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IBM PowerVM vs VMware vSphere 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
IBM PowerVM enhances ROI by reducing Oracle licensing costs, offering scalability, reliability, and ease of administration for large databases.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere delivers substantial savings, faster deployment, increased efficiency, and high ROI through reduced hardware and operational costs.
The return on investment is substantial, though other platforms may offer a better ROI, primarily due to lower costs involved in setup and maintenance.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
IBM PowerVM support is reliable and knowledgeable, but improvements are needed in hardware support without subscription, despite overall satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere's customer service is praised for expertise but criticized for delayed responses and inconsistent lower-tier support quality.
IBM provides strong support.
IBM offers excellent customer support.
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
My team solves most tickets, needing support only about once or twice a year.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
IBM PowerVM offers exceptional scalability, handling large deployments, flexible adjustments, and high performance, though some users find it costly.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware vSphere excels in scalability, seamlessly integrating new resources for efficient, robust performance across diverse enterprise environments.
An IBM server can handle up to sixty-four terabytes of RAM.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
IBM PowerVM is highly stable and reliable, offering strong security and performance, making it ideal for high-performance workloads.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere is praised for stability, with issues usually related to hardware and resolvable through patches and maintenance.
The stability of IBM PowerVM is exceptional, as industry reports have named IBM Power and Z as the most stable platforms globally for 15 consecutive years.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
 

Room For Improvement

IBM PowerVM needs better management tools, UI enhancements, cost reduction, improved cloud integration, and broader OS compatibility.
VMware vSphere faces criticism for high costs, unresponsive GUI, limited features, poor support, and inadequate security and integration.
We have a strong relationship with IBM, which aids decision-making in transitioning clients from mainframe to other platforms.
PowerVM should integrate some capabilities of VMware vCenter to improve its management features.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
 

Setup Cost

IBM PowerVM pricing is high and varies by project, offering reliability but requiring negotiation due to hardware and support costs.
VMware vSphere offers stability and robust features but is costly, with complex licensing, especially challenging for smaller organizations.
Pricing is a concern in Argentina due to the higher cost of mainframe solutions.
PowerVM itself is free with the purchase of an IBM server.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
 

Valuable Features

IBM PowerVM offers stability, flexibility, and security with resource allocation, reduced costs, seamless migration, and robust performance control features.
VMware vSphere enhances virtualization with seamless VM movement, high availability, resource optimization, scalability, and efficient centralized management, reducing costs.
It supports specific workloads, like Oracle and SAP HANA, much better due to its shared processor pool feature which reduces licensing costs.
PowerVM excels in efficiently managing all systems and environments, including development, UI, and production.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
The high availability feature is significant.
VMware vCenter is extremely useful as we can manage between 100 and 1,000 hosts using just one management tool.
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM PowerVM
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSphere
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
452
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of IBM PowerVM is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 19.4%, up from 18.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable system for high-end data processing with a great support structure
The only problem with the IBM system is improving its hardware licensing model. For example, when you procure a server with 40 physical codes, you must also procure licenses to activate the codes. In Dell or any system, you procure the hardware and have the full right to use the hardware. For IBM, it's different because when you procure a 40-code processor and have 40 physical codes, you only have a license to use 20. As a result, the 20 alert codes will always be in activated mode. Hence, the hardware licensing model could be improved because the licensing model is a bit different from the standard hardware procured.
Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM PowerVM?
Managing other operating systems is also straightforward with IBM PowerVM.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM PowerVM?
PowerVM itself is free with the purchase of an IBM server. However, I find that the overall cost is higher, however, the total cost of ownership is cheaper for larger workloads.
What needs improvement with IBM PowerVM?
PowerVM should integrate some capabilities of VMware vCenter to improve its management features. IBM should consider models that combine x86 and Power processors for versatility in running Windows ...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

PowerVM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sto, Soitec, SNO, Bundesrechenzentrum GmbH, Al Mansour Holding, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Huhtamaki, ELK Group, IT-Informatik, Arkansas Tech University, Pneuhage
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM PowerVM vs. VMware vSphere and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.