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Hyper-V vs Oracle VM VirtualBox vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Server Virtualization Software
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Ananth Narayana Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective and good for small workloads while addressing update-driven challenges is needed
I use Azure Monitor and other monitoring solutions to support clients in Accenture's managed services. We support multiple environments, primarily on cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, and also on-premises environments with operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Solaris, among others…
Kopano  Ramaphoi - PeerSpot reviewer
A flexible and easy-to-deploy product that provides a great user experience
The product should improve its scalability. It should be more flexible to be used with desktops with different capacities. We do not have much storage on our desktops, and we must allocate a certain amount of memory to install the product. When we install a virtual machine, we have a limit that we cannot exceed 80% of RAM.
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

"We can perform maintenance on equipment during the day because we can live migrate all of the machines from one server to another."
"I find Hyper V useful in managing virtual machines in environments with smaller workloads."
"It's scalable."
"It is a great advantage for any company that is using a Microsoft Windows server."
"It is definitely the toughest competitor for VMware. It easily increases memory for our virtual machines."
"We have a higher capacity server (specification wise) so there is no need to buy another additional hardware."
"It is a very stable product. We have not had any issues with Hyper-V crashing itself."
"Hyper-V deployment is very user-friendly. It supports partial scripting and offers a UI for a smooth experience. There's also PowerShell scripting available for advanced users."
"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution were the support and performance of the product and the flexibility it gives you to work."
"The solution is very convenient and easy to use."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot."
"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 product works well."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
"It's stable."
"I appreciate the ease of backup and snapshot creation. The ability to revert to previous versions without losing data is very useful for our team."
"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 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."
 

Cons

"Sometimes it is a mess, and it is getting hanged. It should be something that could be easily fixed. It made us have to deal with fixing the bugs."
"Hyper-V doesn't have a lot of features and is limited compared to other virtualization software."
"They should include a few more hardware components for integration with servers."
"Hyper-V could be improved by implementing the same set of features that other tools provide."
"I think there is room for improvement in terms of the cloud solutions."
"The product can be a bit difficult to use."
"The live migration feature needs improvement."
"The area revolving around operations in the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"It should have the functionality where if I move the mouse away from one screen, the context changes automatically."
"The solution has to do a better job of promoting the product and its licensing capabilities."
"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."
"We're working with them to be able to allow the local USB ports to be ported over to the remote desktop, running VirtualBox."
"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"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."
"VMware Workstation uses more resources like CPU and disk space, especially the CPU, which is a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The interface is a little wonky and needs to be improved."
"The price should be reduced."
"Its price could be better."
"They could add more integration between them, and compatibility with the standard virtualization format."
"The network configuration was not as easy as it could be and could take less time."
"It takes too much time to load all the plug-ins and software."
"The support can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive, and the subscription is annual."
"The licensing is good for a data center environment."
"There is a license required to use Hyper-V and there are bundle packages you can purchase making it cheaper than other solutions, such as VMware. Additionally, if there is a lot of guest OS that requires Windows, then Microsoft becomes cheaper."
"Cost-wise, what one gets is directly proportional to the price paid. If the need for capacity doubles, then the price also doubles."
"It's cheap, but not the best."
"The licensing costs depend on the environment you have. If you have an environment of less than 10 or 30 VMs, It's nice to have a Hyper-V, but if you have more than 100 or 200, I would recommend using VCenter, VMware virtualization, especially for an on-premise solution."
"Hyper-V is free-of-charge."
"In terms of the licensing, if you are using Microsoft Windows 100%, it is OK. But, when you start mixing other environments, it becomes quite tricky."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"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."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"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."
"Available for free use"
"The solution is free."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
35%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does KVM compare with Hyper-V?
KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging. Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to ...
How does Proxmox VE compare with Hyper-V?
One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same featu...
What do you like most about Hyper-V?
The initial setup is not difficult at all. It is very easy.
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?
In the enterprise scenario, all software solutions, including Oracle VM VirtualBox, are expensive. It is important to...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Akademiska Hus
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