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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
8th
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
6.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 6.1%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 3.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Oracle VM VirtualBox6.1%
RHEV3.1%
Other90.8%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Sujeet-Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution is scalable and affordable, but it lacks features, and it is not easy to manage
Management of RHEV is not as easy as VMware. Some features do not work. The product does not provide features similar to VMware’s VMotion. After creating the cluster, the VM is moved to another node if we move down. However, the VM does not move the parent node automatically. It has to be moved manually. VMware moves it automatically. RHEV moves it to the parent node only if we restart. Everything can be handled in VMware through the GUI. However, in RHEV, some things can be managed through UI, and others cannot. We have to troubleshoot and use CLI. A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"It is easy to use and does not require complex knowledge."
"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."
"The product is very easy to use."
"It's a pretty good product in terms of monitoring."
"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 flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable."
"It is very stable."
"I advise keeping an open mind. It's an excellent solution."
"The platform is scalable, allowing for the installation of multiple nodes."
"The biggest aspect for me is the disk usage, the virtual manager, and the deployment of machines."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"We find the ease of use of this solution to be invaluable. It is user-friendly and integrates well with other software."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The communications setup lags. It does not connect properly so the batching and networking is a bit slow."
"It could improve slightly with enhanced reporting capabilities that show the current status of the network."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"The tool has some stability issues."
"The installation is difficult and could be improved."
"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. If you tweak lots of drivers and play around with the different kinds of drivers and machines, you will probably break something. I have not played with it too much and maybe it already supports it, but it would probably be good to have the ability to use a container from the virtual machine environment instead of spinning off a complete virtual machine. There are other tools for that. On Linux, you have a DXE, LXC framework, and you have Docker as well. Docker is good because it is multi-platform, and you can run Docker on pretty much anything, even different processors, but it would be good if we had a VirtualBox running on it while spinning off containers instead of full virtual machines. The other thing that will become important, and I'm pretty sure that they are thinking about it as well is that there's this new hardware platform that Apple is releasing, which is an ARM-based new chip. So, VirtualBox will probably have to work on ARM-based CPUs as well."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements. They should not be halted or delayed innovation because over the past quarter the enhancements have not been as fast as they have been previously."
"A few features of the product do not work as well as those in VMware."
"Red Hat by itself is not scalable. But you can have third party add-ons like Ceph to make it massively scalable."
"It would be better to have more patches, especially kernel-level updates, live and online so that we can keep the business up and running during this period."
"The solution has a very small lifecycle."
"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."
"The Administration of the Oracle database and the SAP ERP needs improvement."
"The availability of technical expertise with the solution may be limited in some areas."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"There are no licensing fees."
"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
"It is an open-source solution."
"No licensing is required as it is open-source."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"The license I use is free."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"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 buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"We have to pay extra for vulnerability and fault tolerance."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
"We are using the free version of Red Hat."
report
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Comparison Review

VL
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
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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 Business22
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise10
 

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 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.
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?
The RHEV management plane could be improved, particularly the management interface. Something more similar to a Google, Amazon, or Azure interface might attract people to use its management interfa...
 

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: July 2025.
866,391 professionals have used our research since 2012.