RHEV vs VMware vSphere comparison

Red Hat and Broadcom are both solutions in the Server Virtualization Software category. Red Hat is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.2, while Broadcom is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Red Hat holds a 2.4% mindshare in SVS, compared to Broadcom’s 19.1% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

RHEV

Read 37 RHEV reviews

3,987 Views
3,947 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

VMware vSphere

Read 461 VMware vSphere reviews

28,661 Views
25,508 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

RHEV

VMware vSphere

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

RHEV and VMware vSphere are competing virtualization products in the enterprise market. VMware vSphere seems to have the upper hand with its extensive feature suite, higher deployment sophistication, superior customer service, and long-term ROI potential despite its higher cost.

Features: RHEV provides efficient resource management, seamless application migration, and open-source integration, which are beneficial for enterprises needing specific customization. VMware vSphere offers advanced automation tools, enhanced security features, and high availability, which makes it ideal for businesses seeking a comprehensive virtual environment.

Room for Improvement: RHEV can enhance its automation capabilities, expand third-party support, and improve its user interface for better manageability. VMware vSphere could lower costs, simplify its complex licensing model, and improve performance documentation to assist user understanding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RHEV's straightforward deployment process appeals to organizations prioritizing simplicity, while its customer service meets expectations. VMware vSphere, on the other hand, offers a detailed and sophisticated deployment model, supported by a range of extensive customer service options, suited for complex environments requiring detailed assistance.

Pricing and ROI: RHEV is budget-friendly with a faster ROI for cost-conscious companies. VMware vSphere, with higher upfront costs, provides superior features justifying its pricing, and offers greater long-term ROI potential for enterprises prioritizing performance, hence, appealing to those willing to invest in top-tier virtualization solutions.

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

Buyer's Guide

RHEV vs. VMware vSphere

June 2026

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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 vSphere

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

461

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 19.1%, up from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware vSphere	19.1%
RHEV	2.4%
Other	78.5%

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

RajeshK10

Information Technology Architect at Central Bank of India

Reliable virtualization has supported smooth DR drills and efficient resource allocation

VMware vSphere has proven to be robust in nature, and the new features are quite acceptable. The new features in NSX network switching make it more useful in the reliability management of data centers. vMotion has helped my organization's business continuity strategies during our planned DR drill activity. The migration of VMs from DC to DR is quite smooth with respect to the network link. I assess the impact of VMware vSphere's High Availability feature on my infrastructure resilience as effective during DR drill activities and firmware upgrades, which we perform every six months. During those times, we rely on maintenance mode of several servers, and HA works properly. I have nothing to complain about. We have utilized VMware vSphere's Distributed Resource Scheduler effectively. Even though we have over-provisioned the vCPUs, it efficiently manages the CPU cores and memory of the servers intelligently, so I am not experiencing any bottleneck in resource utilization. Distributed Resource Scheduler has affected my resource allocation performance positively, providing a 20 percent advantage over my old hardware.

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

"This solution is very stable. Much more so than similar products."

"When any organization needs end-to-end infrastructure deployment, configuration management, and automation, then RHEV is the best fit."

"For the Windows side, we also initiated a digital transformation project, moving a lot of Windows applications to the container side and the open-source software side, which resulted in almost 70% savings of our past expenses."

"It's a scalable solution."

"It is very stable."

"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."

"For any application that requires 100% uptime, 100% of data accessibility, I use these servers."

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

More RHEV pros

"It has high clustering and availability features. These features are not found with other hypervisors."

"We can spin up VMs within hours instead of going through a paper trail of physical servers and install process, which has drastically reduced our procurement timeline."

"VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle."

"The fact that you can use all the CPU and memory power that the server can provide is most valuable."

"VMware server is a free hosted virtualization server which runs on top of various operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, Windows and Netware."

"We are using the VMware vSphere product to virtualize our servers and we are very successful."

"Valuable features really depend on different projects. We are using the traditional infrastructure based on VMware vSphere. We are also using the high availability (HA) and Distributed Switch features to extend our network and switch between different hosts. The VMotion and SVMotion features are very essential for us to relocate the storage of virtual machines to different storage or vSANs. We are using VMotion and SVMotion features several times of the day. We are also using another VMware product to replicate a lot of solutions to a second replication site."

"The features in VMware vSphere data recovery are excellent. Sometimes I've deleted an entire server before and was able to recover the deleted VM. I just used some command line tools and I was able to restore the deleted VM."

More VMware vSphere pros

Cons

"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. This is something that can be improved within Red Hat."

"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."

"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."

"While everything needs improvement in some way, I have no specifics."

"The solution should be made more user-friendly."

"The biggest improvement would be more third-party direct support for things like backups and provisioning through third-party portals."

"This solution could be more secure."

"Customers are not aware of this solution, they can improve by providing more awareness and solution availability."

More RHEV cons

"We had some stability issues but VMware support has made the experience manageable."

"The problem often is that when I use VMware and Citrix there are conflicts."

"Unfortunately I can’t say it’s been an overly positive experience, largely because of browser compatibility issues rather than the design of the web client itself."

"VMware vSphere could be more secure and well-known to everyone."

"vCenter comes with strict licensing which is not only expensive but also not realistic."

"Get the HTML5 client to 100% parity to replace the Flash client."

"I think the cost should be reconsidered. VMware is not the cheapest solution out there, despite the fact that it may be one of the best."

"The HR proxy is actually a little bit harder to install and setup than other VMware products."

More VMware vSphere cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"Its price depends on the use cases."

"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."

"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."

"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."

