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Oracle VM vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.4
Oracle VM's perceived ROI varied; users praised its cost-effectiveness and flexibility, though some found it costly.
Sentiment score
6.9
VMware vSphere reduces costs and boosts efficiency by minimizing physical servers, speeding deployment, and saving electricity and hardware.
We can say 10% is the approximate amount of savings because most of the things are automated and streamlined, so the manual work is eliminated in most cases.
Sr. Technical Architect at StarOne IT Solutions
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Oracle VM support is generally high-quality with knowledgeable staff, though initial challenges and escalation are sometimes necessary.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware vSphere's customer service is friendly and available, though response times and escalation for complex issues vary.
The response time and quality of support could be improved.
Architect at Infinite Computer Solutions
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
Server Support Engineer at CIPL - Corporate Infotech Pvt Ltd
Recently, support has been less friendly and slower, especially after the company was acquired by Broadcom.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
Technical Assistant at EOCD
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Oracle VM is praised for effective scalability despite minor hardware constraints and licensing model limitations.
Sentiment score
7.3
VMware vSphere offers exceptional scalability, flexibility, and performance, making it ideal for diverse enterprise needs and large-scale environments.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
VMware vSphere is highly scalable in terms of the number of users and the number of servers it can handle.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
It is a highly scalable solution.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Oracle VM's stability improved significantly with version 3.4, becoming reliable with minimal bugs, especially on certified hardware.
Sentiment score
7.9
VMware vSphere is stable and reliable, with minimal crashes, responsive support, and effectively manages updates with improved stability.
Not every upgrade goes smoothly, and after an upgrade, it sometimes stops working.
Owner at Inforex
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
While they are generally stable, if outages occur, they tend to be due to brands like HP or Dell, not VMware vSphere itself.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
Mostly we don't have issues, but sometimes we have faced some stability issues because of some bugs and some CPU compatibility issues with Intel CPUs.
IT Director at Def Industry
 

Room For Improvement

Oracle VM struggles with UI instability, limited integration, and performance, needing enhancements in security and multi-platform compatibility.
VMware vSphere's costly, complex interface faces stability and integration issues, with inadequate documentation and reliance on Flash problematic.
If I have limited systems and there is maintenance on the hardware, the Oracle systems are impacted.
Senior Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Not every upgrade goes smoothly, and after an upgrade, it sometimes stops working.
Owner at Inforex
Oracle VM provides automation capabilities in the new version.
Architect at Infinite Computer Solutions
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
Manager of Systems at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
Server Support Engineer at CIPL - Corporate Infotech Pvt Ltd
 

Setup Cost

Oracle VM is cost-effective with free core offering, flexible licensing, and bundled support, benefiting large-scale enterprises.
VMware vSphere is seen as costly, with complex licensing, although valued for stability and features compared to competitors.
Oracle VM is not a very expensive solution.
Owner at Inforex
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The solution is too expensive.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
 

