Oracle VM vs VMware vSphere comparison

Oracle and VMware are both solutions in the Server Virtualization Software category. Oracle is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Oracle holds a 7.0% mindshare in SVS, compared to VMware’s 20.2% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of Oracle users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Oracle VM

Read 80 Oracle VM reviews

14,342 Views
10,322 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

VMware vSphere

Read 449 VMware vSphere reviews

38,211 Views
31,494 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Oracle VM

VMware vSphere

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Oracle VM and VMware vSphere are key players in the enterprise virtualization space. VMware vSphere seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set and scalability, making it more suitable for complex deployments despite higher costs.

Features: Oracle VM is known for its integration with Oracle products, robustness, and cost-effectiveness. VMware vSphere stands out for its scalability, comprehensive management tools, and efficiency in handling large-scale environments.

Room for Improvement: Oracle VM could improve in performance, support, and integration challenges. VMware vSphere users point to high costs, complex licensing, and the desire for simpler pricing structures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Oracle VM is straightforward within the Oracle ecosystem, but its customer service requires enhancement. VMware vSphere offers more deployment flexibility and is praised for strong support services, boosting user satisfaction across diverse setups.

Pricing and ROI: Oracle VM's lower setup costs are attractive for budget-conscious users. VMware vSphere, however, justifies its higher initial expenses with greater ROI due to its performance in large-scale operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Oracle VM vs. VMware vSphere Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Oracle VM vs. VMware vSphere

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Oracle VM

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware vSphere

Ranking in Server Virtualization Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.8

Number of Reviews

449

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM is 7.0%, up from 5.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 20.2%, up from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Virtualization Software

Featured Reviews

Rasika Sudasinghe

Senior Director - Systems Architecture at MIT ESP

Aug 15, 2023

A cheap option available for Linux environments which is useful for many workloads

Oracle VM is an obsolete product in that no new features are coming for it. The new version is called Oracle KVM. The only improvement needed for Oracle VM is the look and feel of the interface. When comparing the user console with vCenter, the interface used to control VMware environments, Oracle VM's user interface is not that rich in terms of user experience. If Oracle could improve that, it would be good. Besides that, we don't know if the solution comes with a roadmap because it comes free of charge with Oracle x86. We can't expect something similar to vCenter in KVM, but at least if you can improve what users can experience, then it would be good.

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Vikas Dhumale

DevOps Engineer at Simple Logic IT Private Limited

Mar 18, 2024

Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems

Speaking about the application deployment process, I work at the L1 level in my company. In my company, the L3 is a different department that manages the application deployment process, and most of them go for tools apart from the ones under VMware to manage the VMs. I am only creating new VMs and assigning RAM space, and if something comes up, then I create new RHEL-based systems. When it comes to the application deployment process, my company manually deploys the applications. For automation purposes, our company uses Jenkins to collect the logs and provide a GUI with the help of a username and password to the end user, after which they can collect the logs from Jenkins. I work at an L1 level in my company. The integrations and infrastructure-related areas of the product are managed by another team in my company. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. Nowadays, people don't prefer to go for cloud-based solutions. Most of the companies prefer VMware as they want some level of security in the environment. VMware allows users to have in-house products. Most companies or banks are not moving over to cloud-based tools. VMware is used in banking systems. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

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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

"Its ease of management and simplicity are most valuable. It is free, and you can provision an unlimited number of VMs at no cost for clients. They also provide perfect support."

"What I like best about this product is that it's free."

"If you want to access the VM from anywhere over the Internet, you put it in a public subnet. So, VMs are linked to that. The subnets are linked to it. So, it's perfectly secured if it's a private network. The security is set."

"In terms of server provisioning, it only takes a few clicks of a button and a bit of install automation."

"It is highly esteemed for its ability to efficiently optimize and enhance the operational speed and responsiveness of virtualized environments."

"VMware is user-friendly, with clear integration and detailed migration."

"Because of the virtualization for Linux, I use just Linux basically in all VMs, a few with Windows."

