OpenVZ / LXC / Zones KVM
CPU Performance native high (with CPU support)
CPU Allocation flexible (FSS + “bursting”) fixed to VCPU limit
I/O Throughput high (no overhead) low or medium (with virtio)
I/O Latency low (native) some (I/O proxy overhead)
Memory Access Overhead none some (EPT/NPT or shadow page tables)
Memory Loss none some (extra kernels; page tables)
Memory Allocation flexible (unused memory used for file system cache) fixed (and possible double-caching)
Resource Controls many (depends on OS) most (OS + hypervisor)
Observability from the host highest (see everything) medium (resource usage, hypervisor statistics, OS inspection of hypervisor)
Observability: from the guest medium (see everything permitted, incl. some physical resource stats) low (guest only)
Hypervisor Complexity low (OS partitions) medium
Different OS Guests no yes

Networking (Container vs KVM) aprox. 5x slower.
HDD IO (Container vs KVM) aprox. 4x slower.

/*
 *                  GUEST                        #       QEMU
 * #####################################################################
 *                                               #
 *    +----------+                               #
 *    |  start_  | (1)                           #
 *    |  xmit()  |                               #
 *    +----------+                               #
 *         ||                                    #
 *         ||       +-----------+                #
 *         ||------>|free_old_  | (2)            #
 *         ||------>|xmit_skbs()|                #
 *         ||       +-----------+                #
 *         \/                        (3)         #
 *    +---------+        +-------------+     + - #--- PIO write to VNIC
 *    |  xmit_  |------->|virtqueue_add|     |   #    PCI config space (6)
 *    |  skb()  |------->|_buf_gfp()   |     |   #
 *    +---------+        +-------------+     |   #
 *        ||                                 |   # +- VM exit
 *        ||         +- iff interrupts       |   # |  KVM driver exit (7)
 *        \/         |  unmasked (4)         |   # |
 *    +---------+    |     +-----------+(5)  |   # |  +---------+
 *    |virtqueue|----*---->|vp_notify()|-----*---#-*->| handle  | (8)
 *    |_kick()  |----*---->|           |-----*---#-*->|PIO write|
 *    +---------+          +-----------+         #    +---------+
 *        ||                                     #        ||
 *        ||   (13)                              #        ||
 *        **-----+ iff avail ring                #        \/      (9)
 *        ||       capacity < 20                 # +-----------------+
 *        ||       else return                   # |virtio_net_handle|
 *        ||                                     # |tx_timer()       |
 *        \/   (14)                              # +-----------------+
 *    +----------+                               #  ||
 *    |netif_stop|                               #  ||             (10)
 *    |_queue()  |                               #  ||   +---------+
 *    +----------+                               #  ||-->|qemu_mod_|
 *        ||                                     #  ||-->|timer()  |
 *        ||     (15)                 (16)       #  ||   +---------+
 *    +----------------+     +----------+        #  ||
 *    |virtqueue_enable|---->|unmask    |        #  ||              (11)
 *    |_cb_delayed()   |---->|interrupts|        #  ||  +------------+
 *    +----------------+     +----------+        #  |+->|virtio_     |
 *        ||                   ||                #  +-->|queue_set_  |
 *        || (18)              ||       (17)     #      |notification|
 *        ||  +-return   +-------------------+   #      +------------+
 *        ||  | iff ---->|check if the number|   #       |
 *        **--+ is false |of unprocessed used|   #       |  disable host
 *        ||             |ring entries is >  |   #       +- interrupts
 *        ||             |3/4s of the avail  |   #          (12)
 *        \/   (19)      |ring index - the   |   #
 *   +-----------+       |last freed used    |   #
 *   |free_old_  |       |ring index         |   #
 *   |xmit_skbs()|       +-------------------+   #
 *   +-----------+                               #
 *        ||                                     #
 *        ||     (20)                            #
 *        **-----+ iff avail ring                #
 *        ||       capacity is                   #
 *        ||       now > 20                      #
 *        \/                                     #
 *   +-----------+                               #
 *   |netif_start| (21)                          #
 *   |_queue()   |                               #
 *   +-----------+                               #
 *        ||                                     #
 *        ||                                     #
 *        \/  (22)               (23)            #
 *   +------------+      +----------+            #
 *   |virtqueue_  |----->|mask      |            #
 *   |disable_cb()|----->|interrupts|            #
 *   +------------+      +----------+            #
 *                                               #
 *                                               #
 */
	  Figure II: Guest / Host Packet TX Part 1</code>