I use XenServer to migrate all the old servers of my clients. I think it is a robust, proven and free option.
Works at techopen.net.do
A cost-effective solution for creating VM templates from snapshots, and vice-versa
Pros and Cons
- "I find it very easy to manage and at a cost that small customers would never refuse (free)."
- "I would like the possibility of updating the hypervisor by applying security patches."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
I find it very easy to manage and at a cost that small customers would never refuse (free).
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the possibility of creating virtual machine templates from a snapshot and vice versa. It saves me many hours of work.
What needs improvement?
I would like the possibility of updating the hypervisor by applying security patches. In the free version, it is a bit annoying.
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Citrix XenServer
August 2025

Learn what your peers think about Citrix XenServer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution since 2011.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Technical Specialist at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Offers full control over our virtual machines and is budget-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "This solution allows the end users to clone, start, stop, or remotely control their VMs."
- "The self-service user portal needs to be more granular and be more customizable."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case for this solution is for cloud automation.
How has it helped my organization?
This solution allows the end users to clone, start, stop, or remotely control their VMs.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the cost; it is a free product.
What needs improvement?
The self-service user portal needs to be more granular and be more customizable.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of this solution is great, so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, so far so good.
There are approximately two hundred users, with their roles being QA and development. I do expect that the usage will increase a little bit.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is a paid option for this solution that comes with support, but with the free version that I am using, it is not supported. That is probably a weakness in most corporate environments, but we use it for QA and stuff of that nature.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously we were using vCenter from VMware. Our company was purchased and split in half, and I didn't know if we would be continuing the enterprise licensing with VMware so I had to find a free solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward.
It took about four weeks to deploy. We have a small environment.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the deployment personally, and I am the person who maintains the solution for now.
What was our ROI?
Had I been using the paid version, at $6,000 for an annual license, I believe that it would have paid for itself already.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We use the free version, so there is no charge. To subscribe to the paid version with support, it is approximately $6,000 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I looked at VMware's vRealize Automation, but it was eliminated due to our budget constraints.
What other advice do I have?
I really like this solution, but it is not widely known. I'm really surprised that more people don't know about it. I find that it suits our needs pretty well.
Considering what I am getting for the cost I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. There are more powerful solutions out there, but they're very costly.
If I were paying for the support then I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Citrix XenServer
August 2025

Learn what your peers think about Citrix XenServer. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Solution Architect, IT Consultant at Merdasco - Rayan Merdas Data Prosseccing
It is a good solution for central maintenance and management panels.
Pros and Cons
- "We find there are good central maintenance and central management panels."
- "It needs improvement with the security features."
What is our primary use case?
We use this primarily for core banking, automative industry, data applications, and more.
What is most valuable?
We find there are good central maintenance and management panels.
What needs improvement?
It needs improvement with the securit
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I think it provides good performance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is good. We have less than 100 people currently using the solution.
How is customer service and technical support?
We have in-house IT tech support that helps us with solving tech issues.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy and we can do it quickly.
What about the implementation team?
I advise customers to consider pricing and licensing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing and licensing is so important. Customers do consider the price seriously.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Systems Engineer at a cloud solution provider with 51-200 employees
Lots of good features, lots of limitations
What is most valuable?
High-availability options in a cluster are good.
How has it helped my organization?
We were able to create a very inexpensive (nearly free) cluster of VM hosts.
What needs improvement?
Permissions granularity was very limited - we could not assign permissions on anything smaller than the entire cluster. Support for OS'es without paravirtualization-friendly device drivers was very limited - couldn't run some versions of Linux.
For how long have I used the solution?
6 months
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Clustered-host hardware needed to be identical, all-or-nothing permissions didn't work well for VM's owned by different teams.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Lots of errors, which may or may not have been important. It was tough to assess the health of the cluster.
How are customer service and technical support?
n/a - we used the free, open-source distribution of XenServer.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Used VMWare, before and after. VMWare was more expensive.
How was the initial setup?
Initial software setup of XenServer is very simple, but the hardware setup is more complex. Switching and shared-storage infrastructure needed to be mapped out in advance (which is true for any VM-host-cluster environment).
What about the implementation team?
in-house
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Also tried oVirt, the FOSS project, similar to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. This had some very promising features, but was difficult to implement, and had some hardware and OS compatibility issues when running on CentOS.
What other advice do I have?
Citrix or third-party software would probably make it more flexible and powerful than the plain, FOSS XenServer components.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
For XenServer 6.2, it looks like the limit is 16 vcpu's - see support.citrix.com
Project Manager at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees
Highly recommended virtualization software to manage virtual guests
Valuable Features:
Xen is an open source virtualization server widely used in IT. It provides simple and robust commands to manage Xen environment for managing virtual hosts.Backup and recovery of virtual hosts are simple. It can be managed remotely with XenCenter. It supports all client OS like windows, linux etc !!
Room for Improvement:
It requires system with large number of CPUs and large number of memory to support guest operating systems. Not able to export virtual hosts in other virtualization softwares.