"The Foundation is the most valuable feature of Oracle VM."

More Oracle VM pros

"Tech support is very knowledgeable."

"Its most valuable features are reliability, for sure, and quickness in getting the job done. I can spin off 100 or 200 machines in the matter of half an hour."

"The product has good scalability."

"I like the capability of logging into one system, then being able to shift over to another system within that single pane of glass."

"VMware vSphere has useful tools for management and support."

"The solution is stable."

"I have found the solution to be flexible, and the vCenter and vMotion useful."

"The UI is very intuitive, you don't have to spend hours before you figure it out. All in all, compared to other environments, like Hyper-V, we find vSphere a lot more user-friendly and intuitive to use."

More VMware vSphere pros

Cons

"I've found that using Oracle VM is like stepping back in time. It's not kept up with technology. The only reason anyone uses it is that they're afraid of Oracle's licensing. Oracle has a tremendously bad licensing approach."

"The solution is at its end of life and is about to be discontinued."

"The product could improve network virtualization and hardware utilization functionalities."

"The pricing could be cheaper. It is very pricey."

"The product's user interface could be more intuitive for less experienced users."

"The automatic start of the product to work as a background process has shortcomings and needs improvement."

"Integration capabilities are a little complicated. It could be made easier. Whether integrating with Azure or other platforms or integration with OIC itself, the integration part is a little complicated."

"Productivity in Oracle VM could still be improved, and an additional feature to make the product better is compatibility with Kubernetes and other modern technologies."

More Oracle VM cons

"They must work on the price, as well as the technical support."

"The monitoring is not good in vSphere, many times you have latency or you cannot find what you want. The events should be improved."

"The initial setup is quite complex."

"The biggest problem in this solution is the incompatibility of some of the features with some of the drivers installed on servers. For example, if I want to install vSphere on an HPE server, the driver is really different from a Dell server or a Fujitsu server. I need to download different drivers and install them manually, which can be improved by VMware. They can offer a special image to match different servers. We face different problems when we install vSphere on an ESXi server and have different drivers on the storage. ESXi cannot detect different kinds of storage, and they should improve this. We updated our existing version to vSphere 7 in a private environment, but it seems that this version is not very stable. We are facing issues with restarting the host. In earlier versions, such as vSphere 6 or 6.5, we didn't have any such problems. It would be good if VMware can offer specific applications for mobiles to enable us to control the management of all servers by mobile. They should also improve the vCenter GUI because it is currently not compatible, and there are a lot of problems. Some of the options do not appear well in the browser. VMware should spend more time resolving the problems in the GUI."

"It would be great if the free version included a management tool that was a scaled-down vCenter Manager."

"It would be nice to see it a little more tightly integrated with the patching solution so you could do it in one pane of glass. Right now, you have to jump back and forth. It's still not difficult, but you have to jump back and forth to do your update definitions and then go back and actually do the updates themselves."

"The solution’s pricing is too high and could be improved."

"The installation can take a long time, they need to improve on the simplicity and length of the installation."

More VMware vSphere cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Oracle VM is an open-source solution."

"I recommend this for any customer wanting to reduce their licensing costs for packaged applications."

"I have heard from my colleague that it comes with a high price tag."

"Oracle's VM VirtualBox is a powerful, free, and open-source virtualization tool."

"Its price is relatively low."

"Pricing and licensing is one of the main decision making reasons for going to Oracle VM because it was cost effective."

"Oracle VM follows an annual subscription model."

"The solution is free but we have to pay for technical support."

More Oracle VM pricing and cost advice

"We pay for the solution on an annual basis. There are no additional fees other than the standard license."

"I'm satisfied with the VMware vSphere price. They have a bundle that is priced well. However, any advantage feature is very costly."

"You get what you pay for."

"Container support is the last great addition for VMware and it is worth the money you spend on it."

"The price could be better. The license is definitely expensive."

"It's a monthly subscription model."

