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Hyper-V vs Oracle VM VirtualBox vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Hyper-V customer service is usually rated positively, with varied support experiences and helpful documentation, though regional support varies.
Sentiment score
7.7
Oracle VM VirtualBox users often prefer community resources over official support, though some praise Oracle's knowledgeable assistance.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere's support is praised for knowledgeable service but criticized for variable response times and declining quality over time.
The technical support is very good
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
My team solves most tickets, needing support only about once or twice a year.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.7
Hyper-V is resource-intensive with limited features, complex networking, and integration issues, making it less efficient than competitors.
Sentiment score
4.5
Users find Oracle VM VirtualBox challenging due to outdated UI, networking issues, and required command-line configurations, seeking improvements.
Sentiment score
4.9
VMware vSphere users seek improvements in cost, support, interface, integration, performance, setup complexity, automation, documentation, and fault tolerance.
I suggest improvements in platform support and performance considerations for Hyper-V.
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.3
Hyper-V is scalable and flexible but may face limitations compared to VMware, especially without proper architecture and planning.
Sentiment score
7.3
Oracle VM VirtualBox scalability receives mixed reviews, with some praising efficiency while others cite hardware constraints and resource management challenges.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware vSphere offers seamless scalability and flexibility, efficiently handling large environments with minimal performance issues and strategic adaptability.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
6.1
Hyper-V is cost-effective with flexible licensing, centralized management, and competitive pricing, though initial setup can be costly.
Sentiment score
8.1
Oracle VM VirtualBox is favored for free access, appealing to smaller users, with variable costs for larger enterprises.
Sentiment score
5.9
VMware vSphere pricing is high but offers value in stability; consult VMware or resellers to customize licensing.
Until 2019, Hyper-V was a cost-effective solution because it was available as a free product.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Hyper-V is praised for stability and uptime but may face issues due to external factors like IT infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.0
Oracle VM VirtualBox is generally stable, with Linux favored for reliability, and users rate it highly for functionality.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere is highly stable and reliable, with minor issues often due to hardware or third-party integrations.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
8.0
Hyper-V offers cost-effective virtualization with scalability, high availability, live migration, easy management, and seamless Microsoft integration.
Sentiment score
8.1
Oracle VM VirtualBox provides cost-free, multi-platform virtualization, offering ease of use, high performance, and versatile open-source features.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere excels in ease of use, robust features, and efficient resource management, ideal for diverse virtualization needs.
The most valuable features of Hyper-V include high availability and management for virtual machine management.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
VMware vCenter is extremely useful as we can manage between 100 and 1,000 hosts using just one management tool.
The high availability feature is significant.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Hyper-V is 15.1%, down from 17.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 8.9%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 19.6%, up from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ramon Ruiz - PeerSpot reviewer
A cost-effective solution with easy configuration and integration with Azure
Scaling was a major issue with Hyper-V—it wasn't scalable and didn't work well. The only way to get it functioning was to manage everything manually, starting with the installation. Now, it's much more scalable, but the key is to plan the architecture based on the workloads you want to offer. You need to design an architecture that can handle the demands of heavy workloads. If the customer has different types of workloads, each requires a tailored architecture. Using the same setup for all workloads will lead to inefficiencies and wasted time and resources. To ensure scalability, it's crucial to build the infrastructure correctly, especially regarding storage, networking, CPU, and RAM resources. When done properly, Hyper-V scales very well.
Tomasz Pietas - PeerSpot reviewer
Good functionality and free to use with a useful snapshot feature
The functionality and productivity are very good. I can test and roll back features in my work. It's a big platform. It's very useful. I like that it has a snapshot feature. The virtual network is great. There are a lot of features. It has everything I need. The product is free to use. It's easy to set up.
Vikas Dhumale - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems
Speaking about the application deployment process, I work at the L1 level in my company. In my company, the L3 is a different department that manages the application deployment process, and most of them go for tools apart from the ones under VMware to manage the VMs. I am only creating new VMs and assigning RAM space, and if something comes up, then I create new RHEL-based systems. When it comes to the application deployment process, my company manually deploys the applications. For automation purposes, our company uses Jenkins to collect the logs and provide a GUI with the help of a username and password to the end user, after which they can collect the logs from Jenkins. I work at an L1 level in my company. The integrations and infrastructure-related areas of the product are managed by another team in my company. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. Nowadays, people don't prefer to go for cloud-based solutions. Most of the companies prefer VMware as they want some level of security in the environment. VMware allows users to have in-house products. Most companies or banks are not moving over to cloud-based tools. VMware is used in banking systems. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
37%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to ...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same featu...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
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...
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 af...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platfor...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: December 2024.
823,709 professionals have used our research since 2012.