Bhyve

bhyve is an open-source hypervisor that allows users to run multiple operating systems as virtual machines on FreeBSD. It supports features like UEFI firmware, PCI passthrough, SMP, virtio drivers and more.

Bhyve alternatives ➤

What is Bhyve?

Bhyve is an open-source Type 2 hypervisor that runs on FreeBSD. It allows users to run multiple guest operating systems (called virtual machines or VMs) simultaneously on a single FreeBSD host system. Bhyve supports hardware virtualization features like Intel VT-x and AMD-V to improve the performance of guest VMs.

Some key features of bhyve include:

UEFI firmware support - VMs can have UEFI-based firmware for booting modern operating systems like Windows 8/10/11.
PCI passthrough - Allows VM direct and native access to host PCI devices for very high device performance.
SMP - VMs can use multiple virtual CPUs.
Virtio drivers - High performance paravirtualized drivers.
Disk images - VMs run off disk images rather than partitions.
Snapshots - Save and restore VM state.
Migration - Live migrate running VMs between hosts.

bhyve is bundled with FreeBSD so easy to get running. It has a simple command-line interface but third party tools like vm-bhyve provide a graphical management interface. The main limitation is it currently only runs on FreeBSD hosts.

Official Links

Official Website
bhyve.org

The Best Bhyve Alternatives

Top Apps like Bhyve

VirtualBox, QEMU, VMware Workstation Pro, VMware vSphere Hypervisor, Proxmox Virtual Environment, Windows Sandbox, KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), Microsoft Hyper-V Server, VMware Fusion are some alternatives to Bhyve.

Sugggest an alternative ❐

VirtualBox

Oracle VM VirtualBox, commonly referred to as VirtualBox, is a powerful and open-source virtualization platform developed by Oracle. It allows users to create and manage virtual machines (VMs) on a host machine, enabling the simultaneous execution of multiple operating systems on a single physical system. Key Features: Cross-Platform Support: VirtualBox...

QEMU

QEMU is a free and open source hypervisor and machine emulator. It emulates a complete computer system, including the processor, memory, storage, network interfaces and peripherals. This allows you to run software and operating systems written for one machine on a different machine.Some key features of QEMU include:Full...

VMware Workstation Pro

VMware Workstation Pro is a Type 2 hypervisor developed by VMware for desktop virtualization on x64 versions of Windows and Linux. It allows users to set up multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine and run different operating systems and applications in each VM without rebooting.Key features include:Ability...

VMware vSphere Hypervisor

VMware vSphere Hypervisor is a free bare-metal hypervisor that enables server virtualization, allowing multiple operating systems to run on the same physical server. It provides a robust, production-grade hypervisor layer that allows for greater hardware consolidation, improved availability and simplified management.Some key features of vSphere Hypervisor include:Workload optimization...

Proxmox Virtual Environment

Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source server virtualization management solution based on QEMU/KVM virtualization and LXC containers. It allows you to manage virtual machines and containers using a web-based GUI. Key features include:Hypervisor built on Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology for virtualizationLinux Containers (LXC) for...

Windows Sandbox

Windows Sandbox is a virtualized desktop environment included in recent versions of the Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. It allows users to run untrusted or unreliable software applications in an isolated environment without risking damage to the host device or operating system.Sandbox provides a lightweight virtual machine that shares...

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine)

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is an open-source virtualization technology built into Linux. It allows you to create and run virtual machines (VMs) on any Linux server or desktop with hardware virtualization capabilities.KVM is implemented as a kernel module that leverages the virtualization extensions of modern CPUs like Intel VT...

Microsoft Hyper-V Server

Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a free, standalone product from Microsoft that provides a hypervisor-based virtualization platform for running virtual machines on x64 Windows servers. It has a small footprint and requires limited system resources while providing a simple and reliable virtualization solution.As a hypervisor, Hyper-V creates and runs virtual...

VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion is a Type 2 hypervisor developed by VMware for Mac users. It allows you to create and run virtual machines that emulate other operating systems on your Mac hardware. Fusion provides a simple user interface to set up, manage, and use virtual machines.Some key features and capabilities of...