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Oracle VM VirtualBox vs RHEV comparison

 

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 August 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 6.9%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle VM VirtualBox6.9%
RHEV2.4%
Other90.7%
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

"Oracle VM Virtual box is a very good tool for me."
"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 solution is very convenient and easy to use."
"The ROI on it is obviously to our benefit as we are now able to deploy multiple PeopleSoft images to the Oracle VM and have everything (WebAppDBOSES) up and running normally in less than a day."
"OracleVM is an excellent alternative to Virtual PC and other client-side virtualization tools."
"I like that it is free and runs on Linux/Ubuntu - I wouldn't use any other solution. I am able to perform small developing tests."
"In my opinion, this product is the best available option for testing virtual appliances and operating systems."
"It's a very good platform to build your virtual machines on and highly integrated with Red Hat itself and its satellites."
"This solution is very stable. Much more so than similar products."
"It is very stable."
"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."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"The solution is stable, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable with good performance."
"Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor has robust virtualization management features with proven enterprise security and performance."
"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."
 

Cons

"I’d like to see Oracle make it easy to drag and drop files between a VM and the host PC."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"It's excellent for the speed of setup, to install/deploy/test things, but for serious work I prefer to work on Proxmox."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"If the user faces a problem he has to read a large amount of docs to fix them."
"VirtualBox is not as feature-rich as VMware, but the GUI from VirtualBox more than makes up for the features that it is lacking."
"Load balancing not very efficient and fails to utilize and distribute network resources."
"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."
"The Administration of the Oracle database and the SAP ERP needs improvement."
"The solution could improve its pricing."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
"Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is pretty good for the price, which is free."
"The product is free to use."
"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"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."
"Pricing does not apply for us, we do not have to pay for the service."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"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."
"We are using the free version of Red Hat."
"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."
"The solution does not require licencing but a subscription is necessary, which is very affordable."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
report
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
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: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.