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Oracle VM VirtualBox vs RHEV comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 6, 2024

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
13th
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
11th
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 April 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 5.8%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
RHEV2.4%
Oracle VM VirtualBox5.8%
Other91.8%
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

"In general, it is a good and stable product to use."
"OracleVM has been helpful to me, as I now test my scripts on different operating systems in a single machine before deploying them."
"Technical support is good."
"This is a highly scalable solution for our infrastructure."
"The pause feature is valuable. I can pause, which is something that not all hypervisors allow. The snapshot feature is also valuable."
"This is a good and easy solution for running virtual environments."
"Overall, the solution works very well and we have been happy with it."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"They are so advanced today and so mature in what they do that they could easily give any top-notch industry leaders a run for their money."
"It is easy to deal with when comes to application migration and its compatibility with the multiple component applications."
"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 is stable, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's reliable with good performance."
"Customers are moving to open source and Red Hat is the leader in this particular space, and I think customers feel more confident running Red Hat Virtualization than VMware."
"The price is the solution's most valuable aspect; it's much cheaper than, for example, VMware, so companies can save money using it if they need to."
 

Cons

"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 stability is okay, but it could be better."
"The solution is not flexible."
"Basically, the GUI and command-line interface need improvement."
"Sometimes the VirtualBox stops and the process cannot be killed. The computer then needs to be restarted."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is not flexible, It's not like VMware."
"I stopped using it for one reason and one reason only, because Oracle closed off portions of the code, creating an OSE (open source edition) and a CSE (closed source edition) of the software."
"They could improve the graphics functionality of the product."
"The solution could use network virtualization."
"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."
"My teammates and I often complain that VMware is well-documented and has a large community since it is the de facto standard. I would love to see better documentation and ease of use."
"They don't know how to sell their great products and don’t really seem to be interested in taking care of their partners who trust and really know their products."
"I heard that there are big differences between Red Hat eight and seven, but it's still quite difficult for me to judge it. I found it a bit more difficult to manage than version seven, which was much easier. In term of features, though, it is still not yet clear which is better. I have no clear idea of which features need to be changed at the moment."
"When we do a direct comparison, then obviously VMware does better in terms of having Fault Tolerance and doing active disaster recovery and these kind of things. This is something that can be improved within Red Hat."
"The documentation is not as good as it should be."
"This solution could be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
"The solution is free."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
"It is an open-source solution."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"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."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"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 would say the price is acceptable."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"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."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
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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%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
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 do you like most about RHEV?
The initial setup is fairly straightforward and well-documented. The process is very similar to its competitors. The success of your setup depends on how well you plan.
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...
 

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: April 2026.
889,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.