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Hostinger switches off its last OpenVZ servers on 30 novembre 2026 and deletes whatever is still running on them. That single date tells you more about shared-kernel hosting than any benchmark chart. OpenVZ itself is not abandoned software. The project published a fresh build of its kernel on 15 luglio 2026. Two European hosts still sell containers on it for less than KVM. So the question isn’t which technology wins on paper. It’s whether the money you save is worth the ceiling you’re buying into.
Risposta rapida: Buy KVM unless price per GB of RAM is the only number you care about. KVM gives you your own kernel, real swap, current distributions and a Docker install that works. OpenVZ containers run about a third cheaper for the same RAM and disk. They also sit on a Linux 3.10 kernel with no template for Debian 13 o AlmaLinux 10. If you already run an OpenVZ server, ask your host for its shutdown date before you renew anything.
Ultima revisione: settembre 2026. Prezzi, kernel builds and lifecycle dates verified.
How We Compared KVM and OpenVZ
Most comparisons of these two repeat the same architecture diagram from 2014 e fermati lì. We started from primary sources instead, all checked in September 2026.
Four rules shaped what went in. Primo, a virtualization claim only counts if the provider states it on its own product page or support documentation. A review site’s guess doesn’t count. Secondo, every price here is the renewal price, taken from the plan or checkout page, with the promotional rate shown beside it. Terzo, project status comes from the OpenVZ download server and the Virtuozzo lifecycle document. Forum threads announcing the death of OpenVZ have been wrong for a decade, so we ignored them. Il quarto, we dropped performance benchmarks published by hosts that sell one of the two technologies. That removed most of the “OpenVZ is 30% Più veloce” material floating around.
Cosa non abbiamo fatto: run our own load tests. We have no lab, and a synthetic benchmark on one host tells you about that host’s overselling policy, not about the hypervisor. Where a number here comes from a kernel changelog or a repository timestamp, you can check it yourself in a browser. One limitation to flag: OpenVZ hosts rarely publish their kernel build number. The container you rent may run an older build than the one the project shipped in July 2026.
KVM: A Full Virtual Machine With Its Own Kernel
KVM (Macchina virtuale basata su kernel) turns the Linux kernel into a hypervisor, the software layer that runs virtual machines. It has been part of mainline Linux since version 2.6.20 a febbraio 2007. That makes it older than most of the hosting brands selling it. Your VPS boots its own kernel, sees its own virtual disk and network card, and knows nothing about its neighbours.
That isolation is the whole product. You can replace the kernel, load modules, run a distribution your host has never heard of, and install Docker without asking permission. You can also run Windows, which no container technology can do on a Linux host.
The cost is overhead. Every KVM guest carries its own kernel and its own page cache. A host therefore fits fewer paying customers on the same hardware, e addebita di conseguenza. Providers usually quote a few percent of CPU overhead. The honest answer is that tenant density matters far more than the hypervisor does. La nostra carrellata di the best KVM VPS providers covers who oversells and who doesn’t.
OpenVZ in 2026: Maintained, But Frozen at Kernel 3.10
OpenVZ is operating-system-level virtualization. One kernel runs on the physical machine, and every customer gets a container that shares it. There’s no second kernel to boot, no virtual hardware to emulate, and no memory spent on duplicate caches. On paper that’s efficient. In 2010 it was the default way to sell a cheap VPS.
Here’s what the “OpenVZ is dead” crowd gets wrong. The project still builds its kernel. The package vzkernel 3.10.0-1160.129.1.vz7.226.3 landed in the factory repository on 15 luglio 2026, so security patches still arrive. What stopped is forward movement. The last numbered OpenVZ 7 pubblicazione, 7.0.22, è stato pubblicato il 24 ottobre 2024. OpenVZ 8 never shipped past a 2021 costruire, and OpenVZ 9 has sat at an alpha since March 2023. The project wiki’s release table was last edited in January 2020.
The version number that matters is 3.10. OpenVZ 7 is built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 e la sua 3.10 kernel line, which upstream Linux released on 30 giugno 2013. Every container on the node shares it. You cannot upgrade it, patch around it, or swap it, because it isn’t yours. Shared-kernel hosting didn’t die with OpenVZ, anche se. Newer container hosting is built on LXC, which runs on whatever current kernel the host boots rather than a frozen one.
Virtuozzo, the company behind the code, sells a commercial twin called Virtuozzo Server 7. Its own lifecycle document puts that product at end of maintenance in July 2024, with end of life scheduled for December 2027. End of maintenance, in Virtuozzo’s wording, means no more feature upgrades, bug fixes or system downloads, while security updates continue. That describes OpenVZ 7 oggi: patched, not developed.
