KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine)

KVM is the Linux kernel's built-in hypervisor, providing full hardware virtualisation: each guest VM runs its own kernel, sees emulated or paravirtualised hardware, and is fully isolated from the host and from other guests. KVM is the modern standard for VPS infrastructure, replacing earlier OpenVZ container-based 'VPS' that shared the host kernel.

For offshore hosting customers, KVM is the right virtualisation tier: any guest OS works (Linux, Windows, BSD, custom), full kernel module support (you can load anything you'd load on a dedicated server), full PCI-passthrough capability where supported. The only thing KVM doesn't give you is bare-metal performance — there's a small overhead (typically 1-3 %). SilentHosts uses KVM on all VPS plans.