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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

"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"The performance is great."
"The initial setup was simple."
"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."
"I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"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 and does not require complex knowledge."
"This is a good and easy solution for running virtual environments."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Compatible with almost any operating system"
"The installation is easy."
"The product is very easy to use."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"It's very simple to use."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"Having ten people working off a single piece of hardware reduces costs."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the DirectX support, you can run Microsoft Hyper-V in virtual environments which is good for me to test different installations. Additionally, you can set up different VLANs, and overall it is a complete solution."
"The simplicity of the deployment and the implementation, and the footprint for the hardware are some of the solution's valuable features."
"The product is really easy to use."
"The features are good."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another."
"It's stable."
 

Cons

"Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
"Although KVM meets our expectations, it can be somewhat fragmented with numerous management tools available, making it difficult to determine which tool to use."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"The stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category."
"One thing that maybe could be improved is making it easier to scale. It needs to be more clear on how to scale the storage space for virtual machines."
"The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"Although KVM meets our expectations, it can be somewhat fragmented with numerous management tools available, making it difficult to determine which tool to use."
"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."
"Oracle needs to improve its hot virtual machine migration. It didn't work as intended. It should allow us to migrate between virtual machines, without stopping the database."
"This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should be improved."
"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 solution is a bit less stable than I would like."
"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."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"The solution needs to improve the methods used for starting and stopping the machine."
"Its networking features need improvement."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"The support can 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 price should be reduced."
"Lacks the ability to clone onto another system rather than starting from scratch."
"VMware Player isn't downgradable, so if you have a later set of VMs, you need to upgrade it or figure out a workaround."
"The tool has limited scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is an open-source, free platform with paid support."
"The tool is free."
"The product's pricing is above average but cheaper than that of VMware. I can't provide specific licensing costs, but we have a contract with Red Hat for client support that covers everything. There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"KVM is free."
"One only needs a subscription to Oracle Linux. So, it's cheaper with Oracle Linux's subscription. It is not very expensive. In short, the solution is open source, and you need only a subscription."
"KVM is an open-source product that works well for us."
"It is cheaper than other competitors like VMware or Hyper-V."
"This solution came with the Linux license."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"The solution is free."
"The product is free to use."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
"Available for free use"
"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"It is an expensive solution."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive tool. I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low or good price."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"VMware Workstation is an expensive solution in Asian countries."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
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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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MediaWiki, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, Wikiversity, Commons
Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Akademiska Hus
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