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Nutanix AHV Virtualization 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

Nutanix AHV Virtualization
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
58
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 May 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is 5.5%, down from 8.1% 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 (%)
Nutanix AHV Virtualization5.5%
RHEV2.4%
Other92.1%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

TAIYAB HASAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Windows Redhat Linux Vmware & Azure & Cloud & Nutanix Ahv-Vmware & Backup Senior System Administrator at AlDawaa Medical Services
Has provided seamless virtualization and centralized control with strong security and reliable performance
I find almost every feature of Nutanix AHV Virtualization useful, as it's a very nice HCI solution from Nutanix. AHV is their native product, so it's very integrated with all the hardware they provide. Integration is very nice with the baseline hardware. We are using all built-in security features of Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which include encryption. It is very effective in protecting our VMs, and it is very secure. The impact of AHV, such as micro-segmentation, is very effective for us and it's working as per our requirements. We are very happy with the features. Role-Based Access is also a very nice feature for us to define to whom to give admin access and to whom to give read-only access. This kind of authentication helps us distribute tasks within the teams. Using Nutanix AHV Virtualization in a single management pane is very important to me, as it allows us to see everything related to our hardware, software, servers, and VMs from one console. We can reach everything from this one console, which provides a nice inside view for our software, hardware applications, server details, issues, alerts, or any unwanted activity. We are using the non-disruptive operations feature because Nutanix AHV Virtualization is in our production environment, and this feature helps us perform any activity without any downtime.
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 feature that has had the most impact is data locality. That is a feature that makes Nutanix different from other hypervisors. It helps us to get application performance that is probably double what we got with the legacy, three-tier architecture."
"You don't need any other instruments for control, AHV. You only need to look at the prism to control all infrastructure."
"The technology behind the backups is very efficient, enabling a reliable virtual environment."
"One of the largest advantages of the Nutanix AHV is their license includes the de-duplication and the compression."
"The most valuable features are that AHV is highly secured, simple to set up, and easy and flexible to use."
"Nutanix AHV's most valuable feature is NetFlow, and its performance and speed are also very good."
"Nutanix's customer support is good, one of its biggest selling points."
"The support is excellent."
"The biggest aspect for me is the disk usage, the virtual manager, and the deployment of machines."
"The most valuable features of RHEV are all the tools, such as virtualization, management of cloud platforms, and integration of container environments. The solution has good compatibility between virtualization, content management, and cloud management. Having the full set of these tools is the advantage of it."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"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."
"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."
"When any organization needs end-to-end infrastructure deployment, configuration management, and automation, then RHEV is the best fit."
"Red Hat is the most stable system; it's better than other OS solutions."
"The solution is a great all-round product, and the virtualization is especially good."
 

Cons

"The licensing costs are a little bit expensive."
"The solution is not suitable for all migrations."
"If you want to install specific software, you must first gain compatibility."
"Nutanix misses alerts sometimes."
"The solution should work to improve its stability."
"When we need to share, publish, or encrypt something, we still need to perform it using the command line."
"I would like to see more automation of Day One operations, such as DRS, and HA."
"There is an issue with the guest tools, which depend on the storage hypervisor IP."
"The solution has a very small lifecycle."
"Customers are not aware of this solution, they can improve by providing more awareness and solution availability."
"You need to buy support from red hat and you need to renew support every year in order to keep getting support from red hat."
"Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system."
"Load balancing not very efficient and fails to utilize and distribute network resources."
"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"This solution could be more secure."
"In comparison to VMware, this solution isn't as stable. We're testing it right now, and we're not trusting the stability of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a three out of five. It is expensive, but it also provides the value for money and performance that you require as a hyperconverged and virtualization software."
"When comparing this solution to others on the market, such as VMware and Citrix, the price could be reduced."
"The licensing overall from Nutanix AHV is very good compared to other solutions."
"AHV is free, it's an open-source solution."
"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is costly. I don't think there are any extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees of the solution."
"The licenses are perpetual, which means they don't expire. Even if we don't have support or don't renew the support service after three years, we will still be able to use the solution."
"We don't have to pay extra for Acropolis because it is built into Nutanix."
"The pricing depends upon the licenses, considering the number of devices."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"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."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"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."
"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
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
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 Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

How does Nutanix AHV compare with VMware vSphere?
To understand which is better - Nutanix AHV or VMware vSphere - you need to do a product comparison. Both products support hypervisors. However, Nutanix supports some of the most popular ones and m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
Regarding the cost, Nutanix AHV Virtualization is not very expensive and not very low-priced. It's reasonable for us, and the budget is there.
What needs improvement with Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
In our comparison during migration from another virtualization platform, we found a limitation with Nutanix AHV Virtualization, which is that physical server migration to the AHV environment is not...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs. RHEV and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.