Oracle VM VirtualBox Reviews

This product is very user-friendly and easy to use.

It has a good user manual and it's easy to find information about it.

When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs. There are times when I need to reboot the system to resolve the problem. I have 64 gig RAM in my machine, and an i7 processor, so there is no issue as far as memory is concerned.

I have been using Oracle VM VirtualBox for approximately six months.

There are not very many bugs in the application.

There are between 15 and 20 students using this product. This is going to be expanding in the future because we are doing several migrations in the environment.

I have not been in touch with technical support. Since it's open-source, I just downloaded it from the internet and we are using it fine.

This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge.

This is a product that I suggest to people because it's free of cost, open-source, very user-friendly, and all of the information for the end-user is available in the manual.

In summary, this is a good product but there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use VirtualBox for client purposes. It's a legacy software.

The fact that it is free is the solution's most valuable aspect.

The management and interface are pretty good. 

It's a pretty good product in terms of monitoring.

Integrations are pretty easy to implement.

I would like there to be a web version of the solution, wherein I can access it over my network. It would be ideal if it was more web-based.

The memory and hardware usage could be a little bit lighter. Right now, it's quite heavy on the usage. The CPU usage should be lower.

I've been using the solution for more than five years at this point.

The solution is very stable. It doesn't have bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The scalability is okay, however, it is limited. It's only about 50% as scalable as I expected it to be.

I've only ever had minor issues in the past, and, when I did reach out to technical support to get assistance, they were able to help. They seem to be quite knowledgeable and responsive. So far, I am satisfied with the level of service provided to my organization.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very straightforward.

Deployment only takes a few hours. It's quite a fast process.

We had it on just one server. It wasn't a big deployment.

We use the solution for free. We don't have to pay for licensing.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we are using.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

If you're going to use VirtualBox on a small scale, I would recommend it, especially if you are using it for a legacy application.

My main purpose in using this solution is to run Windows machines on top of my Linux servers. I am running a Windows server on top of a Linux machine and then another four machines just to create an environment for our clients so that people can log in. Because they don't find Linux easy to use, I give them windows on top which they find more familiar.

The thing is I like is the simplicity in Linux when I'm using the Oracle VirtualBox. In terms of networking, it doesn't need any special configuration, especially when working with Linux. The other thing I like about it is being able to share folders. It makes life very easy to transfer things from one person to another. I don't have to worry about mounting a USB device. You just create a folder and give privileges then I can share information very fast.

The product needs better support for multiple network cards. That is the major area that sometimes it can be a bit of a mess to configure multiple network cards to communicate well with each other. That's the major thing for me.

Another thing I've run into is that it would be nice on Oracle if you can use something like a Hyper-V environment. You can just install the environment and then start installing all your virtual machines on top of that. Rather than having to install Windows or Linux when you need them, you just install the VirtualBox. If it can just roll out on its own and had its own hyper vista software — that would be something I've been praying to see from Oracle VirtualBox.

I think also that a challenge I've seen some people have after I convince them to use the product is when they are switching to various views. In some situations, the view switches to a seamless full screen and the menu bar disappears. When this happens they may not know how to switch it back. I don't know if Oracle can put a button on-screen so that when you are in a seamless view or scale view or something like that so those familiar things still fit where you can find them. In fullscreen, you still have the menu, but in some of these screen views that don't have the menu, they could put a visible button that can bring the menu back up. With that, you can easily get back familiar controls and eject your USB or whatever you need to do. If you don't know the shortcuts, it can be difficult to navigate or do even common tasks. They need something else instead of just using keyboard shortcuts.

Oracle with VirtualBox rarely crashes since about version four onwards. It rarely crashes and rarely hangs. Although — I think it is on version six — sometimes I may take a snapshot and try to revert or even when I try to save a snapshot using Windows XP, sometimes the whole virtual machine crashes. But I am not sure if it is a fault with the software or something else because it only happens with one particular machine.

When you take three or four snapshots and you accumulate snapshots, it is as if at some point the snapshots get a bit mixed up in the machine, especially if you do not shut down. I have been helping some of my friends because they're not ready to move from XP. So I've gotten them to use Oracle VirtualBox for some solutions. One guy's machine crashed because they had been taking snapshot after snapshot. When we tried to restore it, we could not restore the machine back. So it happens, but rarely. But all in all, from Windows 7 downwards, I have not seen any problems with the VirtualBox. I actually love it. It's really stable for me.

I noticed also that if you do not shut it down regularly and you are constantly hibernating or pausing, that can be a really big headache. Sometimes the computer may freeze and you have to go back to the machine's original state.

So far my needs have been really static. I've not really tried to invest in scalability because my needs are fixed currently, so I do not have too much to say about scalability. But it should not be an issue.

The installation of VirtualBox itself is easy.

All of the implementations I have I did myself.

