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Citrix XenServer vs Oracle VM VirtualBox comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Citrix XenServer
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle VM VirtualBox
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Citrix XenServer is 4.8%, up from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 9.4%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Siva Kuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 29, 2024
Allows us to allocate CPU, memory, storage, and network resources across VMs and minimizes downtime in case of hardware failure or maintenance
It is a scalable product and provides great benefits for virtualization needs. However, there are a few considerations: * Cost: Citrix Hypervisor can be fairly expensive. * Complexity: There's a learning curve, especially for those coming from a Microsoft background. Setting it up and managing it can introduce some complexity. * Hardware Support: Not all major hardware vendors fully support Citrix Hypervisor. * Third-party Integration: Integrating Hypervisor with other technologies within a large ecosystem can sometimes be challenging. * Community Support: Compared to solutions like Microsoft Hyper-V, the community support for Citrix Hypervisor is somewhat less extensive. It is not vast. If there are any issues or errors, the community support is not that good. Those are definitely important disadvantages.
Tomasz Pietas - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 9, 2023
Good functionality and free to use with a useful snapshot feature
I'm a teacher and I use the solution for teaching and testing.  I have been able to test and roll back features if I need to. I have snapshots and a virtual network if I need to.  The functionality and productivity are very good. I can test and roll back features in my work. It's a big platform.…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution integrates well with other solutions, which makes it really strong as a primary solution to deploy."
"Citrix Hypervisor is quick to deploy and easy to manage."
"This solution allows the end users to clone, start, stop, or remotely control their VMs."
"I find it very easy to manage and at a cost that small customers would never refuse (free)."
"Citrix Hypervisor does a great job overall, such as the virtualization of the host. It's very easy to manage the virtual machine, to create, and configure high availability."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Installing Hypervisor is really simple. It's the simplest setup I've ever done before. We used a team to deploy it, and it doesn't take much time, like two or three hours tops."
"This is a good product for virtualization and it is easy to use."
"It's very simple to use."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that there is no cost because it is open source."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"Oracle VM Virtualbox is easy to use and does not require much training."
"The flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"Technical support is good."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The product is very easy to use."
 

Cons

"The self-service user portal needs to be more granular and be more customizable."
"The manageability of the solution needs improvement. It's an extremely bad product to handle."
"The solution is too expensive and people are kind of moving away from Citrix. It's starting to become a problem. It is a primary reason that while we are rebuilding we're going to seek out open-source solutions."
"We'd like them to add more automation to the product."
"Overall, I can't think of a feature that is lacking. We've been pretty satisfied overall."
"Assigning the order of virtual server startup is not very easy and this can be improved."
"I am not very sure about how flexible Citrix Hypervisor is with different types of infrastructures. I only know it is flexible with Nutanix, but I am not sure if it is also flexible with others. They can make its integration with other platforms or OEMs easy. They should also make it easy for users to manage their infrastructure. Citrix should make compatibility information related to a hypervisor easily available in a datasheet. Citrix isn't really recognized in this part of the world, and they need to expand their solution and make it more available. There are a lot of customers and companies that are looking for a solution like Citrix, and it should be available in this part of the world. They need to educate people more. Technically, it is good and flexible and has good ability, but it is not as much known as VMware or Microsoft. Their support should also be improved. Currently, if you don't have an updated version, they will not give you the attention."
"Live migration is something that can be improved."
"The technical support needs to improve."
"The solution should have more enterprise features, like migration, high availability storage, disaster recovery, and the ability to deploy to enterprise-scale usage. They should not just offer desktop usage."
"The solution lacks some open source remote administration tools. The reload of individual virtual machine definitions through the vboxweb service (via its API) without restarting it and the access to shared storage (to use teleport functions) need to be improved."
"The tool has some stability issues."
"Having live migrations to move a running server to other hardware would be great."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is not flexible, It's not like VMware."
"Basically, the GUI and command-line interface need improvement."
"Oracle VMs don't have a solid web interface of their own. This is an area where Oracle is lagging behind. Now, we use headless servers, install Oracle VMs, and manage them remotely. We could use phpVirtual Box, but it is a third-party solution. A lot of people contribute to it, and it's not authenticated by Oracle. As a result, I don't find it to be a good option. Therefore, I would like to see Oracle offer an extension pack or a licensed version that fixes this problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is straight forward based on usage and features."
"The cost of this product is not high."
"We used it only for some desktop licenses, so the pricing is great. We used the free licenses for server virtualization."
"While it is free for small networks, the pricing is high if your network grows past a certain size."
"There are three editions available and I believe they are perpetual licenses."
"Citrix Hypervisor is expensive."
"Citrix is a good low-cost alternative to VMware, so if budgeting is an issue then I would recommend it."
"There is a license required to use this solution. You need a license on every server, but the license is more for support than anything else. The cost is not expensive, it is a fraction of the cost of VMware. When you look at the cost overall and features, Citrix Hypervisor has a very attractive offering."
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
"The solution is free."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"The product is free to use."
"Pricing does not apply for us, we do not have to pay for the service."
"It is an open-source solution."
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Comparison Review

VL
Jan 13, 2015
vSphere vs. RHEV vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer
We have used the following functions: 1. Hypervisor: to ensure that the virtual server provide web and email services to the company, thus providing a stable operation a with single sign-on integration of an AD server and vCenter. 2. Network and Storage: centralized data server…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Citrix Hypervisor?
The core function enables multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server. This maximizes hardware utilization and efficiency.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Hypervisor?
I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being very inexpensive and ten being very expensive.
What needs improvement with Citrix Hypervisor?
It would be very helpful if I could browse the data store directly in the GUI, similar to VMware and Hyper-V. This feature would be particularly useful when something goes wrong with a virtual mach...
How does KVM compare to Oracle VM VirtualBox?
KVM is easy to use, stable and flexible. It is mature and very fast. It is an affordable open-source solution that is easy to set up and manage. It offers very good security. It has a virtual manag...
What do you like most about Oracle VM VirtualBox?
The product’s most valuable feature is the ability to manage multiple operating systems through one application.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle VM VirtualBox?
The pricing is flexible. When Oracle bought VirtualBox, they introduced some licensing issues. However, it did not affect the terms of licenses and additional costs. The price is okay. I rate the p...
 

Also Known As

Hypervisor
No data available
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

U.S. Army Shared Services Center, SoftLayer, Educational Services of America, Independent Bank, and SK Telecom.
Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix XenServer vs. Oracle VM VirtualBox and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
813,161 professionals have used our research since 2012.