I use it all the time for my QEMU VMs. It’s less hassle than OVS and allows you to configure some complex networks with just a few socket files and tunnels.

I use one VDE switch per network with each network having a single tap interface to my OS bridges. It has been a feature of QEMU since 0.15 and the performance is just as good as taps or OVS.

> Not sure what one would prefer it for now though.

VDE can be used with wirefilter to introduce programmable, non-ideal characteristics (latency, packet loss, data corruption, etc) into a network link. Obviously you wouldn't want this in a production system, but it's useful for testing.