Virtualization is the process of managing a system's singular resource, such as RAM, CPU, or disk space, as multiple resources. This allows one physical system to operate as if it were several independent systems.

There are two main types of virtualization technology — containers and virtual machines (VM).

The key difference between containers and virtual machines is that while containers share the host resources, virtual machines virtualize an entire machine, including its own kernel, network card, disk space, and graphics adapter.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a full virtualization solution that allows a VPS to function as a completely independent server. This approach provides greater resource allocation, stronger isolation, and enhanced customizability compared to container-based solutions.

As container-type VPS shares the underlying physical hardware with other VPS, some configurations are still limited. Performance can also vary depending on the total workload of all the VPS hosted on the physical server.

KVM technology ensures each VPS gets entirely separate resources, even if they share the host server, providing better performance and stability.

Using a KVM allows for more functionality on your VPS, such as:

VPS purchased before April 18th, 2023, use OpenVZ, a type of container-based virtualization. Because of the differing virtualization technologies, an automatic switch from OpenVZ to KVM is not possible.

If you're interested in KVM, you can get a new KVM VPS plan and manually migrate your content instead.