Valuable Features

Oracle VM offers cost-effective virtualization with flexibility, supporting multiple OS, live migration, scalability, and Oracle licensing compliance.
VMware vSphere excels in availability, scalability, and management with features like vMotion, DRS, and robust security.
If there is an issue with the operating system running on top of it, there's no primary and secondary domain, rather segregated I/Os, disks, memory, everything assigned to a logical domain.
Senior Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
It is easy to copy or clone one Oracle workstation to another.
Owner at Inforex
Oracle VM's features perform better on Windows compared to iOS.
Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking at NUPAT TECHNOLOGIES
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
The tool is highly available, which is crucial for implementing critical applications requiring 24/7 availability.
Revenue Operations Specialist at KK AGC
I always use VMware vSphere vMotion; we work with this feature all the time. vMotion is very useful; that's why we use the virtualization.
IT Director at Def Industry
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle VM
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSphere
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
457
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Oracle VM is 5.9%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 18.1%, up from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware vSphere18.1%
Oracle VM5.9%
Other76.0%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Chimdi Profitearne - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity and Ethical Hacking at NUPAT TECHNOLOGIES
Has supported ethical training effectively but configuration needs to be more user-friendly
When evaluating Oracle VM, I have concerns about the configuration being too complex and not user-friendly. It doesn't perform optimally on iOS, which is an Apple laptop, but works very well on Windows. To improve Oracle VM, the configuration needs to be more user-friendly and less rigid. Additionally, compatibility with Apple laptops needs improvement as it currently doesn't work well on that platform.
IA
IT Director at Def Industry
Has improved infrastructure monitoring and resource management but requires better support and cost efficiency
The high availability feature's resilience is not bad, but it could be better. For example, whenever you lose any hardware, you will have interruptions on the services, and it reboots again on the other hardware host which is available at the crash time. That's good, but we would prefer to have zero downtime instead of the rebooting on the other server. We would prefer to have a zero downtime always-on configuration. VMware vSphere has a built-in feature called Fault Tolerance, but it's very limited for very limited VMs or very limited core count or CPU count, so it's not so useful for all the environment because of the limitations. The Fault Tolerance (FT) feature is very limited to very little core counts or very little VM counts, so you can't run the Fault Tolerance for all the servers or all the VMs, and that's very bad. If VMware vSphere could have any kind of built-in patch management environment with a repository, offline repository option, with test, non-production, and production environment separated, this would be perfect. Management of patch management with operating systems and including third-party applications which are running on the servers would enhance the VMware vSphere environment. VMware vSphere is very expensive. The worst aspect of VMware vSphere is the price. I can't tell you the exact cost at this time because the other team members in my teams are working on it, but I remember that the prices are very high. VMware vSphere is easy to scale, but it could be better, similar to a Kubernetes environment. It should have an automatic scale-out feature when the load gets high; if it gets some scale out automatically, it would be better than this, similar to Kubernetes or OpenShift.
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Consultant, ASEAN at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Content Manager at PeerSpot
Nov 22, 2021
Nov 22, 2021
Oracle VM seems to me to be kind of outdated. Nevertheless, it is fairly straightforward to use and maintain. The solution can just be set and you can forget about it, and the scalability is considered to be quite good. Oracle VM’s customer service and technical support are really outstanding. With this solution, you have the ability to patch with no downtime. Oracle has been around for a long ...
2 out of 3 answers
FM
System Administrator at Bakhresa Group of companies
Nov 17, 2021
VMware VSphere is better than Oracle VM because on Oracle Virtual machine migration is not an easy task as in VSphere due to complications existing in Oracle VM.  Also, Oracle VM is limited in features compared to VMware. Oracle VM is limited also in communicating with other virtualization platforms like VMware.
Janet Staver - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Blogger
Nov 18, 2021
Oracle VM seems to me to be kind of outdated. Nevertheless, it is fairly straightforward to use and maintain. The solution can just be set and you can forget about it, and the scalability is considered to be quite good. Oracle VM’s customer service and technical support are really outstanding. With this solution, you have the ability to patch with no downtime. Oracle has been around for a long time. It is complete in terms of its features, functionalities, and sophistication. It may provide good documentation and be easy to set up, but it has a terrible licensing structure. Oracle VM may help a company manage its costs, but that can come at another expense for a company - you have to work with an antiquated system. VMware VSphere is fairly priced. Like Oracle VM, it provides near-zero downtime services. I think the way information is monitored needs to be improved. I feel like they need to have a better solution for hybrid clouds and migration to the cloud. It would also be nice to have additional integration options with different solutions at the application level (for example, Kubernetes). One of the biggest issues I have with it, is the firmware management of the underlying hardware. For firmware upgrades, for example, you have to take down your entire system. Even though it makes it easy to create virtual machines, it could be more user-friendly. In addition, the customer service and technical support seem to be average, but nothing spectacular. Overall, I would say that VMware VSphere is pretty stable and implementation is fairly easy. Conclusion:I’m not overly thrilled about either solution, but having had experience with both, I think VMware VSphere is better because it is easy to scale, pretty easy to use, easy to maintain and is mostly stable. And also, while Oracle VM may be more well known, I am not willing to work with an outdated product, especially since there are multiple other modern solutions available.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business175
Midsize Enterprise137
Large Enterprise256
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Oracle VM or KVM?
I would prefer if KVM was easier to scale and not so limited. Overall the product has been helpful. It is easy to use, and was quite straight-forward to set up. Since I have been using KVM, I have ...
Which is better - Oracle VM or VMware VSphere?
Oracle VM seems to me to be kind of outdated. Nevertheless, it is fairly straightforward to use and maintain. The solution can just be set and you can forget about it, and the scalability is consid...
What do you like most about Oracle VM?
If you want to access the VM from anywhere over the Internet, you put it in a public subnet. So, VMs are linked to that. The subnets are linked to it. So, it's perfectly secured if it's a private n...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
Proxmox vs ESXi/vSphere: What is your experience?
For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of handling and management. However, KVM-based Open Source solutions are becoming...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ambulance Victoria, Australian Finance Group (AFG), Avnet Technology Solutions, CERN, cloudKleyer, Danish Tax Authority (SKAT), Data Intensity, Dubai World, Engineers Australia, Enkitec, Groupe FLO, Guerra S.A. Implemento, s Rodovišrios, Interactive One, IT Convergence, Jesta Digital, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, KT, Kyoto Prefecture, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory / National Ignition Facility, Multinet Pakistan, National Australia Bank (NAB), Navis LLC, Overhead Door, Overstock.com, Paragon Data, Parks Victoria, Pella, Sunway Shared Services, St. Louis Metro, Terminales Ro de la Plata S.A., University of Massachusetts, Versace,
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle VM vs. VMware vSphere and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,455 professionals have used our research since 2012.