That is incorrect. It's faster than KVM's virtio, not faster than KVM's NVMe. They didn't bother to test KVM's NVMe virtualization[0]. To quote your source: "As it turns out, bhyve/NVMe isn’t just faster than bhyve/VirtIO—it’s faster than KVM/VirtIO as well" They're comparing apples to oranges. Why would they do that?
"Meet the Author: Jim Salter"
Oh, that's why.
>Bhyve may be juvenile compared to KVM but it seems to have a better design
Likely not, debatable.
>better license.
Debatable, but I get it.
>also bhyve runs on SmartOS too, and I think Bryan is going to be more comfortable with a Solaris OS under the hood
Most definitely why. KVM uses a lot of Linux kernel specific interfaces and functions. Bhyve is easier to port due to this.
[0] https://qemu-project.gitlab.io/qemu/system/devices/nvme.html