Use of Solution:
I have been using Xen for 4 servers now and still using it.
Other Advice:
Highly recommended and suited for administrators having sound knowledge of open source commands. !!
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Manager Network Operations at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
We've been able to reduce our physical hardware and make more efficient use and allocation of those resources.
What is most valuable?
- Cost effective
- Performance
- Overall simplicity
How has it helped my organization?
Since XenServer was the chosen platform from the start of our virtualization implementation, the improvements have been significant. Such improvements include the overall reduction of physical hardware, more efficient use and allocation of hardware resources, recovery points, storage utilization (when combined with dedupe), functional delivery of role based servers, and overall server management.
What needs improvement?
- The community and Citrix would be wise to build more partnerships, in particular with backup/recovery vendors. XenServer seriously lacks options in the shrink wrap backup-solution field.
- Develop a web-based management interface. There are community developed interfaces, but none specifically supported.
- Simplify block-level storage management. Disk chains can get complex over time and require a high degree of patience to clean up, especially with pooled storage repositories.
- Test the guest tools more thoroughly!
For how long have I used the solution?
7 years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
Basic deployment is very easy. Multi-pathing storage does require a more advanced level of switching knowledge, but there is no shortage of documentation and examples to help implement.
Like any solution, plan your storage and networking wisely.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
XenServer hosts have never had stability issues. The guest tools have definitely had stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Never had issues with scalability. In fact, I even had good success with processor masking in order to extend some life in an older server that was performing well.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
From a customer-service perspective, there really isn't much that can be said. I don't have Citrix calling me to discuss XenServer. All service is community driven.
Technical Support:Throughout my use of XenServer, I've opened about 3 cases with Citrix. Each time the engineer I worked with was very knowledgeable and always assisted in resolving my issue.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No other option was used. I tested Hyper-V and, at the time, MS did not have a good solution to live migration.
How was the initial setup?
Setup was simple and quick. I was able to begin with local storage and move my virtual machines to network storage at my leisure without any issues or downtime.
We've used standard networking, iSCSI multi-pathing, and bonded NFS. All have worked well.
What about the implementation team?
All in-house.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Chief Technology Officer at PTSO
We're not tied to a single piece of hardware so we can quickly adjust, but it needs to gain more market share to incentivize improvement.
Valuable Features
Basic virtualization, we used it before we already had the license as we’re a Citrix shop, so it’s cost effective. If we were looking for another solution, we wouldn't go with it.
Improvements to My Organization
- Eease of maintenance
- Ability to move around regardless of hardware
- We're not tied to single piece of hardware, so if a piece of hardware fails we can quickly adjust
Room for Improvement
All partners will build their apps around Hyper-V and vSphere, so XenServer needs to gain more market share with better relationship with their partners so that they’re incentivized to improve XenServer. It’s not functionality that will drive me away, it’s that I can’t integrate as well as with other vendors.
Stability Issues
We rarely have issues. I come across bugs once in a while, but that’s pretty rare.
Scalability Issues
It’s highly scalable, haven’t run into any hardware issues that would prevent growth. We don’t have any old, legacy hardware we’re tiring to fit in.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Very good, they get us to the right level technician pretty quickly so we’re not just walking through a checklist. We get someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Initial Setup
Pretty straightforward.
Implementation Team
We figured it out on our own. Good documentation and set of options is less to roll out.
Other Advice
Research the different partners you have to work with throughout your organization and determine how well they work with Hyper-V and vSphere as opposed to XenServer.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Shailesh SurroopAssistant Manager - IS Infrastructure at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Fully agree with Eric about the integration of Xenserver with other vendors, especially with storage vendors. But i guess the gap is closing especially with the popularity that software defined storage is taking. Sooner we may see the likes of Citrix Melio fully integrating Xenserver to provide a complete solution for desktop, server, backup, snapshot and replication. Have you tried the beta version of Xenserver Dundee? DOM0 is no longer limited to 4GB which is a great relief.
Virtual Infrastructure Admin at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
High availability is good, but during deployment there were issues with the iSCSI multipath setup.
What is most valuable?
The high availability facility.
How has it helped my organization?
Use of this solution has reduced our costs, and we have a collection of over three 42U server rack cabinets.
What needs improvement?
The web management provided by Citrix needs to be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used XenServer since 2012.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
We had some issues with the iSCSI multipath setup.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Some older versions of the Intel 550 chipset caused some instability with XenServer.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues yet.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
It's good.
Technical Support:It's good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had a previous solution and changed because the solution lacked some features that we needed.
How was the initial setup?
It was straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
The whole setup was done in-house.
What was our ROI?
It's large enough that it is appreciated by management.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
- VMWare
- Hyper-V
What other advice do I have?
Just use the best solution for your own business.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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Indeed XenServer starts at virtually no costs at all and reasonable fees for enterprise support. Besides that, it supports a lot of powerfull backends like Dell/EMC and has nice options for test setups where no license is needed.