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Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

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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

it_user239358 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business process Advisor for RTP at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Jun 5, 2015
On the other hand Vmware workstation is a Type 2 hypervisor meaning that this software is going to interact with the host without really modifying it.
it_user302112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Jul 24, 2016
Over the years, many customers were happy that they were able to choose between VMware, Xen and another alternative - KVM.
it_user667986 - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at Universidade de Brasília at a tech company with 51-200 employees
May 18, 2017
Low cost, if not lowest, with great performance and scalability, and security is top-notch while being free.
Learn what your peers think about KVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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.
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.
AR
IT-Leiter (IP) at IN-telegence GmbH
Apr 10, 2019
The ability to execute live migrations.
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.
 

KVM Cons review quotes

it_user239358 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business process Advisor for RTP at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Jun 5, 2015
I am sorry to say that online propaganda made believe that KVM is a mature product that should be considered for production. I think KVM may be good for a lab where the VMs aren't critical.
it_user302112 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Jul 24, 2016
Setting KVM up and running it with dozens of parameters can be annoying.
it_user667986 - PeerSpot reviewer
Student at Universidade de Brasília at a tech company with 51-200 employees
May 18, 2017
Networking configuration might be annoying depending on how you want to set it up; usually works fine, though.
Learn what your peers think about KVM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
886,906 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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.
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.
AR
IT-Leiter (IP) at IN-telegence GmbH
Apr 10, 2019
Management of underlying volumes.
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.