Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
13th
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 February 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 18.2%, up from 14.5% 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-V18.2%
RHEV2.4%
Other79.4%
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 organization has realized the benefits on smaller data center space, power, cooling, etc. apart from the benefit that the virtualization layer brings in."
"There are some products that you can mount over Hyper-V that provide the features that, in today's Hyper-V, are not present."
"The technical support for Hyper-V is excellent, and I rate it as nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Hyper-V is the replica service."
"Hyper-V provided freedom to spin up development and test environments. As projects were created, an environment could be created and applied."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It was easy to install."
"It is very easy to install. It can be done in a day."
"The installation was straightforward."
"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."
"The solution is a great all-round product. The virtualization is especially good."
"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."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"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."
"There aren't any bugs on the solution."
"It's a scalable solution."
"It is very stable."
 

Cons

"Hyper-V requires improvement with manageability."
"In general, based on my little experience with Hyper-V, I see a lot of obstacles. I think it falls behind the other competitors."
"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"I think the console could use some improvement for the backups."
"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 serves its purpose, but some areas may not be as feature-rich as alternatives like VMware ESXi."
"An improvement I suggest is having more guest operating systems."
"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."
"Customers are not aware of this solution, they can improve by providing more awareness and solution availability."
"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."
"We'd like it if it would be possible on Red Hat Virtualization to possibly connect two or three VMs to the same disk."
"The solution has a very small lifecycle."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"It lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For us, it is free, so it was a prime factor for choosing this solution."
"The price is quite fair. It is not too expensive."
"We have an agreement with Microsoft, so this came with that solution. The pricing is OK for us."
"The product is a bit expensive, but it is worth the money."
"The product's price is low."
"We did not have to pay extra money for the Failover Clustering feature."
"It's cheap, but not the best."
"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."
"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."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"This is an open-source solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Virtualization Software solutions are best for your needs.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
12%
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.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.