thinQmaster Virtual testing partner Adaptive practice exams that find your weak spots and drill them. Every answer explained. From $69
Enroll

thinQmaster

Find your exam

Five questions free, before you decide.

Step 1 · choose a vendor

In one of our camps? Your practice exams come with the tuition — they are on your study page already.

Commonly confused · Systems & Data Center

Type 1 vs Type 2 Hypervisor: What's the Difference?

A Type 1 hypervisor runs directly on the server hardware with no underlying general-purpose OS, giving the best performance and security for data centers. A Type 2 hypervisor runs as an application on top of a host operating system and is mainly used on desktops for testing and labs.

Type 1 Hypervisor (Bare Metal)

Full definition
vs

Type 2 Hypervisor (Hosted)

Full definition
Type 1 HypervisorType 2 Hypervisor
Runs onBare-metal hardwareHost operating system
PerformanceNear nativeLower; extra OS layer
Security and stabilitySmaller attack surfaceInherits host OS issues
Typical useProduction data centers, cloudDesktop labs, development, testing
ExamplesVMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, Nutanix AHVVMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox, Parallels Desktop
ManagementCentral tools such as vCenterLocal application UI
Remember it

Type 1 is the foundation; Type 2 is a guest in someone else's house.

Exam tip

Expect classification of named products and scenario questions where production workloads need a Type 1 hypervisor. Note that Hyper-V and KVM are Type 1 even though they are enabled from within an OS.

Tested on

More Systems & Data Center look-alikes