hyper-V is hosted on OS but if your OS scratches you are in big trouble."

"It might make it easier to move VMs across Hotmail hosts. This application process make it a little bit easier."

More Hyper-V cons

"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."

"Scalability depends on the applications. Red Hat by itself is not scalable."

"We'd like it if it would be possible on Red Hat Virtualization to possibly connect two or three VMs to the same disk."

"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."

"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements."

"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."

"They don't know how to sell their great products and don’t really seem to be interested in taking care of their partners who trust and really know their products."

"The solution could use network virtualization."

More RHEV cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have an agreement with Microsoft, so this came with that solution. The pricing is OK for us."

"The pricing is not an issue for us because we have a licensing agreement with Microsoft. So we are given an 80% discount."

"It's not expensive."

"I use the free version of Hyper-V."

"We chose this solution because of the pricing and the simplicity of the product."

"Hyper-V is free when you buy Windows Server. You only have to pay for engaging in the management aspect in System Center."

"Licensing needs to be a lot easier to manage with Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware is easier."

"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."

More Hyper-V pricing and cost advice

"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."

"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."

"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."

"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."

"Its price depends on the use cases."

"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."

More RHEV pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Virtualization Software solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

Thang Le Toan (Victory Lee)

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

University

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	70
Midsize Enterprise	37
Large Enterprise	46

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	12

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...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyper-V?

I think regarding price and license for Hyper-V, it is affordable.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for RHEV?

I have done some consulting where I used RHEV, taking on side jobs to run virtual machines in the financial industry for a startup. The last time I used RHEV was in my home lab, but that has been d...

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware vSphere vs Hyper-V

Compared 50% of the time

VMware Workstation vs Hyper-V

Compared 7% of the time

KVM vs Hyper-V

Compared 6% of the time

Proxmox VE vs Hyper-V

Compared 5% of the time

oVirt vs Hyper-V

Compared 2% of the time

More Hyper-V Competitors

VMware vSphere vs RHEV

Compared 17% of the time

Proxmox VE vs RHEV

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle VM vs RHEV

Compared 11% of the time

KVM vs RHEV

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs RHEV

Compared 6% of the time

More RHEV Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Hyper-V

May 2026

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Buyer's Guide

RHEV

May 2026

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Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

Overview

Hyper-V delivers scalability, cost-effectiveness, and seamless Windows integration with dynamic memory, live migration, and replication capabilities. Its interface and automation tools optimize resource management, enhancing operational efficiency in virtualized settings.

Hyper-V stands out for its advanced networking features, offering proactive VM replication and high availability. Simplified setup alongside built-in Powershell scripting boosts automation capabilities, while Virtual SAN Manager aids in reducing hardware investments. However, improvements are needed in cloud platform integration and operational interface to enhance user experience. Licensing costs are significant, and support for diverse OS remains limited. Networking and live migration require fine-tuning to improve performance. Despite challenges in deployment and compatibility, Hyper-V remains a preferred choice for hosting vital production servers and providing robust virtualization solutions across diverse environments.

What key features does Hyper-V offer?

Scalability: Supports flexible resource allocation for growing environments.
Seamless Windows Integration: Easily integrates with Windows-based systems.
Dynamic Memory: Efficiently manages memory allocation in real time.
Live Migration: Allows live transfer of VM workloads with minimal impact.
Hyper-V Replica: Provides robust VM replication for high availability.

What are the anticipated benefits of using Hyper-V?

Cost-Efficiency: Reduces operational costs through effective virtualization.
Resource Optimization: Efficiently utilizes existing hardware and software.
High Availability: Ensures ongoing service delivery and data protection.
Operational Efficiency: Enhances productivity with robust automation tools.

Organizations in education, finance, and IT sectors deploy Hyper-V for virtualization, using it to consolidate servers and manage infrastructures efficiently. Its integration with platforms like Microsoft Azure facilitates cloud solutions, supporting applications like SQL Server, Exchange, and Linux in diverse operational settings.

Microsoft

RHEV offers a cost-effective virtualization platform with support for up to 160 cores and 2 TB of RAM per host, emphasizing open-source accessibility and integration with applications like OpenStack.

RHEV stands out with features such as high performance, stability, ease of migration, and robust security. Its integration capabilities with diverse applications and the self-service Power user portal enhance its appeal for IT environments. While the platform's affordability compared to VMware is noted, areas for improvement include the GUI, user-friendliness, network virtualization, and the need for enhanced pricing and support in regions lacking system integrators. RHEV's ability to facilitate seamless migration from legacy systems to virtual environments is widely adopted in sectors such as government, banking, and IT services.

What are the key features of RHEV?

Open-Source Accessibility: Offers flexibility and customization options.
High Performance: Supports up to 160 cores and 2 TB of RAM per host.
Seamless Integration: Integrates well with applications like OpenStack.
Live VM Migration: Enables continuous operations without downtime.
Power User Portal: Provides self-service capabilities for users.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Cost Optimization: Provides a cost-effective alternative to VMware.
Scalable Computing: Allows flexible resource allocation and scaling.
Migration Efficiency: Facilitates moving from legacy systems smoothly.
Robust Security: Enhances data protection and privacy management.

RHEV is widely used in high-computing tasks like AI and big data analytics within data centers, supporting cloud solutions, AI, and ERP systems. It's implemented in privacy clouds for industries such as government, banking, and IT services to migrate workloads from physical to virtual environments and optimize operational costs.

Red Hat

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.

Buyer's Guide

Hyper-V vs. RHEV

April 2026

Free Report: Hyper-V vs. RHEV

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