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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
12th
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 September 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM VirtualBox is 7.3%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RHEV is 2.4%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle VM VirtualBox7.3%
RHEV2.4%
Other90.3%
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

"It is a stable product."
"Our Return on Investment has been excellent."
"As it's free, the price-per-performance ratio is a big plus."
"I recommend it, especially for people who are beginners because most things they will want to use will virtually be plug-and-play."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that there is no cost because it is open source."
"Oracle VM Virtualbox is easy to use and does not require much training."
"In my opinion, it's the best solution for a small office or one-person virtualization."
"I think VirtualBox has good stability because I use it in an environment with several resolutions, and I am able to run several guest environments on one node."
"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."
"We find the ease of use of this solution to be invaluable, as it is user-friendly and integrates well with other software."
"The solution is easy for us to deal with when comes to application migration and has good compatibility with multiple components."
"The solution makes migration easy."
"I can control and manage everything. I know everything that's cooking inside. This is the best part for me."
"Red Hat is the most stable system; it's better than other OS solutions."
"The solution has a good licensing module."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the popularity of the OS."
 

Cons

"The solution lacks some open source remote administration tools. The reload of individual virtual machine definitions through the vboxweb service (via its API) without restarting it and the access to shared storage (to use teleport functions) need to be improved."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"The user interface I find to be lacking. If you compare it with VMware or Hyper-V, you have lots of room for improvement."
"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 user interface needs to 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."
"I think part of the reason is, is a lot of people do not trust Virtual Box because they think it's buggy."
"An example of an area of improvement that I can see from my use of it would be the VirtualBox network setting."
"The initial setup is not simple or straightforward. It's very complex."
"There are two things that I would like to see improvement in when it comes to Red Hat. First is the pricing and second is the support."
"You need to buy support from red hat and you need to renew support every year in order to keep getting support from red hat."
"We hope that Red Hat can produce a paradigm edition. We are looking for paradigm computing and paradigm storage. Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system. They should also provide local service and support. Our customers are looking for a good software vendor to provide professional services."
"While everything needs improvement in some way, I have no specifics."
"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 documentation is not as good as it should be. There is a need for making it descriptive and in sequence."
"We should improve how we manage storage domains and make more comprehensive control available through the command line."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license I use is free."
"The solution is free."
"The product is free to use."
"There are no licensing fees."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"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."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution."
"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."
"Price-wise, RHEV is okay, in my opinion."
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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%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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.
914,805 professionals have used our research since 2012.