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Oracle VM VirtualBox vs RHEV comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
RHEV
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 7.6%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle VM VirtualBox7.6%
RHEV2.5%
Other89.9%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Tanvir Siddique - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Mike Neuliep - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has supported virtualization projects in side jobs but has required workarounds due to lack of maintenance
In my opinion, the best features of RHEV are that it is a real hypervisor and it is free, so it performs better than VMware. I have used the live migration feature in the past with RHEV. There is a free clone of it that is based on the open source. Live migration is a nifty feature if your app is not highly available and you need to do maintenance on a machine. You can migrate the VM off of it, do your maintenance, and move it back when you are done. RHEV has a high availability architecture with a built-in monitoring feature where you could see machines other than the one you are operating on. I tend to implement high availability not so much in RHEV, but by using standard application high availability strategies. Red Hat has another product specifically for high availability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A major improvement we've seen is in the testing of the applications before production deployment."
"This solution creates a snapshot of virtual machines so you can create test environments."
"For my users, it is very stable; we do home automation on it, and it works really well."
"The solution is very convenient and easy to use."
"In my opinion, this product is the best available option for testing virtual appliances and operating systems."
"I like that it has a snapshot feature."
"In my opinion, it's the best solution for a small office or one-person virtualization."
"It gives me the simplicity to quickly create virtual machines and to deploy my applications, and it's free."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"The solution is stable."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"The support for this solution is very good."
"It is a very good solution, it works very well, we haven't had any issues with any technical aspects and it works well."
"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."
"For the Windows side, we also initiated a digital transformation project, moving a lot of Windows applications to the container side and the open-source software side, which resulted in almost 70% savings of our past expenses."
"Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization can help to optimize their space utilization and optimize their costs."
 

Cons

"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."
"The initial configuration was a little tricky. Setup could be simpler."
"The solution is a bit less stable than I would like."
"Basically, the GUI and command-line interface need improvement."
"The solution has to do a better job of promoting the product and its licensing capabilities."
"This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should be improved."
"We have a few issues so far, there's a few things that we're going to do to improve the speed, like when you play videos and things like that."
"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."
"We have found the technical support for this solution to be very slow in responding to our requests for assistance."
"I have found that the stability is related to the upgrade cycle. I find the cycle a little bit annoying; if the system is constantly upgrading then it is very painful in terms of the operation."
"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."
"Customers are not aware of this solution, they can improve by providing more awareness and solution availability."
"The GUI interface needs improvement. Not 90%, but 50% or 60% of the work is done from the command line and so on, so the GUI needs work because people are looking for an easier way to manage the environment."
"RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years."
"The RHEV management plane could be improved, particularly the management interface."
"The UI should be more interactive with additional features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"There are no licensing fees."
"The product is free to use."
"Pricing does not apply for us, we do not have to pay for the service."
"It is an open-source solution."
"The license I use is free."
"Available for free use"
"The solution is free."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"The price of RHEV is high. It is an open-source solution, the price should be less. The price should not be on par with a solution, such as VMware. It's not more or equal to VMware, it's less, but the difference should be more substantial."
"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."
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Comparison Review

VL
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
 

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...
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.
What needs improvement with Oracle VM VirtualBox?
If there were more API access so that I could run it headlessly, similar to Proxmox where I can use API, it would be useful. Having some kind of API to maintain Oracle VM VirtualBox would be benefi...
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.
What needs improvement with RHEV?
RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years. I would love to get back into RHEV, but the job market is difficult and no one is hiring. RHEV is designe...
What is your primary use case for RHEV?
I have done some consulting where I used RHEV, taking on side jobs to run virtual machines in the financial industry for a startup. The last time I used RHEV was in my home lab, but that has been d...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle VM VirtualBox vs. RHEV and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,533 professionals have used our research since 2012.