RHEV vs VMware ESXi comparison

Red Hat and Broadcom are both solutions in the Server Virtualization Software category. Red Hat is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.0, while Broadcom is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.3. Red Hat holds a 2.4% mindshare in SVS, compared to Broadcom’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

RHEV

Read 37 RHEV reviews

4,061 Views
4,020 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

VMware ESXi

Read 34 VMware ESXi reviews

3,227 Views
3,227 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

RHEV

VMware ESXi

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

RHEV and VMware ESXi are leading virtualization platforms. VMware ESXi holds the advantage with advanced features that justify its higher cost, attracting enterprises that prioritize performance and reliability.

Features: RHEV is known for its scalability, open-source approach, and budget-friendly solution, making it suitable for businesses seeking cost-effective virtualization. VMware ESXi excels in performance, reliability, and an extensive feature set, making it ideal for enterprises with high-performance demands. It offers features like high availability, vMotion, and integration with VMware vCenter for efficient management.

Room for Improvement: RHEV could enhance its documentation and support to better serve enterprises with larger IT departments. VMware ESXi can improve by simplifying its deployment process and reducing its higher upfront costs to attract smaller businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RHEV offers an easy deployment process with simplified management tools, beneficial for organizations with limited IT resources. VMware ESXi, while more complex to deploy, provides robust customer support and comprehensive documentation, aligning well with larger IT departments.

Pricing and ROI: RHEV offers a lower setup cost, presenting an attractive ROI for businesses focused on minimizing IT expenditure. VMware ESXi, with its higher initial costs, offers long-term ROI due to its reliable, feature-rich environment, appealing to enterprises prioritizing performance over initial savings.

To learn more, read our detailed RHEV vs. VMware ESXi Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

RHEV vs. VMware ESXi

June 2026

Download the complete report

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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

RHEV

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

13th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware ESXi

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

6th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware ESXi is 2.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware ESXi	2.6%
RHEV	2.4%
Other	95.0%

Server Virtualization Software

Featured Reviews

Mike Neuliep

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.

Read full review

Gourab Das

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Virtualization has transformed our data center and delivers consistent uptime with seamless maintenance

The most valuable feature VMware ESXi offers me is the user interface and the ease of handling operations without downtime, which is the biggest advantage, particularly with capabilities for live patching, and VCF 9 in patching areas; the bundled licensing provided simplifies management as I can utilize resources based on my needs without worrying too much about individual licenses. The zero-downtime patching is the feature that makes the biggest difference in my day-to-day operations, as well as managing hosts with an n+1 configuration, using a buffer host to streamline maintenance within a cluster of hosts. The vMotion feature is another important aspect, as we opt for auto vMotion to optimize resources within the cluster, enabling the underlying VMs to be moved seamlessly from one host to another based on utilization without impacting applications. VMware ESXi has positively impacted our organization significantly in terms of operations and cost optimization, as we optimized our environment under a per-core license agreement, achieving around 30 to 40% cost-effectiveness and maintaining almost 99.99% uptime across our environment, where VMware ESXi is run on about 85% of our setup. Improvements in operations were made possible through visibility provided by VMware ESXi into hardware enhancements, such as virtual storage platforms with vSAN, which we incorporated into our environment supported by VMware ESXi 9 to enable effective live patching without impacting operations, and we regularly utilize RV tool reports to track actual utilization and optimize resources, reducing our footprint from 100 VMs on 100 hosts to 47 hosts, yielding substantial financial benefits thanks to the support from our VMware ESXi TAM.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"What they provide is way beyond the essential requirements of customers."

"I advise keeping an open mind. It's an excellent solution."

"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."

"The solution has a good licensing module."

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"The biggest aspect for me is the disk usage, the virtual manager, and the deployment of machines."

"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space, and I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."

"It is a scalable solution."

More RHEV pros

"The ease of use would be the first feature I like, then reliability."

"The most valuable features are the integration with networking and virtual network switches."

"From a technical perspective, VMware ESXi's best advantages are its reliability and high availability features. It's a very mature and good environment."

"ESXi's integration with VMware vCenter offers centralized management."

"I am not sure about cost savings, but efficiency-wise, it has improved our company."

"The initial setup is not complex at all. It is actually very good and straightforward."

"The product is very reliable."

"The most valuable features of the solution are its high availability and resource scheduling areas."

More VMware ESXi pros

Cons

"We hope that Red Hat can produce a paradigm edition. We are looking for paradigm computing and paradigm storage. Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system. They should also provide local service and support. Our customers are looking for a good software vendor to provide professional services."

"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."

"This solution could be more secure."

"Specifically, enhancements in managing virtual machine migrations, cloning, and the creation of different VMs could further optimize its functionality."

"I found it a bit more difficult to manage than version seven, which was much easier."

"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."

"We have found the technical support for this solution to be very slow in responding to our requests for assistance."

"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."

More RHEV cons

"VMware ESXi has a complex setup phase, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The solution's cost is a concern."

"We often face issues with ESXi that require us to change resources by shutting down the VMs."

"There have been issues with the tool's technical support and pricing of licenses, making them areas where improvements are required."

"Some features should be added to the solution to enhance server management"

"The license model has recently changed, which is a bit worrying for customers."

