Which hypervisor provides highest performance and efficiency?

Choosing the right Virtualization software for your datacenter is a complex task. Microsoft's Hyper-V has become a formidable competitor to VMware, especially with Windows Server R2 and Windows Server R2.  So we thought we would share our experience via this comparison of VMware versus Hyper-V, the leading server virtualization solutions.

Prior Version:  R2 versus Server R2 Microsoft made considerable enhancements in to Hyper-V in the release of Windows Server R2 OS.  This page presents data for Server only.  Please read   R2 VS R2 to learn more.

Windows Server R2

Host  

Logical processors                  

Physical memory                        1 TB

Virtual processors per host         

Virtual Machine

Virtual processors per VM          GB

Virtual disk capacity                   2 TB

Active virtual machines            

Cluster

Nodes                                         

Virtual machines                        1,

Windows Server R2

Host  

Logical processors                         

Physical memory                         4  TB

Virtual processors per host          2,

Virtual Machine

Virtual processors per VM        1 TB

Virtual disk capacity                   TB

Active virtual machines             1,

Cluster

Hyper-V versus VMware - Pricing If you already have a Windows Server R2 or Windows Server R2 OS platform, you can download Hyper-V Server at no cost. The only cost is for the System Center management framework. Microsoft includes management of physical and virtual environments along with Hyper-V and VMware.Hyper-V provides you with migration capabilities: Live Migration is included in Windows Server at no extra charge.  We are using it and can attest to it's robustness.  With VMware, VMotion in both Foundation and Standard editions, there is an additional charge if you want to add migration capabilities.

Take a look at the following table, you will see side-by-side the cost comparison of Hyper-V vs VMware. All of VMware feature comparisons use Virtual Infrastructure Enterprise and most of its pricing comparisons use Virtual Infrastructure Foundation. Costs are for five physical servers.  We've made the assumption that you've already paid for the host server OS in this comparison.

The one that uses Hardware virtualization, Intel VT-x, AMD-V, etc...  In particular KVM is a better choice on Linux, on Windows, VMware or Hyper-V are a good choice.

Type 1 hypervisor provides the highest performance and efficiency. It runs directly on the system hardware, often referred to as a "native" or "bare metal" or "embedded" hypervisor.

Amongst others firmware based one

VMware provides the widest array of functionalities, then Citrix and lastly Microsoft Hyper-V

Firmware based hypervisors like VMware vsphare and hyper-v core

Hyper visors come in two different categories.

1- Type 1 = which is installed on bare metal ( installed directly on the hardware)

2- type 2 = which is a hyper visor that needs an OS to work. ( installed on an OS)

Type 1 is much better than the later just because it eliminates a point of failure which is the risk of the OS failing.  I have worked on both type of hyper visors. In my personal experience type 1 are much better. Companies like Vmware and Microsoft's Hyper v are best hyper visors out there.  

Type 1 Hypervisor provides the highest performance as per my previous experience I can say this.

VMware is the best hypervisor with high performance and efficiency

Vmware Esxi is the best Hypervisor

Yes I agree with Muhammad Azam, The firmware based hyper visor provides highest level of performance and efficiency, I have experience with VMware 5 which also have great compatibility with hardware and less issue..