What Is The Difference Between Bare Metal and Hosted Hypervisor?

A hypervisor is like a software layer that creates and executes standalone virtual machines on physical hardware in a highly secure environment. 

Almost all Web Hosts in Singapore offer two types of hypervisors: Bare metal or Type-1 hypervisor and Hosted or Type-2 hypervisor. While both belong to the same category, they have some significant differences. 

If you are planning to buy domain and hosting, knowing about server virtualisation and different types of hypervisors can help you make an informed decision. 

In this blog, we will discuss how these two types of hypervisors are different from one another. Read on!

What Are Bare Metal Hypervisors?

A Bare metal hypervisor is also known as Type-1 or native hypervisor. It is virtualisation software that is used for creating virtual machines directly over computer hardware. This direct installation allows bare metal hypervisors to be faster, more secure, and highly efficient as compared to the hosted hypervisors. 

Advantages of Bare Metal Hypervisors for Website Hosting 

• Better Mobility: The bare metal hypervisors allow you to navigate virtual machines between servers automatically and manually without impacting the end-users. 
• High Performance: Because bare metal hypervisors do not have to deal with the limitations of the underlying OS, they offer better performance. 
• High Security: Another benefit of Type-1 hypervisors is that they are highly secure. This is because they have direct access to hardware. Moreover, this direct access also helps in reducing malware attacks. 

What Are Hosted Hypervisors?

A hosted or type-2 hypervisor is a virtualisation software that is installed on the top of the host operating system. Because it operates over an operating system, a hosted hypervisor is less efficient, secure and fast than a bare metal hypervisor. Further, this type of hypervisor is commonly used on PCs as they already have OS installed, and thus, users can create VMs easily without requiring additional hardware. 

Advantages of Hosted Hypervisors for Server Website Hosting 

• Easy to Use: With a type-2 hypervisor, creating a virtual environment is much easier and more convenient. It can be used on any operating system like any other application. 
• Accessibility to Productivity Tools: Hosted hypervisors offer quick access to productivity tools that are available on the underlying OS. For example, Windows users can create a Linux VM to utilise various applications.
•  Excellent for Testing: Hosted hypervisors are preferred for testing new software because you can use a single machine with different operating systems to check how an application behaves in different environments. 

As you can see, both types of hypervisors operate in a different manner and have their own set of advantages. Now the question is:  which is a better hypervisor for the virtualisation of the best hosting server? 

Final Words 

Since both hypervisors serve different purposes, it is better to use them accordingly. In a nutshell, Bare metal hypervisors are great for dedicated servers because they can leverage the power of bare metal hypervisors to their full potential. 

On the other hand, hosted hypervisors are explicitly designed for PCs because they are great for developing and testing different applications quickly and conveniently. 

That’s all about bare metal and hosted hypervisors. Now, you can contact the right hosting provider to build your custom hypervisors for higher efficiency and performance.