"Considering the number of users, it is pretty reasonable. I am not aware of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."

"My advice when it comes to pricing is that pricing is a bummer, especially when it comes to SnS coverage."

More VMware vSphere pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user234735

Technology Consultant, ASEAN at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

May 10, 2015

Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5

I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…

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Answers from the Community

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)

Nov 22, 2021

Which is better - Oracle VM or VMware VSphere?

2 out of 3 answers

Fredrick-Massawe

System Administrator at Bakhresa Group of companies

Nov 17, 2021

VMware VSphere is better than Oracle VM because on Oracle Virtual machine migration is not an easy task as in VSphere due to complications existing in Oracle VM. Also, Oracle VM is limited in features compared to VMware. Oracle VM is limited also in communicating with other virtualization platforms like VMware.

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Janet Staver

Tech Blogger

Nov 18, 2021

Oracle VM seems to me to be kind of outdated. Nevertheless, it is fairly straightforward to use and maintain. The solution can just be set and you can forget about it, and the scalability is considered to be quite good. Oracle VM’s customer service and technical support are really outstanding. With this solution, you have the ability to patch with no downtime. Oracle has been around for a long time. It is complete in terms of its features, functionalities, and sophistication. It may provide good documentation and be easy to set up, but it has a terrible licensing structure. Oracle VM may help a company manage its costs, but that can come at another expense for a company - you have to work with an antiquated system. VMware VSphere is fairly priced. Like Oracle VM, it provides near-zero downtime services. I think the way information is monitored needs to be improved. I feel like they need to have a better solution for hybrid clouds and migration to the cloud. It would also be nice to have additional integration options with different solutions at the application level (for example, Kubernetes). One of the biggest issues I have with it, is the firmware management of the underlying hardware. For firmware upgrades, for example, you have to take down your entire system. Even though it makes it easy to create virtual machines, it could be more user-friendly. In addition, the customer service and technical support seem to be average, but nothing spectacular. Overall, I would say that VMware VSphere is pretty stable and implementation is fairly easy. Conclusion:I’m not overly thrilled about either solution, but having had experience with both, I think VMware VSphere is better because it is easy to scale, pretty easy to use, easy to maintain and is mostly stable. And also, while Oracle VM may be more well known, I am not willing to work with an outdated product, especially since there are multiple other modern solutions available.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

46%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

29%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Oracle VM or KVM?

I would prefer if KVM was easier to scale and not so limited. Overall the product has been helpful. It is easy to use, and was quite straight-forward to set up. Since I have been using KVM, I have ...

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Which is better - Oracle VM or VMware VSphere?

See all answers

What do you like most about Oracle VM?

If you want to access the VM from anywhere over the Internet, you put it in a public subnet. So, VMs are linked to that. The subnets are linked to it. So, it's perfectly secured if it's a private n...

See all answers

What is IOMMU?

DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...

See all answers

Why KVM??? Help please!

We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

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Comparisons

Proxmox VE vs Oracle VM

Compared 18% of the time

KVM vs Oracle VM

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle VM VirtualBox vs Oracle VM

Compared 15% of the time

Hyper-V vs Oracle VM

Compared 4% of the time

RHEV vs Oracle VM

Compared 3% of the time

More Oracle VM Competitors

Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere

Compared 24% of the time

Proxmox VE vs VMware vSphere

Compared 14% of the time

RHEV vs VMware vSphere

Compared 9% of the time

KVM vs VMware vSphere

Compared 8% of the time

VMware Workstation vs VMware vSphere

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware vSphere Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Oracle VM

October 2024

Download Oracle VM product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSphere

October 2024

Download VMware vSphere product report

Learn More

Oracle

VMware

Overview

Oracle VM for x86

Oracle VM for x86 is a Xen based server virtualization platform for public and private cloud and traditional on premise deployment. Oracle VM offers full lifecycle and application deployment from disk to cloud.

