Oracle VM VirtualBox vs RHEV comparison

Oracle and Red Hat are both solutions in the Server Virtualization Software category. Oracle is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0, while Red Hat is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.7. Oracle holds a 6.3% mindshare in SVS, compared to Red Hat’s 3.6% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Oracle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 79% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Read 65 Oracle VM VirtualBox reviews

12,800 Views
11,520 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

RHEV

Read 36 RHEV reviews

4,351 Views
4,351 Comparison Views

79% willing to recommend

Oracle VM VirtualBox

RHEV

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

RHEV and Oracle VM VirtualBox are two competing products in the virtualization market. RHEV holds an edge in enterprise settings due to its integration capabilities and stability, whereas Oracle VM VirtualBox is preferred for flexibility and ease of use.

Features: RHEV is recognized for its robust management capabilities, high compatibility with enterprise systems, and it supports up to 160 cores and up to 2 TB RAM, making it suitable for extensive IT needs. Oracle VM VirtualBox allows for broad Operating System compatibility, a straightforward setup for creating VLANs and interface groups, and supports sharing of USB devices between host and VMs.

Room for Improvement: RHEV could improve in reducing setup complexities and making high-level features more accessible to smaller businesses. It might also benefit from a more intuitive interface and broader community support. Oracle VM VirtualBox could enhance its performance on high-demand systems and refine its support for more complex enterprise-level operations. Its interface could be updated to cater to more advanced needs, and official support options could be expanded beyond community forums.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RHEV offers an extensive but more involved deployment process, supported by strong customer service ideal for enterprises. Oracle VM VirtualBox stands out with its straightforward deployment process, requiring minimal configuration and offering community-based customer support, which increases accessibility for smaller organizations and individual users.

Pricing and ROI: RHEV tends to have higher initial setup costs due to its focus on enterprise-grade infrastructure, offering significant ROI for businesses with rigorous virtualization needs. Oracle VM VirtualBox is free, making it a cost-effective solution for smaller operations, offering good ROI by minimizing upfront expenses and maintaining essential features without added costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Oracle VM VirtualBox vs. RHEV Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Oracle VM VirtualBox vs. RHEV

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

RHEV

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

12th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 6.3%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 3.6%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Virtualization Software

Featured Reviews

Tanvir Siddique

Technical Officer at ADN Telecom

Easily accesses open solutions with seamless compatibility for testing and development

The most valuable feature is the seamlessness. When I install a Linux operating system, I can use Windows applications through Oracle VM VirtualBox seamlessly. There are many applications that work only on Windows. For desktop testing purposes, I used Oracle VM VirtualBox, and it works fine. The guest OS compatibility was tremendous because I used Oracle VM VirtualBox on Linux and ran Windows applications on top of that, working seamlessly.

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Sujeet-Kumar

Project Manager Cloud Infrastructure at Path Infotech ltd

The solution is scalable and affordable, but it lacks features, and it is not easy to manage

Management of RHEV is not as easy as VMware. Some features do not work. The product does not provide features similar to VMware’s VMotion. After creating the cluster, the VM is moved to another node if we move down. However, the VM does not move the parent node automatically. It has to be moved manually. VMware moves it automatically. RHEV moves it to the parent node only if we restart. Everything can be handled in VMware through the GUI. However, in RHEV, some things can be managed through UI, and others cannot. We have to troubleshoot and use CLI. A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware.

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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 of the solution is that there is no cost because it is open source."

"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 installation is easy."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to copy bidirectionally between the desktop and the virtual machine."

"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."

"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."

"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."

"It is easy to use and does not require complex knowledge."

More Oracle VM VirtualBox pros

"When you purchase RHEV, you are essentially buying a subscription license. This license can be integrated with various client types, including these integrations with the subscription."

"The platform is scalable, allowing for the installation of multiple nodes."

"It is easy to deal with when comes to application migration and its compatibility with the multiple component applications."

"The solution makes migration easy."

"The solution is stable."

"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space. I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."

"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's much cheaper than, for example, VMware."

"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."

More RHEV pros

Cons

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."

"The solution should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."

"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."

"Basically, the GUI and command-line interface need improvement."

"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."

"We're working with them to be able to allow the local USB ports to be ported over to the remote desktop, running VirtualBox."

"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."

More Oracle VM VirtualBox cons

"I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."

"This solution could be more secure."

"The solution has a very small lifecycle."

"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."

"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."

"Configuring the network interfaces is much better in Ubuntu and should be improved."

"Specifically, enhancements in managing virtual machine migrations, cloning, and the creation of different VMs could further optimize its functionality."

"We hope that Red Hat can produce a paradigm edition. We are looking for paradigm computing and paradigm storage. Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system. They should also provide local service and support. Our customers are looking for a good software vendor to provide professional services."

More RHEV cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing does not apply for us, we do not have to pay for the service."

"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."

"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."

"The solution is free."

"No licensing is required as it is open-source."

"There are no licensing fees."

"It is pretty good for the price, which is free."

"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."

More Oracle VM VirtualBox pricing and cost advice

"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."

"I would say the price is acceptable."

"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."