Which Operating Systems You Can Actually Run
This is where the shared kernel stops being an abstract idea and starts costing you something.
A container has no kernel of its own, so it can only run a distribution the platform has a template for. We listed the OS templates in OpenVZ’s own package repository on 17 settembre 2026. The newest are Ubuntu 24.04 e Debian 12, both packaged in December 2024, plus AlmaLinux 9 from a year earlier. Rocky Linux stops at version 8. There is no Debian 13 template and no AlmaLinux 10 modello. Debian 13 spedito il 9 agosto 2025, e AlmaLinux 10 arrived on 27 Maggio 2025.
Compare that with the KVM line at the same provider. Time4VPS sells both. Its KVM plans offer AlmaLinux 8, 9 e 10, Rocky Linux 9 e 10, Ubuntu 22.04 e 24.04, e Debian 11, 12 e 13. Stessa compagnia, same order form, two different lists, and the container list is the short one.
The gap widens from here, and the mechanism is worth understanding. systemd is the init system nearly every modern distribution uses. systemd 258, rilasciato 17 settembre 2025, removed support for cgroup v1 and raised its minimum kernel to Linux 5.4. Control groups (cgroups, the kernel feature that caps what a process can use) reached version 2 in Linux 4.5, a marzo 2016. That is nearly three years after the 3.10 line began. UN 3.10 kernel therefore cannot satisfy systemd 258 affatto. Fedora 43 already ships systemd 258, Fedora 44 porta 259, and Debian’s next stable branch sits on 261. Those releases will never get an OpenVZ 7 modello, no matter who wants to write one.
Memoria, Swap and the Overselling Question
Ask anyone who ran a cheap container in 2015 and you’ll hear about memory. OpenVZ made overselling easy, because the host allocates RAM from one pool and can promise more than the machine physically has. KVM allows overselling too. The difference is that a KVM guest reserves its memory at boot, so the host has to be more deliberate about it.
Swap works differently as well. On a KVM server you create a swap file in about two minutes, and it behaves like swap on a physical machine. OpenVZ gives you vSwap instead, an emulated swap that the host accounts for. Its size and behaviour are your provider’s decision rather than yours.
Proving that a host has oversold you works differently on each side. A KVM guest reports steal time, which Red Hat defines as CPU time a guest asked for and the host didn’t provide. It lands in /proc/stat as st, dove superiore e vmstat pick it up, and nobody can switch it off. On OpenVZ the equivalent evidence is the failcnt column in /proc/user_beancounters, which counts refused allocations rather than stolen time.
There’s a practical consequence people hit at 2am. The numbers inside a container describe a limit, not a machine. Monitoring tools that expect real hardware can report figures that make no sense. A process killed for exceeding a container limit doesn’t always leave the evidence you’d expect in your logs. It’s the kind of thing that costs you an hour before you remember which layer you’re on.
docker, WireGuard and Anything That Needs a Kernel Module
The blunt version is true often enough to be a decent rule: if you need Docker, buy KVM. The precise version is more interesting.
OpenVZ 7 does have a documented path for running Docker inside a container. The project’s own wiki page for it still carries the warning it was written with in 2016: the feature is experimental and is not supported in production. It also requires the host administrator to load the veth and overlay kernel modules, and it supports only the overlay and vfs storage drivers. You control none of those decisions. Your provider does, and most sellers of budget containers leave them off. La nostra guida a VPS plans that actually run Docker goes deeper on what to check before buying.
WireGuard shows the same pattern from another angle. The kernel implementation has been in mainline Linux since 5.6 a marzo 2020, quindi un 3.10 host simply doesn’t have it. A userspace implementation such as wireguard-go can work if your provider enables TUN/TAP (the virtual network devices a VPN needs) for your container. It runs slower than the in-kernel version. The rule holds for anything that touches the kernel: eBPF tooling, newer nftables features, TCP BBR congestion control (merged in Linux 4.9, dicembre 2016), moduli personalizzati, ZFS. On KVM these are your call. On OpenVZ they are your host’s call, and the answer is usually no.
Prezzo: What the Shared Kernel Actually Saves You
Nobody buys OpenVZ for the architecture. They buy it because it’s cheaper. So here’s the gap measured at one provider that sells both lines, with every price checked on 17 settembre 2026.
Time4VPS runs its Container VPS line on OpenVZ and its Linux VPS line on KVM, out of the same European infrastructure. On the two-year term, the OpenVZ C4 plan (2 vCPU, 4 GB di RAM, 50 GB di archiviazione) renews at USD 6.62/month (euro 5.77). Il KVMLinux 4 plan has identical CPU, RAM e archiviazione, e rinnova a USD 10.06/month (euro 8.76). Questo è 52% more for the same specification, although the KVM plan doubles your traffic allowance from 4 TBC a 8 TB. A 8 GB the premium grows to 63%.
