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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

KVM offers a scalable and high-availability environment, making it suitable for various virtualization needs.
KVM's integration with Kronos is direct and efficient, ensuring smooth operation without intermediary communication.
KVM provides a rich set of command-line options and supports various operating systems with minimal configuration.
As an open-source platform, KVM is flexible, powerful, and more cost-effective than other enterprise solutions.
KVM ensures stable performance with reasonable overhead, making it suitable for large-scale virtualization.

CONS

Technical support is not very responsive, lacking in quality compared to other products.
Scalability is an issue, particularly concerning resizing VM disk dimensions and storage space clarity.
Disaster recovery features are inadequate compared to other solutions.
KVM lacks high availability across clusters and a comprehensive ecosystem compared to VMware.
Performance monitoring and management, especially in a centralized manner, needs significant improvement.
 

KVM Pros review quotes

reviewer849252 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Apr 3, 2018
KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt.
it_user781875 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Oct 8, 2018
I think nine out of the ten supercomputers in the world use Linux KVM, so I think that attests to the fact that it is a scalable product.
Software512a - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Architect with 501-1,000 employees
Apr 23, 2019
I find the density of the product most valuable. It is density that a technologist can just assign page merging. This is what makes KVM one of the important players of the virtualization market.
Learn what your peers think about KVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
880,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user781875 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Dec 5, 2018
It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions.
reviewer807690 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 11, 2019
Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well.
GN
Business Engineer and Consultant at All-Tech
Oct 15, 2019
Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware.
VC
System Engineer at NoBoring Lda
Oct 21, 2019
I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy.
MB
Solution Architect, IT Consultant at Merdasco - Rayan Merdas Data Prosseccing
Apr 22, 2021
The GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before.
EH
Project Leader at Logicalis
Dec 9, 2019
The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface.
BP
Founder at Element Flux
Dec 23, 2020
If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options.
 

KVM Cons review quotes

reviewer849252 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Apr 3, 2018
The only negative aspect of needing hardware support is a fully functional KVM can be dropped. It would be nice if the support for other platforms, like ARM or Risk, were as good as the x86 one. However, with the democratization of Chromebooks based on these chips and mobile devices, it will not take long for that to happen.
it_user781875 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Oct 8, 2018
Technical support is not top-notch.
Software512a - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Architect with 501-1,000 employees
Apr 23, 2019
The stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category.
Learn what your peers think about KVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
880,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user781875 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Dec 5, 2018
We would like to have a software lifecycle solution included in this solution. We can handle the software needed for KVM, but also the software that we provide. A lifecycle component would be very beneficial.
reviewer807690 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 11, 2019
Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM.
GN
Business Engineer and Consultant at All-Tech
Oct 15, 2019
The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines.
VC
System Engineer at NoBoring Lda
Oct 21, 2019
The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement.
MB
Solution Architect, IT Consultant at Merdasco - Rayan Merdas Data Prosseccing
Apr 22, 2021
Business continuity features need to be added.
EH
Project Leader at Logicalis
Dec 9, 2019
The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved.
BP
Founder at Element Flux
Dec 23, 2020
One thing that maybe could be improved is making it easier to scale. It needs to be more clear on how to scale the storage space for virtual machines.