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KVM vs Oracle VM VirtualBox vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Mindshare comparison

Server Virtualization Software
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Lan Tuong - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to manage the virtual environments
The most valuable features of KVM for us are the console, which allows us to build or clone VMs quickly, and the ability to take snapshots and recreate new VMs rapidly. That's one of the things we love about KVM. The built-in management console, Auto KVM, is the most valuable tool for managing our virtual environments. We use it most to create and fire up new VMs or clone them for customers based on requests. The migration tools have worked quite well for us. We're moving from an Oracle Solaris platform for KVM logical domains, upgrading, and using KVM from Red Hat. It's slightly different but very similar to Oracle Unbreakable Linux, which is basically a clone of Red Hat. Oracle's console is easier to use than Red Hat's, though.
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.
Shambhu Narayan  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-manage solution that has really good customer support compared to other market players
VMware Workstation makes it easy to manage all the resources that we are handling. VMware Workstation has reduced our infrastructure cost. If someone wants machines, I can create them easily using the solution. VMware Workstation is easier to manage than other workstations like Oracle Workstation. VMware Workstation is an easy-to-manage solution, and its support is really good compared to other market players. Overall, I rate VMware Workstation an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find the density of the product most valuable. It is density that a technologist can just assign page merging. This is what makes KVM one of the important players of the virtualization market."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"It is easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"Documentation and problem-solving troubleshooting are the most valuable features. Performance (when fine-tuned and with "special" HW) is awesome, equal to or more than other enterprise closed-source solutions."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"This solution creates a snapshot of virtual machines so you can create test environments."
"Compatible with almost any operating system"
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution were the support and performance of the product and the flexibility it gives you to work."
"The solution is very convenient and easy to use."
"I haven't faced any inconveniences working with this solution. It is very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Player is the ability to snapshot with or without memory."
"I like that it's easy to use. It's easy to deploy virtual machines. You have to insert your ISO and the image of your OS and configure it. They provide a step-by-step guide, and you have to follow it. In the end, you have to start the machine, and that's all you have to do. I liked that they synchronized the mouse, keyboard, and everything. When you finish the installation, it directly links to your laptop. This makes copying and pasting things from my laptop inside the virtual machine easy."
"The product is really easy to use."
"It's stable."
"The initial setup is simple and takes only five minutes to complete."
"The most valuable features of the VMware Workstation solutions are the ESXi and vCenter."
"The features are good."
 

Cons

"The product must provide better performance monitoring features."
"Technical support could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an improved user interface and dashboard. This type of improvement will make it easy or help our engineers understand the solution from a requirement point of view."
"The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
"Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
"One problem I have is that it's not very scalable when it comes to resizing the VM disk dimensions. For example, if you have initially set a virtual drive to 10 GB and you want to upgrade it to 15 GB, it's not that easy."
"They could improve the graphics functionality of the product."
"This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should be improved."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox doesn't work properly with an antivirus tool."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The solution should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."
"We're working with them to be able to allow the local USB ports to be ported over to the remote desktop, running VirtualBox."
"The communications setup lags. It does not connect properly so the batching and networking is a bit slow."
"The interface is a little wonky and needs to be improved."
"When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
"One improvement is mouse emulation. Some people in the office want to use a five—or seven-button mouse like they're used to at home, but they can't with the workstation setup."
"It would be great if VMware Workstation had more networking options and compatibility, that would be great. I would like to deploy virtual switches and play around with networking a bit more. Otherwise, I have to deploy ESXi Virtual Edition and emulate it, which is painful and clunky."
"They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation."
"The product could provide the features available in Microsoft Hyper-V."
"The price of VMware Workstation is an area of concern where improvements are needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution came with the Linux license."
"We had some problems with the licensing."
"This solution is an open-source, free platform with paid support."
"KVM is an open-source product that works well for us."
"​It is free and can be run from your laptop, if needed, unlike VMware.​"
"It is cheaper than other competitors like VMware or Hyper-V."
"The solution is extremely cheap in China."
"There is no cost involved in the use of KVM, as it is open source."
"There are no licensing fees."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"It is an open-source solution."
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"Pricing does not apply for us, we do not have to pay for the service."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"The product has a moderate price."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"VMware is expensive. Licensing can be tricky. For example, I recently had a client running VMware vSphere Essentials and wanted to migrate to a more scalable solution. However, they had no choice but to purchase a completely new license and deploy a completely new instance of VMware."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Why KVM??? Help please!
KVM scales better, orchestration better, performs better and supports a wider range of hardware and, also, you can im...
Why KVM??? Help please!
Small support team, small cluster, low core count, use VMware products Large support team, large clusters with many c...
Why KVM??? Help please!
Far from being an expert, my opinion is that the positive sides of KVM are: Lower costs and open-source which gives ...
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...
Which VMware solution would you go with - Workstation or vSphere?
VM Workstation’s setup is so easy, you can use it almost instantly, it works well with Windows and Linux. We like VM ...
What do you like most about VMware Workstation?
The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up.
What needs improvement with VMware Workstation?
The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.
 

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Sample Customers

MediaWiki, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, Wikiversity, Commons
Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Akademiska Hus
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