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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
4th
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
11th
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 April 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is 5.8%, down from 8.2% 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 Virtualization5.8%
RHEV2.4%
Other91.8%
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 interface is very good, and quite user-friendly."
"Nutanix AHV's most valuable feature is NetFlow."
"The most valuable part of Nutanix is its centralized management of everything."
"We use Prism Central, the centralized management console for AHV clusters. It allows administrators to manage multiple clusters from a single interface and provides a unified view of the entire infrastructure."
"Nutanix AHV Virtualization is a very good system to approach."
"The solution's most valuable feature is Prism Central. It has a feature which allows you to upload the firmware software with just one click, requiring no downtime."
"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."
"The initial setup is easy and straightforward; you click and you install, and with one click it installs all, including AHV and all of the Nutanix software."
"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."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"Red Hat is the most stable system; it's better than other OS solutions."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities, it is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."
"Technical support for RHEV is very fast and good."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect; it's much cheaper than, for example, VMware, so companies can save money using it if they need to."
 

Cons

"It would be better if the solution's replication to another site could be efficiently optimized."
"There is room for improvement in the USB mapping."
"There are some issues with the interface and integration."
"Some of the upgradability aspects seem a bit challenging. I've had issues with firmware and system updates, which might be specific to our environment."
"When we need to share, publish, or encrypt something, we still need to perform it using the command line."
"There are times when consultants, construction, or building firms need to use Beam but it can be difficult."
"They need to work on the deployment of virtual machines. They need to streamline the process of templates and deploying virtual machines."
"The solution should work to improve its stability."
"If you wanted to go to the desktop computer side of things, it lags behind in that you need to go to something like Fedora to get all the extra bells and whistles."
"I have found that the stability is related to the upgrade cycle. I find the cycle a little bit annoying; if the system is constantly upgrading then it is very painful in terms of the operation."
"When we do a direct comparison, then obviously VMware does better in terms of having Fault Tolerance and doing active disaster recovery and these kind of things."
"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"The Administration of the Oracle database and the SAP ERP needs improvement."
"Scalability depends on the applications. Red Hat by itself is not scalable."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"Red Hat by itself is not scalable. But you can have third party add-ons like Ceph to make it massively scalable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that there is no licensing fee."
"The setup cost for four nodes was about $200,000 (in US currency)."
"The solution’s pricing is relatively fair."
"Nutanix AHV is low cost."
"I rate Nutanix AHV Virtualization's pricing a five out of ten."
"Some of the features required additional licenses."
"Nutanix AHV costs less than VMware vSphere."
"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 solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution."
"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."
"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."
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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
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
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 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

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: March 2026.
886,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.