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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

"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"A very reliable solution which can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with reasonable overhead."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"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."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"KVM has benefited our organization by enabling us to assess different virtualization solutions with reduced latency, which is crucial for guaranteeing the reliability and real-time performance of our communication systems."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"This solution can be used on many different platforms including Windows and Linux."
"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to copy bidirectionally between the desktop and the virtual machine."
"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 versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"It's very simple to use."
"The most valuable features of VMware Workstation are the speed of access and quality of upgrade. Those are the more important and pertinent aspects as far as we were concerned. Functionality and features were relevant for the customers. What a customer chose, we had to make sure that it operated."
"Instead of relying on dual-boot operating systems, I can utilize open-source tools within my infrastructure. This approach allows me to create an in-house cloud platform suitable for testing. VMware Workstation enables me to perform tasks across various operating systems using a single device. It has helped me save time."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"Having ten people working off a single piece of hardware reduces costs."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable features are backup and data transfer from one server to another."
"VMware Workstation allows multiple operating systems in the same physical machine."
"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 most valuable feature of VMware Player is the ability to snapshot with or without memory."
 

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."
"We would like to have a software lifecycle solution included in this solution. We can handle the software needed for KVM, but also the software that we provide. A lifecycle component would be very beneficial."
"They could provide a more comfortable and easier-to-manage interface for the product, whether text-based or graphical. It can be challenging to manage without the support of additional tools."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"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 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."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"It's not as robust as server platforms, nor does it need to be."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"The solution should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."
"The tool has some stability issues."
"It would be good if we could use Hyper-V Windows subsystems with Linux and VirtualBox on the same instance. Currently, to be able to use VirtualBox, we have to restart the machine into an instance of Windows where Hyper-V is disabled, which is understandably very inconvenient."
"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."
"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."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox doesn't work properly with an antivirus tool."
"The tool has limited scalability."
"The solution freezes sometimes."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"They could bring in many different features from VMware vSphere to Workstation."
"VMware Workstation’s scalability could be improved."
"Its price could be better."
"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."
"I would like to see more detailed reporting capabilities, particularly around snapshot activity. It would be helpful to have a summary of changes made prior to deploying an application, allowing us to provide comprehensive reports to our management on a regular basis."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no cost involved in the use of KVM, as it is open source."
"This solution is an open-source, free platform with paid support."
"It is free for everyone."
"KVM is priced reasonably."
"​It is free and can be run from your laptop, if needed, unlike VMware.​"
"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."
"The solution is extremely cheap in China."
"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."
"It is an open-source solution."
"The license I use is free."
"Available for free use"
"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"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."
"The product is free to use."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"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."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"The licensing costs are cheap. I pay approximately $100 per year."
"The product has a moderate price."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
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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
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.
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