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Xen is a paravirtualization platform which is very similar to hardware emulation. Paravirtualization works by creating an interface between the virtual environment's operating system and the hardware which queues and responds to operating system requests from operating systems modified to interact with the paravirtualization interface.

This key difference from operating system-level virtualization allows Xen VPS administrators to modify their kernel modules, utilize swap space to meet memory allocation demands, and watch their Xen virtual private server's boot process as Linux mounts virtualized devices.

OpenVZ is an operating system-level virtualization platform based on a single Linux kernel which has been modified to support multiple Linux virtual environments (more commonly referred to as virtual private servers).

The modified OpenVZ kernel isolates the file system, memory, and processes for each virtual environment, providing OpenVZVPS administrators with full root access and all of the commands normally associated with a dedicated server.

Key Differences

• Xen Platform

  • Uses more resources
  • Soft memory limit (swap space with performance penalty)
  • Full iptables access

• OpenVZ Platform

  • Uses fewer resources
  • Hard memory limit (no swap space)
  • Limited netfilter (iptables) modifications