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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.
Phanindar Ada - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers ease of deployment and use along with a comfortable configuration process to be handled
The tool's performance is really good, so I can rate it a ten out of ten. The product did meet my expectations by allowing me to run multiple operating systems simultaneously. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up. I took care of the integration part of VMware Workstation with vSphere. I describe the product's documentation as a good area. My company gets complaints about technical notes from VMware. My company does face limitations with the product, and it is based on the licenses that we have purchased from VMware. I rate the overall product a ten 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

"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"There is a strong emphasis on availability, and they have numerous API interfaces for distributed storage and the solution is quite known for its openness."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"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."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"Very cost-effective."
"The good thing is that it is multi-platform. Once you create a virtual machine in one particular environment, you can switch over to see if you can run it in other environments. For example, if you are on Windows and you create this virtual machine, you can actually go ahead and change the operating system. You can switch it over to Linux or Mac OS and see if you can run the VirtualBox on those particular machines. It even runs on some of the commercial operating systems that are not mainstream, such as Solaris and BSD. These kinds of operating systems are also supported by VirtualBox. The other thing that is good about VirtualBox is that it is open source. So, if you need to do any modifications for your own purposes, you can just download the source, modify it, and deploy it in your environment. It is pretty good and very versatile. You can create and manipulate virtual machines from the command line, which is also very important. It's something that some other products on the desktop side do not have. VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop don't have a good command-line interface to create and manipulate virtual machines, whereas VirtualBox has it out of the box, which is pretty good."
"The flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"This is a highly scalable solution."
"The solution is very stable."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"I like that it is free and runs on Linux/Ubuntu - I wouldn't use any other solution. I am able to perform small developing tests."
"The installation is easy."
"I like that it has a snapshot feature."
"VMware Player helps you to virtualize and install Ubuntu or any other operating system, even on a Windows laptop."
"It is much more mature compared to Nutanix or SimpliVity when it's cross-platform based."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
"The simplicity of the deployment and the implementation, and the footprint for the hardware are some of the solution's valuable features."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is an easy-to-use product."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another."
"The most valuable features of the VMware Workstation solutions are the ESXi and vCenter."
 

Cons

"Although KVM meets our expectations, it can be somewhat fragmented with numerous management tools available, making it difficult to determine which tool to use."
"In KVM, snapshots and cloning are areas where there could be a little more sophistication, like VMware."
"Technical support is not top-notch."
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"The solution needs to improve its flexibility. It's not as flexible as VMware."
"The solution is a bit less stable than I would like."
"The solution needs to improve the methods used for starting and stopping the machine."
"The technical support needs to improve."
"One valuable feature would be for it to work right the first time but it doesn't necessarily do that."
"It has some issues when you have some weird device drivers. For instance, when you have a weird sound driver working on your machine, and the VirtualBox needs to output the sound of the virtual machine into the sound driver of the physical machine, the bare metal, it doesn't work too well. If you tweak lots of drivers and play around with the different kinds of drivers and machines, you will probably break something. I have not played with it too much and maybe it already supports it, but it would probably be good to have the ability to use a container from the virtual machine environment instead of spinning off a complete virtual machine. There are other tools for that. On Linux, you have a DXE, LXC framework, and you have Docker as well. Docker is good because it is multi-platform, and you can run Docker on pretty much anything, even different processors, but it would be good if we had a VirtualBox running on it while spinning off containers instead of full virtual machines. The other thing that will become important, and I'm pretty sure that they are thinking about it as well is that there's this new hardware platform that Apple is releasing, which is an ARM-based new chip. So, VirtualBox will probably have to work on ARM-based CPUs as well."
"The memory and hardware usage could be a little bit lighter. Right now, it's quite heavy on the usage. The CPU usage should be lower."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"Its price could be better."
"The price of VMware Workstation is an area of concern where improvements are needed."
"I have had issues with the virtual network adapters in the past that has taken some time to troubleshoot."
"Installing VMware Workstation isn't so easy. It's highly complex compared to Windows. I rate it four out of 10 for ease of installation. Setting up a remote desktop only takes a minute or so, but the Workstation itself takes some time."
"The price of VMware Workstation could improve."
"Performance could be improved, it's somewhat clunky."
"The product could provide the features available in Microsoft Hyper-V."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheaper than other solutions out there on the market."
"The solution is extremely cheap in China."
"The tool is free."
"KVM is free."
"There is no cost involved in the use of KVM, as it is open source."
"It is cheaper than other competitors like VMware or Hyper-V."
"I have no information on the cost of KVM because I downloaded it for the lab and not for production. It's free, but I don't know if that's the case for people using it in a production environment."
"We had some problems with the licensing."
"There are no licensing fees."
"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"It is pretty good for the price, which is free."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"The product is free to use."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"The product has a moderate price."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"The product is expensive."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"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 tool is not the cheapest."
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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
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: November 2024.
817,708 professionals have used our research since 2012.