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KVM vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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
8.5
KVM users save $20,000 monthly due to its open-source nature, eliminating license fees and offering cost-effective virtualization.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere reduces costs and enhances efficiency with virtualization, offering savings, agility, and improved resource utilization and scalability.
KVM definitely saves costs since it is open-source and does not obligate us to pay for licenses as necessary with other virtualization solutions.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.7
KVM relies on community support; effectiveness varies, with some preferring paid options like Red Hat for dedicated assistance.
Sentiment score
7.0
VMware vSphere's customer service is efficient and knowledgeable, but response times and complex issue handling can be inconsistent.
Paid support is also obtainable from companies like Red Hat for more critical issues.
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
Recently, support has been less friendly and slower, especially after the company was acquired by Broadcom.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
KVM offers high scalability for enterprise environments, leveraging Linux kernel architecture, though rapid expansion may challenge larger companies.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware vSphere offers scalable, flexible environments with minimal downtime, seamless integration, and excellent performance across diverse hardware and business needs.
VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle.
It is a highly scalable solution.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
KVM is generally stable and reliable, though occasional issues arise during I/O tasks or hardware changes, requiring careful handling.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere is highly stable and reliable, with minimal outages and quick resolution of issues, ideal for critical applications.
While they are generally stable, if outages occur, they tend to be due to brands like HP or Dell, not VMware vSphere itself.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
I would rate the stability of VMware vSphere as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

KVM needs user interface improvements, better networking, enhanced tools, platform compatibility, optimized resources, and improved support and documentation.
VMware vSphere needs pricing, interface, compatibility, management, integration, fault tolerance, performance, and technology support improvements due to user concerns.
In comparison to VMware, which offers a more balanced set of management features, KVM could improve in terms of user-friendly tooling.
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Although the product is very strong and includes all necessary features, the high pricing drives many customers to avoid using it.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
 

Setup Cost

KVM is a cost-effective, open-source virtualization platform often preferred over VMware, with affordable support options enhancing its appeal.
VMware vSphere is costly but valued for advanced features and stability, especially in large-scale environments, warranting careful budgeting.
Compared to VMware and Microsoft, KVM offers better pricing and licensing options.
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
About three or four years ago, I would have recommended VMware vSphere more strongly, but currently, the price and licensing issues are deterrents.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
 

Valuable Features

KVM excels in performance, scalability, ease of management, and security, offering seamless Linux integration and cost-effective virtualization.
VMware vSphere offers centralized management and flexibility, enhancing data center efficiency with strong security and fast, efficient operations.
The most valuable feature of KVM is its superior real-time performance, which results in lower latency compared to alternatives like VMware and Microsoft.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
The tool is highly available, which is crucial for implementing critical applications requiring 24/7 availability.
The vSphere application is free and very useful, ensuring effective management and improvement in operations.
 

Categories and Ranking

KVM
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
43
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
454
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of KVM is 10.4%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 17.8%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Q&A Highlights

Julia Miller - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 06, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Lan Tuong - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to manage the virtual environments
The most valuable features of KVM for us are the console, which allows us to build or clone VMs quickly, and the ability to take snapshots and recreate new VMs rapidly. That's one of the things we love about KVM. The built-in management console, Auto KVM, is the most valuable tool for managing our virtual environments. We use it most to create and fire up new VMs or clone them for customers based on requests. The migration tools have worked quite well for us. We're moving from an Oracle Solaris platform for KVM logical domains, upgrading, and using KVM from Red Hat. It's slightly different but very similar to Oracle Unbreakable Linux, which is basically a clone of Red Hat. Oracle's console is easier to use than Red Hat's, though.
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…
 

Answers from the Community

Julia Miller - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 6, 2021
Dec 6, 2021
KVM can take full advantage of the operating system where it is hosted.
2 out of 27 answers
MP
Feb 21, 2018
No experience with KVM. I am of the opinion that a company with millions in revenue should consider what does it cost to save a few dollars. Availability of administration, ability to get rapid support for a mainstay product and reliability of the company supporting must be considered, not just the licensing cost. Is VMware free, No? Is KVM free? Yes. If free always cheaper? Definitely not. If your company depends on your IT and your cost of being down could be measured in the ten of thousands of dollars per hour, what is free worth? just a question to be considered before getting "free" stuff.
it_user85818 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 21, 2018
vSphere is more expensive but has an really nice gui and support for lots of different management software. KVM on the other hand is usable as opensource software but comes with less easy to use management software. Those are the biggest changes, but also supporting of features like hot migrate and hot-add of virtual hardware is far better supported on vmare. Things can be done in KVM but are much harder to learn and you must understand linux scripting to be able to manage an KVM system in full.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Why KVM??? Help please!
KVM scales better, orchestration better, performs better and supports a wider range of hardware and, also, you can implement at ZERO cost and with a very powerful web interface for management, from...
Why KVM??? Help please!
Small support team, small cluster, low core count, use VMware products Large support team, large clusters with many cores, use KVM. KVM scales better, orchestration better, performs better and supp...
Why KVM??? Help please!
Far from being an expert, my opinion is that the positive sides of KVM are: Lower costs and open-source which gives the abilities to customize it according to the specific needs of each customer.
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

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MediaWiki, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, Wikiversity, Commons
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about KVM vs. VMware vSphere and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,690 professionals have used our research since 2012.