"It would be really helpful if there were options to do things in one or two clicks rather than doing everything through more manual interaction."

"VMware should make recovering the password easier if customers forget it."

More VMware ESXi cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."

"Its price depends on the use cases."

"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."

"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."

"The price of RHEV is high. It is an open-source solution, the price should be less. The price should not be on par with a solution, such as VMware. It's not more or equal to VMware, it's less, but the difference should be more substantial."

"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."

"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."

"I would say the price is acceptable."

More RHEV pricing and cost advice

"VMware ESXi is a costly solution in Africa and other developing countries."

"Broadcom recently purchased VMware, and the pricing scheme has changed. If I need any more features in the tool, I can actually purchase them."

"The tool has become expensive."

"The solution is priced on the higher side."

"I rate the product price as one on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price and ten is low price."

"If one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price as an eight."

"The product pricing was reasonable before, but recent changes, including bundling, have complicated the cost structure."

"The pricing is expensive, with the cost for customers ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 yearly."

More VMware ESXi pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Comparison Review

Thang Le Toan (Victory Lee)

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware ESXi?

We recently renewed our VMware ESXi subscription for 14,000 cores, and the total cost was approximately 16 crore for three years. Overall, I found the pricing and licensing process to be very simpl...

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware ESXi?

While there is nothing particularly frustrating, a quicker response from VMware ESXi for planning existing hardware implementations of VCF 9 would be beneficial, especially for P1 issues where reso...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering VMware ESXi?

For large enterprises with over 1,000 to 2,000 servers, my advice is to adopt VMware ESXi, ensuring you use the latest technology-supported hardware such as vSAN for an easier operational experienc...

See all answers

Comparisons

Hyper-V vs RHEV

Compared 20% of the time

VMware vSphere vs RHEV

Compared 15% of the time

Proxmox VE vs RHEV

Compared 14% of the time

Oracle VM vs RHEV

Compared 11% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs RHEV

Compared 1% of the time

More RHEV Competitors

Hyper-V vs VMware ESXi

Compared 25% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware ESXi

Compared 11% of the time

KVM vs VMware ESXi

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs VMware ESXi

Compared 7% of the time

oVirt vs VMware ESXi

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware ESXi Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

RHEV

July 2026

Download RHEV product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware ESXi

July 2026

Download VMware ESXi product report

Also Known As

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

No data available

Overview

RHEV offers a cost-effective virtualization platform with support for up to 160 cores and 2 TB of RAM per host, emphasizing open-source accessibility and integration with applications like OpenStack.

RHEV stands out with features such as high performance, stability, ease of migration, and robust security. Its integration capabilities with diverse applications and the self-service Power user portal enhance its appeal for IT environments. While the platform's affordability compared to VMware is noted, areas for improvement include the GUI, user-friendliness, network virtualization, and the need for enhanced pricing and support in regions lacking system integrators. RHEV's ability to facilitate seamless migration from legacy systems to virtual environments is widely adopted in sectors such as government, banking, and IT services.

What are the key features of RHEV?

Open-Source Accessibility: Offers flexibility and customization options.
High Performance: Supports up to 160 cores and 2 TB of RAM per host.
Seamless Integration: Integrates well with applications like OpenStack.
Live VM Migration: Enables continuous operations without downtime.
Power User Portal: Provides self-service capabilities for users.

What benefits and ROI can users expect?

Cost Optimization: Provides a cost-effective alternative to VMware.
Scalable Computing: Allows flexible resource allocation and scaling.
Migration Efficiency: Facilitates moving from legacy systems smoothly.
Robust Security: Enhances data protection and privacy management.

RHEV is widely used in high-computing tasks like AI and big data analytics within data centers, supporting cloud solutions, AI, and ERP systems. It's implemented in privacy clouds for industries such as government, banking, and IT services to migrate workloads from physical to virtual environments and optimize operational costs.

Red Hat

VMware ESXi serves as a hypervisor enabling virtualization by transforming physical servers into virtual infrastructures, supporting efficient server management, development, and production environments.

Organizations utilize VMware ESXi for its high availability and ability to host diverse workloads effectively. Known for stability and maturity, it efficiently handles server, networking, and storage demands, with integral features like vMotion and memory compression. ESXi integrates well with data center operations, allowing seamless resource allocation and virtual machine migration. Despite impressive capabilities, users encounter challenges with setup complexity, licensing costs, and technical support delays, leading some to explore different solutions.

What are the main features of VMware ESXi?

High Availability: Ensures continuous operation of virtual machines.
vMotion Capabilities: Facilitates easy virtual machine migration.
Clustering: Enhances resource management and efficiency.
Server Management: Offers efficient management with third-party integration.
Resource Optimization: Utilizes memory compression technologies.

What benefits and ROI do organizations see with VMware ESXi?

Cost Savings: Reduces expenses by consolidating servers.
User-friendliness: Offers a stable and manageable interface.
Multi-OS Support: Enables running Linux and Windows environments.
High Performance: Recognized for speed and efficiency.

Industries deploying VMware ESXi benefit in sectors requiring robust IT infrastructure, including finance, healthcare, and education. Its capability to support high availability and diverse workloads proves essential for critical applications, enhancing productivity and agility in dynamic environments.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

RHEV vs. VMware ESXi

June 2026

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