"This product has a variety of licensing options available. However, the level of licensing, and therefore the cost of licensing, is dependent on the number of servers being utilized."

"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."

"It's a budget product as far as I'm concerned. It's way cheaper than any of its competitors. The only thing cheaper than Red Hat is that the people who take the Red Hat code clone it and then self-support it."

"We are using the free version of Red Hat."

"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."

More RHEV pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

Thang Le Toan (Victory Lee)

CIO at Robusta Technology & Training

Jan 13, 2015

vSphere vs. RHEV vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer

We have used the following functions: 1. Hypervisor: to ensure that the virtual server provide web and email services to the company, thus providing a stable operation a with single sign-on integration of an AD server and vCenter. 2. Network and Storage: centralized data server…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 easy to set up and manage. It offers very good security. It has a virtual manag...

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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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle VM VirtualBox?

Maintenance is not necessary because I did not use it for heavy loads.

See all answers

What do you like most about RHEV?

The initial setup is fairly straightforward and well-documented. The process is very similar to its competitors. The success of your setup depends on how well you plan.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for RHEV?

It's the open source. There's not much cost. It's very minimal comparably. Compared to what I am paying for VMware, it's negligible.

See all answers

What needs improvement with RHEV?

My teammates and I often complain that VMware is well-documented and has a large community since it is the de facto standard. I would love to see better documentation and ease of use. For newcomers...

See all answers

Comparisons

Proxmox VE vs Oracle VM VirtualBox

Compared 29% of the time

KVM vs Oracle VM VirtualBox

Compared 15% of the time

Oracle VM vs Oracle VM VirtualBox

Compared 15% of the time

Hyper-V vs Oracle VM VirtualBox

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Workstation vs Oracle VM VirtualBox

Compared 12% of the time

More Oracle VM VirtualBox Competitors

VMware vSphere vs RHEV

Compared 42% of the time

Proxmox VE vs RHEV

Compared 25% of the time

Hyper-V vs RHEV

Compared 11% of the time

KVM vs RHEV

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs RHEV

Compared 7% of the time

More RHEV Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Oracle VM VirtualBox

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

RHEV

June 2025

Download RHEV product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

Overview

Oracle VM VirtualBox is a robust AMD64/Intel64 and x86 next-generation virtualization solution that functions well for home use and is also powerful enough to handle the needs of a busy enterprise organization. This professional solution is open source and provides super-fast high performance in addition to many outstanding value-added features. VirtualBox functions effectively on Windows, macOS, Solaris, Linux, and more. Users can benefit from VirtualBox's dedication to continually developing the product and providing continual progressive updates and releases. The solution is supported by a trusted dedicated professional community and is backed by Oracle, which guarantees that the product is able to consistently meet and exceed quality controls and protocols at all times.

Oracle VM VirtualBox Features

Oracle VM Virtual Box provides many value-added features. Some of these features include:

Consolidation: Oracle VM VirtualBox makes it easy for users to seamlessly run numerous virtual machines on a small number of hosts and will also facilitate comprehensive balancing of the loads between VMs. This helps to minimize and consolidate the hardware needed throughout the organization.
Diagnostics: VirtualBox provides excellent testing and disaster recovery. Users can use the virtual hard disk like a container. This container can be copied, frozen, backed up, or transported between hosts. Using the virtual machines (VMs), users can easily test multi-node network services for any networking, software configuration, or operating system issues.
Snapshots: Using snapshots, users are able to save or freeze a specific state of a VM and choose to revert back to the protected state if/when they desire. Users are able to make changes or experiment within the computing space. Should a problem arise, users can revert back to the selected snapshot; this makes the need for frequent backups and restores unnecessary.
Flexibility: The solution makes it easy to run different operating systems (OSes) at the same time. Users can run software designed for one OS on another OS. For example, users can easily run Windows on a MAC and not have to perform a reboot. As users can configure the kinds of virtual hardware to be presented with each OS, there is greater flexibility on which OS can be selected, and users can even choose older OSes or ones that are not currently supported by the original OS.
Cost-effective: Virtualization with Oracle VM VirtualBox enables users to considerably minimize overall costs by reducing the amount of hardware needed and the associated expenses of running the physical machines throughout an organization. This tremendous cost savings results in ROI being achieved in a very short period of time.

Reviews from Real Users

“Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use and does not require much training. It uses fewer resources. Teams using new operating system releases can quickly test and implement. This would make the development of new software releases faster and easier. It also helps users to write the program, test, and support it on multiple platforms. It has a good community as it is open-source.” - Satishbabu G., Oracle ACE

“It is easy to use and does not require complex knowledge. It uses less resources, which is a requirement as it is used to onboard hardware with very little resources available.” - A PeerSpot user who is an IT Architect - AI at CGI

Oracle

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, or RHEV, is a leading open standard enterprise virtualization management solution. This solution supports virtualization of servers and desktops using the same infrastructure and a single easy-to-use interface.

Because RHEV is based on open standards, it is vendor-independent and a lot more cost effective and flexible than proprietary solutions.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.

Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.

Buyer's Guide

Oracle VM VirtualBox vs. RHEV

July 2025

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