Designed and optimized for security, efficiency and performance Oracle VM supports major hardware vendors x86 and storage platforms and can run workloads on Linux, Windows and Oracle Solaris. Uniquely for our virtualization platform it offers live patching via Ksplice enhancing security and minimizing service disruption. Oracle VM supports hard partitioning which can significantly reduce software applications licensing costs.

Oracle VM for SPARC

Oracle VM for SPARC is a firmware based virtualization platform for Oracle and Fujitsu SPARC based servers running Solaris. Oracle VM supports hard partitioning which can significantly reduce software applications licensing costs.

VMware vSphere is a powerful and complete server virtualization platform that allows its users to create and manage virtual data centers and machines. VMware vSphere is designed to help IT departments set up and run applications using the most cost-effective computer resources. By using vSphere, organizations save the time and energy necessary for purchasing infrastructure and software and reduce ongoing maintenance and operational burdens on IT teams.

Infrastructure administrators and network operators can access and manage the vSphere server by using a web-based cross-platform client application or via the vSphere client tool provided with vSphere.

VMware vSphere provides visibility into VMs and enables its users to carry out operations to manage VMs. This includes tasks such as:

Powering VMs on and off
Launching the VM console
Shutting down guest operating systems
Settings configurations
Taking system snapshots

VMware vSphere Benefits

Some of the benefits of using VMware vSphere include:

Reduced costs: Since VMware applications are run on a server, it is not necessary to spend large amounts of your organization’s money on hardware, software, and infrastructure.

Increased productivity and customer satisfaction: VMware is able to operate multiple complex processes simultaneously. With all your applications being managed and run on the cloud, downtime, failures, and application errors are rare. VMware easily scales up and down to meet your computing needs. The high availability that VMware provides allows your IT staff to focus on other issues and keeps your customers satisfied with the service they receive.

Unlimited access to your VMs: VMware’s user-friendly cloud-based interface allows any employee to work from any location at any time.

Enhanced security: VMware’s security tools deliver full visibility into your entire system. This keeps your applications and data more secure, in any type of environment. VMware provides multiple protective tools including antiviruses and anti-malware, as well as backup and recovery services.

VMware vSphere Features

Below is a list of some of VMware vSphere’s key features:

Transferable virtual machine images: Export and import virtual machine images from your local environment. This gives users the ability to set up and configure their systems locally and only upload them to the server once everything is working properly. VM images can be moved back and forth between vendors, ensuring that your company is never tied up to a specific cloud vendor.

User-friendly interface: Using VMware’s intuitive console, you can easily create, manage, share, and deploy virtual machines.

API integration: VMware’s APIs support integration with third-party applications for data protection, multipathing, and disk array solutions.

Distributed power management: Automate efficiency by continuously optimizing server power consumption within each cluster.

Reviews from Real Users

VMware vSphere stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. A few major ones are its virtualization abilities, its flexibility and availability, and its user-friendly interface.

Felix D., an Automation project administrator, DCS, I&E at Centennial Cayman Corp, writes, “The connectivity is fantastic, and many functions can run together in one server. If you need to scale, we can continue to add components or modules. It's a beautiful virtual solution that has many advantages over physical hardware, where you have to use devices and wiring to connect all your projects.”

Sample Customers

Ambulance Victoria, Australian Finance Group (AFG), Avnet Technology Solutions, CERN, cloudKleyer, Danish Tax Authority (SKAT), Data Intensity, Dubai World, Engineers Australia, Enkitec, Groupe FLO, Guerra S.A. Implemento, s Rodovišrios, Interactive One, IT Convergence, Jesta Digital, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, KT, Kyoto Prefecture, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory / National Ignition Facility, Multinet Pakistan, National Australia Bank (NAB), Navis LLC, Overhead Door, Overstock.com, Paragon Data, Parks Victoria, Pella, Sunway Shared Services, St. Louis Metro, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., University of Massachusetts, Versace,

Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.

Buyer's Guide

Oracle VM vs. VMware vSphere

October 2024

Free Report: Oracle VM vs. VMware vSphere

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