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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

"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"If you are a Linux desktop user, KVM is the solution to go with if you have to start virtual machines with Linux or other operating systems with almost zero extra configuration needed."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"I like that it's easy to manage. It's also more powerful when it comes to security than others. That point of view is the one consideration. The other consideration is that it's cost-effective."
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the ability to manage multiple operating systems through one application."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox has a platform where the support team responds to frequently asked questions by its users. Every time I have had issues with Oracle VM VirtualBox, I always get a solution from Oracle's online platform or GitHub."
"The solution has high performance and is easy to use."
"It is a stable product."
"The features are good."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
"Great at solving connection problems."
"It's stable."
"The most valuable feature of the VMware Workstation is the ease to create a development environment. When you have different ongoing developments, you often need to create a lot of different development environments. With this workstation solution, you can have a development environment for all the things you develop."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Player is the ability to snapshot with or without memory."
 

Cons

"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"The main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"The only negative aspect of needing hardware support is a fully functional KVM can be dropped. It would be nice if the support for other platforms, like ARM or Risk, were as good as the x86 one. However, with the democratization of Chromebooks based on these chips and mobile devices, it will not take long for that to happen."
"I believe KVM offers a unified answer, while ProxMark addresses orchestration. KVM lacks orchestration. If the aim is to centrally oversee multiple KVMs – let's say to freeze them – a centralized management solution is absent."
"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 grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"It could improve slightly with enhanced reporting capabilities that show the current status of the network."
"The tool has some stability issues."
"The solution needs to improve its flexibility. It's not as flexible as VMware."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"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."
"The solution has to do a better job of promoting the product and its licensing capabilities."
"The solution needs to improve the methods used for starting and stopping the machine."
"For some virtual machine configurations, you have to go to the text editor and make the configuration changes, which could be improved."
"Its networking features need improvement."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"The interface is a little wonky and needs to be improved."
"They could bring in many different features from VMware vSphere to Workstation."
"The solution should provide a guide on its installation."
"The product could provide the features available in Microsoft Hyper-V."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is an open-source, free platform with paid support."
"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."
"It is cheaper than other solutions out there on the market."
"​It is free and can be run from your laptop, if needed, unlike VMware.​"
"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."
"We had some problems with the licensing."
"I use the free version of KVM, and I'm not sure if there is a paid version."
"It is cheaper than other competitors like VMware or Hyper-V."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"The license I use is free."
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"The product is free to use."
"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"The solution is free."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"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 cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"The solution is moderately priced. I rate the pricing a six out of ten."
"With a VDI solution, there is always extra cost running a VDI solution but it's not for cost purposes anymore. In the beginning, it was to save money on hardware but at the moment it's other aspects that are more important why you should use a VDI solution."
"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
15%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
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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