KVM vs OpenStack

Overview

OpenStack

Stacks790

Followers1.2K

Votes138

KVM

Stacks189

Followers234

Votes8

KVM vs OpenStack: What are the differences?

KVM and OpenStack are two widely used technologies in cloud computing. While KVM is a hypervisor that enables the virtualization of hardware resources, OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform that provides a complete infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution. Here are the key differences between them.

Architecture: KVM is a standalone hypervisor that runs directly on the host operating system, whereas OpenStack is a complete cloud management platform composed of several components, including a hypervisor like KVM, networking, storage, and orchestration services. OpenStack provides a unified interface to manage and control various virtualization technologies, including KVM.
Scalability: KVM offers scalability by allowing the creation of multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical host. However, its scalability is limited to the capabilities of the host hardware. OpenStack, on the other hand, provides horizontal scalability by allowing the deployment and management of VMs across a cluster of physical hosts. This allows for the creation and scaling of large-scale cloud infrastructures.
Management and Orchestration: KVM primarily focuses on the virtualization of hardware resources and does not have extensive management and orchestration capabilities on its own. OpenStack, being a complete cloud management platform, includes powerful management and orchestration features. It provides APIs and services for provisioning, scaling, and managing the entire cloud infrastructure, including VMs, networks, and storage.
Resource Sharing: In KVM, the virtual machines are generally isolated and dedicated to specific users or applications. On the other hand, OpenStack allows for resource sharing among multiple users or tenants. This enables the creation of multi-tenant environments where resources can be allocated and shared dynamically based on user or application requirements.
Integration and Ecosystem: KVM is a widely adopted hypervisor and can be integrated with various management tools and solutions. However, its ecosystem is mainly focused on the virtualization layer. OpenStack, being a comprehensive cloud computing platform, has a vast ecosystem of plugins, extensions, and integration options with other cloud technologies and services. It provides a flexible and extensible framework for building and integrating various cloud-related solutions.
Community and Support: KVM has a strong community of users and contributors, with active development and support. However, OpenStack has a much larger and thriving community due to its broader scope and popularity. OpenStack benefits from the contributions and expertise of various organizations and individuals, ensuring continuous development, improvement, and support for the platform.

In summary, KVM is a hypervisor that focuses on virtualization, while OpenStack is a complete cloud management platform with extensive management and orchestration capabilities. KVM is suitable for small-scale virtualization deployments, while OpenStack is a preferred choice for building and managing large-scale cloud infrastructures.

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Detailed Comparison

OpenStack	KVM
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.	KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).
Compute;Storage;Networking;Dashboard;Shared Services	-
Statistics
Stacks 790	Stacks 189
Followers 1.2K	Followers 234
Votes 138	Votes 8
Pros & Cons
Pros 60 Private cloud 39 Avoid vendor lock-in 23 Flexible in use 7 Industry leader 5 Robust architecture	Pros 4 No license issues 2 Very fast 2 Flexible network options

What are some alternatives to OpenStack, KVM?

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.

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.

Proxmox VE

It is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.

VMware vSphere

vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.

VirtKick

Software as a service platform for hosting providers.

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.

Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence.

Parallels

It is an application and desktop virtualization software vendor that offers management and delivery platforms for Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows desktop deployments.

VMware Fusion

It gives Mac users the power to run Windows on Mac along with hundreds of other operating systems side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting. It is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses.

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.

Related Comparisons

KVM vs OpenStack: What are the differences?

Architecture: KVM is a standalone hypervisor that runs directly on the host operating system, whereas OpenStack is a complete cloud management platform composed of several components, including a hypervisor like KVM, networking, storage, and orchestration services. OpenStack provides a unified interface to manage and control various virtualization technologies, including KVM.
Scalability: KVM offers scalability by allowing the creation of multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single physical host. However, its scalability is limited to the capabilities of the host hardware. OpenStack, on the other hand, provides horizontal scalability by allowing the deployment and management of VMs across a cluster of physical hosts. This allows for the creation and scaling of large-scale cloud infrastructures.
Management and Orchestration: KVM primarily focuses on the virtualization of hardware resources and does not have extensive management and orchestration capabilities on its own. OpenStack, being a complete cloud management platform, includes powerful management and orchestration features. It provides APIs and services for provisioning, scaling, and managing the entire cloud infrastructure, including VMs, networks, and storage.
Resource Sharing: In KVM, the virtual machines are generally isolated and dedicated to specific users or applications. On the other hand, OpenStack allows for resource sharing among multiple users or tenants. This enables the creation of multi-tenant environments where resources can be allocated and shared dynamically based on user or application requirements.
Integration and Ecosystem: KVM is a widely adopted hypervisor and can be integrated with various management tools and solutions. However, its ecosystem is mainly focused on the virtualization layer. OpenStack, being a comprehensive cloud computing platform, has a vast ecosystem of plugins, extensions, and integration options with other cloud technologies and services. It provides a flexible and extensible framework for building and integrating various cloud-related solutions.
Community and Support: KVM has a strong community of users and contributors, with active development and support. However, OpenStack has a much larger and thriving community due to its broader scope and popularity. OpenStack benefits from the contributions and expertise of various organizations and individuals, ensuring continuous development, improvement, and support for the platform.

KVM vs OpenStack

Overview