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Oracle VM VirtualBox vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (7th)
VMware Workstation
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Virtualization solutions, they serve different purposes. Oracle VM VirtualBox is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 6.3%, down 9.7% compared to last year.
VMware Workstation, on the other hand, focuses on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), holds 15.4% mindshare, up 15.3% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

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.
Shambhu Narayan  Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
An easy-to-manage solution that has really good customer support compared to other market players
VMware Workstation makes it easy to manage all the resources that we are handling. VMware Workstation has reduced our infrastructure cost. If someone wants machines, I can create them easily using the solution. VMware Workstation is easier to manage than other workstations like Oracle Workstation. VMware Workstation is an easy-to-manage solution, and its support is really good compared to other market players. Overall, I rate VMware Workstation an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 most valuable feature is the seamlessness."
"The flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"The product is very easy to use."
"Oracle VM Virtualbox is easy to use and does not require much training."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution were the support and performance of the product and the flexibility it gives you to work."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
"It's really easy to build testing environments with VMware Player."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Instead of relying on dual-boot operating systems, I can utilize open-source tools within my infrastructure. This approach allows me to create an in-house cloud platform suitable for testing. VMware Workstation enables me to perform tasks across various operating systems using a single device. It has helped me save time."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is an easy-to-use product."
"The platform’s most valuable feature is snapshot."
"We initially intended to work with Hyper-V because we are selling a virtual appliance and thought our customers would want to run that on Hyper-V."
"I appreciate the ease of backup and snapshot creation. The ability to revert to previous versions without losing data is very useful for our team."
 

Cons

"The communications setup lags. It does not connect properly so the batching and networking is a bit slow."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"The solution needs to improve its flexibility. It's not as flexible as VMware."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"The product lacks scalability since it is for desktops and not for servers."
"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 is not flexible."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"The price of VMware Workstation is an area of concern where improvements are needed."
"VMware Workstation’s scalability could be improved."
"Lacks the ability to clone onto another system rather than starting from scratch."
"The price of VMware Workstation could improve."
"The price should be reduced."
"Installing VMware Workstation isn't so easy. It's highly complex compared to Windows. I rate it four out of 10 for ease of installation. Setting up a remote desktop only takes a minute or so, but the Workstation itself takes some time."
"The solution freezes sometimes."
"VMware Workstation has some network limitations which could improve, it is not as flexible as VMware NSX. Additionally, it could support operating systems better. I only run some Linux versions and Windows at the moment but it would be nice to be able to take whatever operating system you want and run it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Oracle should consider reducing the cost of the product."
"Price wise, Oracle VM VirtualBox is a six on a scale from one to ten."
"It is a very cost-effective solution."
"It is pretty good for the price, which is free."
"The product is free to use."
"The tool is not as expensive as other products."
"It is an open-source solution."
"There are no licensing fees."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"Licensing costs are paid on a yearly basis."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The cost differs depending on the customer's requirement."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"VMware is expensive. Licensing can be tricky. For example, I recently had a client running VMware vSphere Essentials and wanted to migrate to a more scalable solution. However, they had no choice but to purchase a completely new license and deploy a completely new instance of VMware."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
Which VMware solution would you go with - Workstation or vSphere?
VM Workstation’s setup is so easy, you can use it almost instantly, it works well with Windows and Linux. We like VM Workstation primarily to test environments to determine how well a solution will...
What do you like most about VMware Workstation?
The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up.
What needs improvement with VMware Workstation?
The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
Akademiska Hus
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