Both VMware vSphere and Hyper-V are popular type-1 hypervisors. This article will outline the difference between vSphere and Hyper-V to help you make a good choice from them.
Today virtualization is widely accepted by organizations and enterprises. By running multiple virtual instances in a layer abstracted from the actual hardware, virtualization can increase IT agility, flexibility and scalability while creating significant cost savings.
The software that enables you to do so is hypervisor. Currently there are many proven hypervisor products you can choose from. Next, this article will compare 2 of the most popular ones, VMware vSphere vs Hyper-V, to help you understand them and make your choice.
VMware vSphere (formerly known as VMware Infrastructure) is a Server virtualization software suite of VMware that includes many software components to fulfill different functions in the vSphere environment. Including:
For more introduction of these components of vSphere, you can refer to VMware’s official document: vSphere Software Components
Hyper-V is Microsoft’s type-1 hypervisor. It is an optional feature built into Hyper-V Server, Windows Server, Windows Enterprise, Pro, and Education, thus it doesn’t require a download and only needs to be enabled in Windows features.
When you install the Hyper-V role, you install its virtualization platform components as a set. The required parts include:
Both VMware vSphere and Hyper-V provide basic management of virtual machines, hosts, and storage from a central location, as well as advanced features to ensure that virtual machines have the resources they need to operate smoothly.
However, to make a good choice from them, you still need to understand their differences. Here is a table to help you with the difference between vSphere and Hyper-V.
vSphere | Hyper-V | |
Vendor company | VMware | Microsoft |
System supported | Windows, Linux, Unix, MacOS, etc | Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, SUSE, etc |
Ease of deployment | More complex | Easier |
Memory management | Various techniques like transparent page sharing | Single technique called “Dynamic Memory” |
Ecosystem | Larger with third-party tools | Limited to Microsoft products |
Security | Host-level security capabilities | Network encryption |
Migration tool | VMware vMotion | Hyper-V Live Migration |
Licensing cost | Higher | Lower |
The choice between VMware vSphere and Hyper-V will depend on the specific needs and requirements of your organization. Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, and it's important to carefully evaluate each one before making a decision.
Here are some factors to consider when making a decision:
To protect your critical applications and data in case of a disaster such as hardware failure, cyber-attacks, or human errors, it is necessary to take regular backups of your virtual machines.
You can try AOMEI Cyber Backup, a reliable image-level backup software that support both VMware vSphere and Hyper-V. And offers you the following benefits:
✦ Agentless Image Backup: backup vSphere or Hyper-V VMs in an agentless way. ✦ Hot Backup: capable of backing up VM that are running. ✦ Automated Execution: create backup schedules to automate virtual machine protection, notify by email. ✦ Restore Entire VM: restore immediately available VMs from any selected restore points.
AOMEI Cyber Backup supports VMware ESXi 6.0 and later versions, as well as Hyper-V in Windows 8/8.1/10/11, Windows Server/Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, and later versions.
You can click the following button to download the free edition.
*You can choose to install this VM backup software on either Windows or Linux system.
VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V are both popular virtualization platforms used to run multiple virtual machines on a single physical host. Each of them consists of many components and offering its own strengths and weaknesses.
To make the right choice between them, you need to understand what they are and what’s the difference between vSphere and Hyper-V. Hope this article could be helpful.
There are also articles about other things you may want to read further. For example, you can refer to vSphere vs vCenter vs ESXi if you need.