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

More RHEV pricing and cost advice

"If you go with a standard license, it's very affordable."

"This is quite an expensive product, although everything is included in the standard licensing fee."

"We don't have an active subscription. We have a prepaid or permanent license."

"The price could improve for the enterprise versions."

"Its price is quite high. VMware licensing is quite costly. You have to pay for the CPU and Threads, but if you want good service, you have to pay the price. Its cost is not more than 1 million for us."

"It's a common trend as many progressive IT firms are transitioning towards cloud or virtual environments due to factors like pricing, SMAX, and VMatter. In this regard, I would rate VMware as moderately satisfactory. I would rate it seven out of ten."

"In my opinion, the price is not cheap, not it is expensive. It's average."

"The license is a one-time payment. You buy it once and own it forever, but you must pay for support, which is provided by the vendor, on a yearly basis."

More VMware vSphere pricing and cost advice

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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

Answers from the Community

Sridhar Battarusetty

VP-Global Supply Chain Management at mobileum

Feb 7, 2024

What are the differences between RHEV and VMware vSphere?

See 2 answers

Anne Cubarrubia

Editor at PeerSpot

Aug 21, 2023

Here is a comparison of the two hypervisors, RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization) and VMware vSphere: RHEV Pros: Open source Highly scalable Cost-effective Cons: Not as mature as VMware vSphere Not as widely supported as VMware vSphere VMware vSphere Pros: Mature and widely supported Wide range of features Easy to use and manage Cons: Not open source Can be expensive Some prefer RHEV because it is open-source and cost-effective. However, VMware vSphere may be the better option if you need a hypervisor with a wide range of features and support. As to which solution consumes fewer resources, RHEV is a lighter-weight hypervisor than VMware vSphere, so it consumes fewer resources. However, you must remember that each hypervisor's resource consumption depends on the configuration and workload.

Read full answer

Rajkumar Gera

Vice President, IT Infrastructure ( DC Operations ) at Vodafone Idea Ltd.

Feb 7, 2024

Hi Sridhar, This is Rajkumar Gera, VP IT in one of the Telecom. Below are some of the points, may help you: FEATURE RED HAT ENTERPRISE VIRTUALIZATION VMWARE VSPHERE Key differentiators Open source solution Proprietary solution Purchased via one subscription Multiple levels of functionality sold in editions with different price points Bare-metal performance for virtualized applications Application high availability (Enterprise Plus version only) Prioritized high availability so critical workloads are restarted first Desktop and server virtualization One infrastructure for managing desktops and servers Add-on products for desktop virtualization: VMware Player, VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon DaaS, and VMware Horizon Mirage Remote access to virtual desktops through SPICE Full support for multimedia applications Management server Included in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization subscription Requires purchase and license of VMware vCenter and database support Virtual machine density 40 cores: 4,682@288 40 cores: 3,824@234 160 cores: 14,061@864 160 cores: result not available Self-service portal Allows users to provision and manage VMs and templates with a browser Requires the purchase of VMware vCloud Automation Center Integration with OpenStack technology Supports the open Neutron pluggable networking API Supports VMware’s NSX networking plug-in Supports the OpenStack image service for a unified image repository between virtual and cloud platforms Does not support the OpenStack image service

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software 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	177
Midsize Enterprise	138
Large Enterprise	261

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 IOMMU?

DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...

See all answers

Why KVM??? Help please!

We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.

See all answers

Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?

For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...

See all answers

Comparisons

Hyper-V vs RHEV

Compared 20% of the time

Proxmox VE vs RHEV

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle VM vs RHEV

Compared 12% of the time

KVM vs RHEV

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs RHEV

Compared 6% of the time

More RHEV Competitors

Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere

Compared 52% of the time

Oracle VM vs VMware vSphere

Compared 12% of the time

Proxmox VE vs VMware vSphere

Compared 6% of the time

KVM vs VMware vSphere

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs VMware vSphere

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware vSphere Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

RHEV

June 2026

Download RHEV product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSphere

May 2026

Download VMware vSphere 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 vSphere offers robust virtualization capabilities with features that enhance data center performance and optimize workloads. Centralized management and ease of deployment make it a cost-effective choice for many industries.

VMware vSphere is recognized for its high availability, vMotion, and Distributed Resource Scheduler, essential for efficient server infrastructure management. Users value its virtual machine management, seamless live migration, and strong resource allocation across data centers. Though the web client can be slow, and individual management of multiple ESXi hosts is challenging without central management, vSphere remains popular due to its flexibility and integration capabilities. While fault tolerance and free version features have their limitations, the product supports private clouds and hybrid cloud deployments effectively.

What are the key features of VMware vSphere?

High Availability: Ensures uptime through automatic failover and load balancing.
vMotion: Facilitates live migration without downtime.
Distributed Resource Scheduler: Optimizes workload distribution across servers.
Centralized Management: Simplifies administration tasks through single-pane control.
Resource Allocation: Allocates computing power and memory efficiently.

What benefits and ROI does VMware vSphere offer?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces hardware requirements and energy usage.
Scalability: Easily scales to meet growing business requirements.
Improved Performance: Enhances application performance and reliability.
Flexibility: Supports integration with other technologies for operational agility.
Ease of Management: Simplifies monitoring and administrative efforts.

VMware vSphere is widely used in industries to manage server infrastructure effectively, hosting mission-critical applications like ERP and SQL servers. It supports development, testing, and backup environments, contributing to data center consolidation and cost reduction while enabling private and hybrid cloud setups.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.

Buyer's Guide

RHEV vs. VMware vSphere

June 2026

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