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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…
Tanvir Siddique - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"Migration is easy."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"We can perform maintenance on equipment during the day because we can live migrate all of the machines from one server to another."
"It's a very manageable product."
"I find the quick provision feature in Hyper-V to be extremely helpful."
"This solution helps us with production of our office business needs."
"Hyper-V's technical support is good - they're responsive and sort cases based on criticality and category, so they get dealt with quickly and by the correct team."
"The most valuable feature is being able to do checkpoints then roll back to the checkpoint because that's what we need to test the software. We're testing the installation and then we roll it back and retest it."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"I think VirtualBox has good stability because I use it in an environment with several resolutions."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its stability."
"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 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."
"This is a highly scalable solution."
"The tool’s GUI is very user-friendly."
"VMware Workstation allows you to run a virtual machine."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"Because the setup is so easy, this is a solution that can be used at a moment's notice."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot."
"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."
"The product works well."
 

Cons

"I would love to see other options for connecting VMs to large data storage."
"VMware has antivirus protection that covers the entire VM. If Microsoft could have something similar to this in Hyper-V, that would be great."
"The solution should be compatible with different systems."
"I have found it difficult to manage more than one virtual machine."
"It needs additional administration and monitoring capabilities."
"SCVMM needs to be more user-friendly. Without SCVMM, automating is not easy to use and we look forward to the upcoming versions of SCVMM becoming simpler and more admin friendly."
"Many vendors, such as Cisco and HPE, are discontinuing support for Hyper-V as they believe it does not have a significant market share."
"Some of the interfaces need improvements, like the virtual switch or virtual VLAN interfaces."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"The solution needs to improve its flexibility. It's not as flexible as VMware."
"The solution has to do a better job of promoting the product and its licensing capabilities."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"The solution needs to improve the methods used for starting and stopping the machine."
"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."
"VMware Workstation has some network limitations which could improve, it is not as flexible as VMware NSX. Additionally, it could support operating systems better. I only run some Linux versions and Windows at the moment but it would be nice to be able to take whatever operating system you want and run it."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
"The price should be reduced."
"VMware Player should provide a cloud version with no limitations to hardware resources."
"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."
"The solution freezes sometimes."
"The price of VMware Workstation is an area of concern where improvements are needed."
"VMware Workstation could improve the export and import of virtual machines."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing is fine."
"We have an agreement with Microsoft, so this came with that solution. The pricing is OK for us."
"Thanks to our enterprise agreement with Microsoft, Hyper-V is free for us."
"There is no cost associated with it if customers are already using Microsoft products."
"The product is a bit expensive, but it is worth the money."
"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."
"Since we have an agreement with Microsoft, the solution is not very expensive."
"The product comes with Windows Server."
"Available for free use"
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
"There are no licensing fees."
"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"It is pretty good for the price, which is free."
"The product is free to use."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"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."
"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 product is expensive."
"The product has a moderate price."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
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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
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

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