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KVM

Stacks142

Followers173

+ 1

Votes8

LXD

Stacks93

Followers165

+ 1

Votes68

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KVM vs LXD: What are the differences?

Developers describe KVM as "Kernel-based Virtual Machine is a full virtualization solution for Linux". KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). On the other hand, LXD is detailed as "Daemon based on liblxc offering a REST API to manage containers". LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.

KVM belongs to "Virtualization Platform" category of the tech stack, while LXD can be primarily classified under "Virtual Machine Platforms & Containers".

LXD is an open source tool with 2.28K GitHub stars and 531 GitHub forks. Here's a link to LXD's open source repository on GitHub.

Decisions about KVM and LXD

Florian Sager

IT DevOp at Agitos GmbH · Oct 22, 2019 | 2 upvotes · 259.7K views

Chose

LXD

over

Docker

lxd/lxc and Docker aren't congruent so this comparison needs a more detailed look; but in short I can say: the lxd-integrated administration of storage including zfs with its snapshot capabilities as well as the system container (multi-process) approach of lxc vs. the limited single-process container approach of Docker is the main reason I chose lxd over Docker.

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Pros of KVM

Pros of LXD

4
No license issues
2
Very fast
2
Flexible network options

10
More simple
8
Open Source
8
API
8
Best
7
Cluster
5
Multiprocess isolation (not single)
5
Fast
5
I like the goal of the LXD and found it to work great
4
Full OS isolation
3
Container
3
More stateful than docker
2
Systemctl compatibility

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What companies use KVM?

What companies use LXD?

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What tools integrate with KVM?

What tools integrate with LXD?

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What are some alternatives to KVM and LXD?

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Qemu

When used as a machine emulator, it can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performance. When used as a virtualizer, it achieves near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. it supports virtualization when executing under the Xen hypervisor or using the KVM kernel module in Linux. When using KVM, it can virtualize x86, server and embedded PowerPC, 64-bit POWER, S390, 32-bit and 64-bit ARM, and MIPS guests.

OpenVZ

Virtuozzo leverages OpenVZ as its core of a virtualization solution offered by Virtuozzo company. Virtuozzo is optimized for hosters and offers hypervisor (VMs in addition to containers), distributed cloud storage, dedicated support, management tools, and easy installation.

Xen

It is a hypervisor using a microkernel design, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was developed by the Linux Foundation and is supported by Intel.

Docker

The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere

See all alternatives

KVM vs LXD