Flip it around and the tiers line up exactly. The same money buys double the RAM and double the storage on the container line. C4 and Linux 2 both renew at USD 6.62, and C8 and Linux 4 both renew at USD 10.06. That’s the trade in one sentence. You’re paying for a kernel with roughly half your resources.
Two footnotes on the bill. Every Time4VPS plan we checked, container or KVM, renews at exactly 2.0x la tariffa promozionale. The first invoice is never the real price (budget for year two, non il primo anno, and nothing will surprise you). At the sister brand Hostens, the gap is narrower. Its OpenVZ Container VPS small plan runs USD 6.00/month, contro USD 7.50 for the KVM Linux VPS at the same 2 GB di RAM. Both carry a “50% spento, not recurring” bandiera. UN 25% saving to give up your own kernel is a worse deal than a 52% uno.
Lifecycle Risk: The Deadline Most Buyers Miss
Price gaps you can calculate. Migration deadlines arrive whether or not you planned for them.
Hostinger discontinued OpenVZ on 1 marzo 2026, which stopped renewals and upgrades on those plans. Hostinger’s support documentation states that OpenVZ will be fully shut down on 30 novembre 2026. After that date, remaining servers and all their data are permanently removed. There is no in-place conversion, because a container cannot become a virtual machine. No tool, no ticket, nessuna eccezione. You rebuild on a KVM plan and copy your data across. If you bought a Hostinger VPS before 18 aprile 2023, that’s you, and the clock runs out in November.
This isn’t one company acting alone. Hosteons announced the end of its OpenVZ 7 range in 2024 and moved customers to KVM. It cited the CentOS 7 end of life in 2024, which OpenVZ 7 inherits from its base system. Proxmox matters here too, because so many smaller hosts build on it. Proxmox VE 4.0 dropped OpenVZ in favour of LXC containers on 6 ottobre 2015. Anyone who built a platform after that date never had OpenVZ as an option.
If you’re the one holding a shutdown notice, the move itself is four steps:
- Buy the KVM plan before you cancel the container, and run both for a week. Overlap costs one month’s rent and saves the rollback.
- Write down what the old box actually runs: uname -r, your installed packages, cron jobs and open ports. Containers hide surprises in all four.
- Move the data with rsync over SSH, then drop your DNS TTL to five minutes a day before you switch the records.
- Keep a backup that lives on neither server until the new one has handled real traffic for a few days.
The buyer’s lesson is about time horizon, not doom. A container you rent monthly for a side project carries almost no lifecycle risk. A production server on a three-year prepayment is a different bet. You’re wagering that your provider keeps its OpenVZ nodes alive longer than your billing term. Ask them directly before you commit, because a host that has already set an end date will usually tell you.
How to Check Which One You Are Paying For
Product names lie in both directions. “Cloud VPS” can be a container, e “Contenitore VPS” is sometimes KVM at a host that never updated its marketing. Three commands settle it in under a minute, run over SSH on the server itself.
- systemd-detect-virt is the most reliable one. It prints openvz for an OpenVZ or Virtuozzo container, kvm for a KVM guest, e lxc for an LXC container. It ships by default on any systemd distribution.
- cat /proc/user_beancounters exposes OpenVZ’s resource-limit interface. If that file exists, you’re in a container, whatever the invoice says. Its failcnt column counts how many resource requests the host refused, and a number climbing there explains a lot of mysterious crashes.
- uname -r prints the kernel. Anything reporting 3.10 with a vz7 string is an OpenVZ 7 nodo. The build number after it tells you how recently your host patched.
One more check costs nothing. During the refund window, try to load a kernel module or run docker run hello-world. Time4VPS gives 30 days on its container plans. That’s enough time to learn what your specific host allows, while the money is still refundable.
How to Choose Between KVM and OpenVZ
Forget the feature tables. Four concrete situations cover most buying decisions.
Budget under USD 7/month, hobby project, no containers: the OpenVZ line wins on arithmetic. Time4VPS C4 gives you 4 GB di RAM e 50 GB of storage for USD 6.62/month (euro 5.77) al rinnovo. The KVM plan at that price drops you to 2 GB e 25 GB. Run a Minecraft server, an IRC bouncer, a personal Nextcloud or a staging copy of a site on it. Skip it if your stack includes a single Docker container, because the saving evaporates the moment you rebuild elsewhere.
Production site, Dollaro statunitense 10 a 20/mese: take KVM and stop optimizing. Time4VPSLinux 4 at USD 10.06/month (euro 8.76) buys a kernel nobody else can touch. It also buys current Debian or AlmaLinux, and a migration path independent of your host’s roadmap. Any comparable KVM plan does the same job. Il 52% premium over the container equivalent is the cheapest insurance in hosting.
