zlacker

>Xen is an alternative hypervisor (like esxi). Instead of running on top of Linux, Xen has it's own microkernel. This means less flexibility (there's no Linux body running things), but also simpler to manage and less attack surface. I haven't played much with xen though, KVM is kind of the defacto, but iirc AWS uses a modified Xen.

If you actually played with Xen you'd know it's not actually easier to manage. And increased security claims are dubious at best, as same thing that would be attacked (dom0 managing the whole thing and running linux) have direct unfettered access to xen microkernel. There is reason many sites migrated away from Xen to KVM. Also many Xen drivers de facto run part Linux dom0 instance so you don't even get that isolation.

We ran Xen for few years, as KVM at first was still not as refined and Xen was first to mature market, and it was just million little annoying things.

KVM offers far simple and straightforward management. A VM is just a process. You can look at its CPU usage via normal tools. No magic. No driver problems.