KubeVirt vs OpenStack

Overview

OpenStack

Stacks790

Followers1.2K

Votes138

KubeVirt

Stacks5

Followers19

Votes0

GitHub Stars6.4K

Forks1.5K

KubeVirt vs OpenStack: What are the differences?

Introduction

KubeVirt and OpenStack are both open-source technologies used for managing and orchestrating cloud infrastructure. However, they have some key differences that set them apart from each other. This article will highlight the main differences between KubeVirt and OpenStack in a concise manner.

Architecture: KubeVirt is a virtualization platform that leverages Kubernetes to run virtual machines (VMs) as containers. It integrates VM management into the Kubernetes cluster and utilizes its networking, storage, and scheduling capabilities. On the other hand, OpenStack is a cloud operating system that provides a complete set of infrastructure services, including compute, networking, and storage, using traditional virtualization technology.
Scalability: KubeVirt is designed to leverage the scalability and flexibility of Kubernetes. It allows for the creation and management of several hundred VMs on a single Kubernetes cluster. OpenStack, on the other hand, is more suitable for large-scale deployments and can manage thousands of VMs across multiple physical servers.
Resource Utilization: KubeVirt utilizes containerization technology, allowing for higher resource utilization compared to traditional virtualization. By running VMs as containers, KubeVirt reduces the overhead associated with the hypervisor and improves the efficiency of resource utilization. OpenStack, however, has a higher resource overhead due to the hypervisor layer.
Ease of Deployment: KubeVirt is relatively easier and quicker to deploy as it can be integrated into an existing Kubernetes cluster. It leverages the existing Kubernetes infrastructure, making it more seamless to set up and manage. OpenStack, on the other hand, requires dedicated hardware and a more complex setup process, making it more time-consuming to deploy.
Integration with Containers: KubeVirt seamlessly integrates VMs into the containerized infrastructure, enabling coexistence with containerized applications and services. This allows for a unified management and orchestration of both VMs and containers. OpenStack, on the other hand, primarily focuses on traditional virtualization and may require additional tools or platforms for container integration.
Community Support and Maturity: OpenStack has been in development since 2010 and has a large and mature community supporting it. It has a wide range of contributors and a robust ecosystem of plugins and extensions. KubeVirt, on the other hand, is a relatively newer technology and has a smaller community and ecosystem. However, it benefits from the strong backing of the Kubernetes community, ensuring its continued development and growth.

In summary, KubeVirt and OpenStack differ in their architecture, scalability, resource utilization, ease of deployment, integration with containers, and community support. While KubeVirt leverages Kubernetes for VM management and has higher resource utilization, OpenStack provides a complete set of infrastructure services and is more suitable for large-scale deployments.

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Detailed Comparison

OpenStack	KubeVirt
OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.	It addresses the needs of development teams that have adopted or want to adopt Kubernetes but possess existing Virtual Machine-based workloads that cannot be easily containerized. More specifically, the technology provides a unified development platform where developers can build, modify, and deploy applications residing in both Application Containers as well as Virtual Machines in a common, shared environment.
Compute;Storage;Networking;Dashboard;Shared Services	Open Source; Kubernetes Compatible; Windows and Linux VMs
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 6.4K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 1.5K
Stacks 790	Stacks 5
Followers 1.2K	Followers 19
Votes 138	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 60 Private cloud 39 Avoid vendor lock-in 23 Flexible in use 7 Industry leader 5 Robust architecture	No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available	Kubernetes

What are some alternatives to OpenStack, KubeVirt?

Vagrant

Vagrant provides the framework and configuration format to create and manage complete portable development environments. These development environments can live on your computer or in the cloud, and are portable between Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

boot2docker

boot2docker is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Tiny Core Linux made specifically to run Docker containers. It runs completely from RAM, weighs ~27MB and boots in ~5s (YMMV).

Apache CloudStack

CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.

Otto

Otto automatically builds development environments without any configuration; it can detect your project type and has built-in knowledge of industry-standard tools to setup a development environment that is ready to go. When you're ready to deploy, otto builds and manages an infrastructure, sets up servers, builds, and deploys the application.

libvirt

It is an open-source API, daemon and management tool for managing platform virtualization. It can be used to manage KVM, Xen, VMware ESXi, QEMU and other virtualization technologies.

VirtKick

Software as a service platform for hosting providers.

Azk

azk lets developers easily and quickly install and configure development environments on their computers.

XenServer

It is a leading virtualization management platform optimized for application, desktop and server virtualization infrastructures. It is used in the world's largest clouds and enterprises.

OpenNebula

It provides a simple but feature-rich and flexible solution for the comprehensive management of virtualized data centers to enable on-premise enterprise clouds in existing infrastructures. It can be primarily used as a virtualization tool to manage your virtual infrastructure in the data-center or cluster, which is usually referred as Private Cloud. It supports Hybrid Cloud to combine local infrastructure with public cloud-based infrastructure, enabling highly scalable hosting environments.

VMware ESXi

It is a bare metal hypervisor that installs easily on to your server and partitions it into multiple virtual machines. It effectively partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.

Related Comparisons

KubeVirt vs OpenStack: What are the differences?

Introduction

Architecture: KubeVirt is a virtualization platform that leverages Kubernetes to run virtual machines (VMs) as containers. It integrates VM management into the Kubernetes cluster and utilizes its networking, storage, and scheduling capabilities. On the other hand, OpenStack is a cloud operating system that provides a complete set of infrastructure services, including compute, networking, and storage, using traditional virtualization technology.
Scalability: KubeVirt is designed to leverage the scalability and flexibility of Kubernetes. It allows for the creation and management of several hundred VMs on a single Kubernetes cluster. OpenStack, on the other hand, is more suitable for large-scale deployments and can manage thousands of VMs across multiple physical servers.
Resource Utilization: KubeVirt utilizes containerization technology, allowing for higher resource utilization compared to traditional virtualization. By running VMs as containers, KubeVirt reduces the overhead associated with the hypervisor and improves the efficiency of resource utilization. OpenStack, however, has a higher resource overhead due to the hypervisor layer.
Ease of Deployment: KubeVirt is relatively easier and quicker to deploy as it can be integrated into an existing Kubernetes cluster. It leverages the existing Kubernetes infrastructure, making it more seamless to set up and manage. OpenStack, on the other hand, requires dedicated hardware and a more complex setup process, making it more time-consuming to deploy.
Integration with Containers: KubeVirt seamlessly integrates VMs into the containerized infrastructure, enabling coexistence with containerized applications and services. This allows for a unified management and orchestration of both VMs and containers. OpenStack, on the other hand, primarily focuses on traditional virtualization and may require additional tools or platforms for container integration.
Community Support and Maturity: OpenStack has been in development since 2010 and has a large and mature community supporting it. It has a wide range of contributors and a robust ecosystem of plugins and extensions. KubeVirt, on the other hand, is a relatively newer technology and has a smaller community and ecosystem. However, it benefits from the strong backing of the Kubernetes community, ensuring its continued development and growth.

KubeVirt vs OpenStack

Overview