Hypervisor Type 1 vs Type 2 Tutorial

A virtual machine (VM) is a software-based stand-in for a physical server, complete with its own operating system. From the point of view of whatever application is running inside it, a VM looks and behaves just like a real physical machine — CPU, memory, network interfaces and all.

What makes that possible is a hypervisor (also called a virtual machine monitor) — software that creates and manages VMs, letting a single physical server share its memory and processing power across multiple guest VMs at once.

Hypervisors come in two flavors: type 1 and type 2.

A type 1 hypervisor — also called a “native” or “bare-metal” hypervisor — installs directly on the physical server, with guest operating systems then running on top of it. Because it talks to the hardware directly, it’s more efficient than the alternative. VMware vSphere/ESXi, Oracle VM Server, KVM and Microsoft Hyper-V are all type 1 hypervisors.

A type 2 hypervisor — a “hosted” hypervisor — instead runs as an application on top of a regular operating system rather than talking to the hardware directly. Its main selling point is simplicity: it doesn’t need any separate management console software. VMware Workstation (available on Windows, Mac and Linux) and Microsoft Virtual PC (Windows only) are common examples.