Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


KVM vs XEN
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

KVM vs XEN

Which one do you think is better virtualization & why?

KVM vs XEN
  1. Which one do you think is better virtualization & why?59 votes
    1. KVM
      74.58%
    2. XEN
      25.42%

Comments

  • KVM is more flexible.

    Xen isn't bad at all though, the fact it's Linux is good enough for me. Although things like caching are a pain due to the design of the Dom0.

  • I prefer kvm over xen, but still xen is not that bad and i will still using it. No more openvz if i can.

  • Nick_ANick_A Member, Top Host, Host Rep

    All the cool kids use KVM.

    Thanked by 3ironhide alexvolk Asim
  • Nick_A said: All the cool kids use KVM.

    ^This

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    Xen, older more mature stable technology with better CPU management and resource separation in general.

    PV is very fast and everything apart from NetBSD has PV on HVM drivers now anyway inc windows with the gplpv drivers where as kvm is ide by default,

  • If I got a choice, KVM always...

  • Never used XEN, I use KVM and like it very much.

  • @AnthonySmith said:
    Xen, older more mature stable technology with better CPU management and resource separation in general.

    PV is very fast and everything apart from NetBSD has PV on HVM drivers now anyway inc windows with the gplpv drivers where as kvm is ide by default,

    For compatibility, virtio is very similar to Xen's drivers.

  • drserverdrserver Member, Host Rep

    XEN offers better client isolation. And windows are going better on xen, but that is only my oppinion.

    PV is real major benefit.

    It is hard to compare them. Booth are great!

  • Question for providers: cgroups for resource mgmt with KVM...as good as xen resource mgmt?

  • For my gameservers I use OpenVZ. It's enough for me. But for my other services (like IRCD etc.) I prefer Xen, because it's older and I got used to it.

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    KIVM for the win

  • Why is Xen older ? I think Xen PV will perform better than KVM because KVM will have more overhead since its full virtualized ... Is that right ?

  • @Nick_A said:
    All the cool kids use KVM.

    The really cool kids try to use QEMU to run Windows on a 512MB OpenVZ VPS.

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    @DomainBop this wil end bad for you.

  • drserverdrserver Member, Host Rep

    Xen uses sort of qemu for windows os

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    @craigb said:
    Question for providers: cgroups for resource mgmt with KVM...as good as xen resource mgmt?

    IMO no.

    KVM has a lot more overhead per guest OS on the host node than Xen does, when they remove the hard memory cap and go for a more vmware style memory management (should be soon) I predict Xen will completely take over from KVM.

    virtio is ok but its still new and does not out pace pv drivers.

  • Shoaib_AShoaib_A Member
    edited December 2013

    @Nick_A said:
    All the cool kids use KVM.

    If KVM is so good then why are Amazon & Rackspace using XEN for their cloud platforms?

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider
    edited December 2013

    @Sledger said:

    Well to be fair that platform existed before KVM was released in any stable way.

    He is right though KVM is the new exciting thing that all the cool kids want but the reality is more and more bugs are cropping up and it is just not as stable as Xen.

    The best thing that ever happened to Xen was the release of KVM, some real progress has been made due to healthy competition.

  • @Sledger said:

    Both Amazon and Rackspace have invested heavily in Xen. It would be a poor business decision to switch to KVM. Organisations like that can't afford to be hipsters. Throw in some proven stability and finer control over resources and it makes even more sense.

  • Nick_ANick_A Member, Top Host, Host Rep

    @Sledger said:

    I didn't say "so good" - I said the cool kids are using it. In other words, it's becoming more popular.

Sign In or Register to comment.