Multipass vs oVirt

Multipass runs cloud-style virtual machines on Linux, macOS, and Windows workstations. It is intended for prototyping cloud deployments locally and creating customized Linux development environments. Instances can use cloud-init metadata, including custom definitions for configured servers, and local workflows can model deployments for AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, and Oracle. Multipass fetches Ubuntu images from Canonical and offers a growing catalogue of images with pre-installed applications. Users can share host files and folders with instances; the primary instance integrates with the native filesystem and has dedicated hot-key access. Both command-line and graphical interfaces are available, and the documentation covers Windows Terminal integration and running Docker containers in an instance. Host hypervisors are Host Compute System on Windows, Apple Virtualization on macOS, and QEMU on Linux. The product is free; the listed plan costs nothing, with host requirements varying by operating system. Anyone with access to the Multipass daemon socket can fully control the software, including mounting host filesystems and changing instance security features. Canonical advises limiting daemon access to trusted users. Its access controls begin with group membership and can later use a user TLS certificate.

oVirt is a free, open-source distributed virtualization system for managing enterprise infrastructure. It uses the KVM hypervisor and builds on community projects including libvirt, Gluster, PatternFly, and Ansible. Deployment options include a self-hosted Engine and a standalone Engine; the project recommends the self-hosted option, which runs as a virtual machine on specialized hosts and is highly available without external HA management. Centralized storage holds virtual machine disks, ISO files, and snapshots, with options including NFS, GlusterFS, iSCSI, local storage, Fibre Channel, pNFS, and other POSIX-compliant filesystems. Automation and integration are available through Ansible roles and collections, Python, Java, and Ruby SDKs, and a REST API. The download page identifies version 4.5.7 as intended for production use, with Engine and host support for Enterprise Linux 9 or 10 and CentOS Stream 9 or 10. Installation is by command line. At least one additional host is required for advanced features such as migration and high availability. The project points users to community forums, IRC, and Matrix, and invites contributions.