You need a specific distribution or kernel feature: KVM is the only option, and the decision is already made for you. Debian 13, AlmaLinux 10, Roccioso 9, anything shipping systemd 258, WireGuard in kernel, BBR, ZFS, nested virtualization for a lab. None of that runs on an OpenVZ 7 contenitore, and no amount of support ticketing changes it.
Carico di lavoro: file statici, not compute: this is the one case where containers still shine. Hostens sells a 256 GB Storage VPS on OpenVZ for USD 6.00/month, while its cheapest KVM plan gives you 20 GB per USD 7.50. That’s 12x the disk for less money, because the host reserves no RAM for a kernel you’d barely use. Pick KVM anyway if those files must be served fast rather than parked, and keep a second copy of the data elsewhere either way.
Still deciding whether you need a VPS at all? I nostri shared hosting versus VPS comparison covers the step before this one. It’s the cheaper answer for most sites under about 25,000 visitatori al mese.
Domande frequenti
Is a KVM VPS faster than an OpenVZ VPS?
Non intrinsecamente, and anyone quoting you a fixed percentage is selling something. OpenVZ skips the overhead of a second kernel, so on identical hardware at identical tenant density it can edge ahead on raw throughput. In practice density decides it, and container hosts pack more customers per machine because that’s the business model. KVM’s advantage is consistency: your RAM is reserved, so a neighbour’s traffic spike can’t take it away.
Can I run Docker on an OpenVZ VPS?
Di solito no, and where you can, you probably shouldn’t. OpenVZ 7 supports Docker inside a container only if your provider loads the veth and overlay kernel modules for you. The project’s own documentation still labels that feature experimental and unsupported in production. Budget hosts leave it disabled. On any KVM plan, Docker installs exactly as it would on a dedicated server, with nobody’s permission required.
How do I tell if my VPS is KVM or OpenVZ?
Correre systemd-detect-virt over SSH. It prints kvm for a virtual machine and openvz for a container, and it ignores whatever the plan is called. As a second check, see whether the file /proc/user_beancounters esiste, because it only appears on OpenVZ and Virtuozzo systems. Both checks take seconds, so run them before your refund window closes.
Is OpenVZ cheaper than KVM in 2026?
sì, by roughly a third at the providers still selling both. At Time4VPS the OpenVZ container with 4 GB of RAM renews at USD 6.62/month (euro 5.77). The identical KVM plan renews at USD 10.06/month (euro 8.76). At Hostens the gap narrows to 25%, Dollaro statunitense 6.00 contro USD 7.50 a 2 GB. Whether that saving is worth taking depends on whether you ever need to touch the kernel.
Is OpenVZ still safe to use in 2026?
It’s still patched, che sorprende le persone. The project shipped a kernel build on 15 luglio 2026, so security fixes continue to arrive. The real exposure is architectural. Every container on a node shares one kernel, so a kernel-level flaw is everyone’s problem at once, and you can’t patch it yourself. For a hobby box that’s an acceptable risk. For anything holding customer data, non lo è.
What happens to my OpenVZ VPS if my host shuts the platform down?
You rebuild it. There’s no automatic conversion from a container to a virtual machine. You buy a KVM plan, install your stack again, and copy your data over. Hostinger has set 30 novembre 2026 as the date when remaining OpenVZ servers and their data are deleted. Other hosts have run similar migrations with a few months’ avviso. Take a full backup off the server now if you’re on OpenVZ, whatever your provider has announced.
Verdetto finale
Acquistare KVM for anything other people rely on. You get a kernel you control, distributions that are still supported, Docker without negotiation, and independence from your host’s platform decisions. The premium at Time4VPS is 52% over the container equivalent at 4 GB. That’s real money at the bottom of the market, and trivial next to a forced migration.
Acquistare OpenVZ when the workload is disposable and price per GB is the point. UN 4 GB container for USD 6.62/month (euro 5.77) is twice the RAM the KVM tier gives you at that price. For a test box, a game server or a personal file store, the shared kernel costs you nothing you’d notice. Just don’t prepay three years for it, and don’t put anything on it you’d miss.
One thing both camps should do this month: correre systemd-detect-virt on every server you pay for. Plenty of people are on OpenVZ without knowing it, and some of them have a deadline in November.
Mapping out the wider options? I nostri VPS provider comparison is the fastest way to find a KVM plan at the size you already run. That helps most if you’re migrating off a shutdown notice. For the step above this one, see how a VPS compares with a dedicated server. There the kernel question disappears, because the whole machine is yours.