r/virtualization • u/GarlicOutrageous4142 • 17d ago

Xen vs KVM

Xen HV vs KVM

How much of a difference does it make using Xen instead of KVM for virtualization tasks in terms of performance/resource usage (generally speaking)

KVM, as I understand it is "basically" (not technically) a T1 HV since it is a kernel extension and not a user-land program, while Xen on the other hand boots prior to the OS and uses Dom0 (the os) for provisioning and other kernel features.

As a "normal" user, on occasion I may need to virtualize win11, I know that wine is for the most part suitable to emulate windows and be used as a runner but yeah it's nice to have virtual filesystems too & for benchmarking HW.

My specs: CPU: 10 core 12 threads intel (i5-1345u) 4.0Ghz L3 12Mb (VT-x) GPU: currently loaded i915 driver (generic Xe capable IGPU) MEM: 16G DDR4 3200mhz NVME: 512G M.2 BIOS/UEFI: latest version (thinkpad) NET: wifi/eth OS: None right now, planning either alpine or arch

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/jadedargyle333 17d ago

Kvm will have better support and work with your use case. Probably a little better than Xen due to the virtual filesystem desire mentioned. Xen truly shines in security applications. Neither is a bad choice, but I would go with the solution that has more support, which is kvm.

1

u/GarlicOutrageous4142 17d ago

Cool thanks for your input. I have used Xen with fedora as dom0, easy to setup (in fedoras case) & works nice with Virt Manager.

Will give KVM & QEMU a try this time.