Right now I am mainly using the free versions of the solutions. I'm not ready to spend a lot because I don't have too many machines. I do not qualify to be charged yet. So I've never worried too much about the pricing because most of my pricing is academic for the machines at school. But even being a school, I have a special agreement with Microsoft.

On a scale of one to ten where ten is the best, I would rate this product as a nine.

I recommend it, especially for people who are beginners because most things they will want to use will virtually be plug-and-play. It's click-and-use. I would recommend it to those people who are beginners. Because most other products, you really need to know a lot of networking and how to use them to maintain them. But with Oracle, it is simple. For most needs where you have to only have a really small network, this will be fine.

We primarily use the solution to test our virtual infrastructure.

The solution works quickly.

We can install Oracle VM Manager and from this manager, we can create our VMs on the machine.

The solution needs to improve its flexibility. It's not as flexible as VMware.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We use the private cloud deployment model.

We're currently in the testing phase, but we're hoping to go into production soon.

We moved to using Oracle VM because we have a small license. We did not enough have licenses for all server cores. Oracle VM has an advanced feature for hard partitioning.

We're using the solution for the Oracle database but only on the Oracle application server.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten.

I use this solution for experiments with virtualization in Linux, mostly.

We have an on-premises deployment.

The most valuable feature is the ability to copy bidirectionally between the desktop and the virtual machine.

The representation is very good. I have a problem with Hyper-V where you don't see the edges, especially the bottom and the top. With VirtualBox, I'm able to see that.

VirtualBox gives you granular control to very deep levels.

This solution is not resource-heavy on the system, and I'm able to run several virtuals at one time.

This solution is very user-friendly. 

I have to keep pressing the home key so that the mouse changes context, which is something that I don't like. It should have the functionality where if I move the mouse away from one screen, the context changes automatically.

This solution cannot run when Hyper-V is running, and it would be nice if these two solutions could co-exist.

I have never used this solution for production, but I wish there was a simpler way of deployment, and I wish there was an ecosystem around it. Some other solutions, such as Docker, have a whole surrounding ecosystem. You know where to get Docker files, you know what Docker works with, etc. It's a whole ecosystem instead of a single application. It comes with almost everything you need in one place, or in the community.

I am unsure as to how stable this solution would be in a production environment. I have always thought of it as an R&D solution, as opposed to a production solution. It isn't a problem related to VirtualBox, but rather, simply how I have chosen to use it.

If you wanted to scale this solution out, or up, an automation tool may make it easier and more user-friendly, or more straightforward.

I have never needed to speak with technical support.

I prefer this solution to Hyper-V.

The initial setup of this solution is very straightforward.

I upgraded to the most recent version a few weeks ago.

I performed the implementation myself. I started using this solution a really long time ago, and you don't need anyone to help with VirtualBox.

This is a great product and I use it a lot.

This is a good R&D solution, but I don't think it would be good in production. We look for different things in R&D, such as doing a proof of concept. In a production environment, having a whole ecosystem to support the solution, including for orchestration and automatic deployments, would be better. It would also need to have more talks, seminars, and conferences, calling people in that space and then posting them on YouTube. There is a lot more to it than the technical aspect.

Overall, I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for virtualization.

This is a private cloud deployment model.

This solution can be used on many different platforms including Windows and Linux.

This solution is very easy to set up.

This solution is not enterprise-ready.

The user interface needs to be improved.

We also use Proxmox VE, which is better in many ways aside from the networking and not being able to install unless it is a 64-bit architecture.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The solution's most valuable feature is the fact that it's enterprise based, especially the virtualization platform.

The cost is very appealing.

The simplicity and ease of deployment are great as well. It's a very versatile solution.

VirtualBox is more of a desktop deployment, so we don't really use it in production workloads. For improvement, compatibility with other virtual machine systems would be helpful. The ability to deploy the imagine of other virtual machines and convert it to a virtual desktop environment needs to be better.

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 solution is very stable.

I've never had to reach out to technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We're partners with Oracle.

We use the on-premises deployment model. We're in the process of testing the solution currently, so it is still new to us.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's not an enterprise suite. Some of the light load applications I can't deploy.

I use Oracle VM VirtualBox mainly for testing guest environments and to test beta machines before they go in production environment. I also simulate configuration before the production environment to test some optionality.

I have found that cost metric manager is an interesting implementation of the network environment and it enables me to reproduce production environments.

The technical support needs to improve.

I think VirtualBox has good stability because I use it in an environment with several resolutions. VirtualBox is able to use the full functionality and the powerfulness of the server I installed VirtualBox on this environment. So I, at the moment, I'm satisfied with the stability of the VirtualBox environment. I'm able to run several guest environments on one node.

The solution is scalable because I can run several guest environments on one node.

I very rarely need support in VirtualBox because I utilize the documentation provided by Oracle. In my experience, I have never opened a service request for VirtualBox functionality because I find myself to work around what I need to run my environment. This is also due to the fact that I use VirtualBox in a lab environment and not in a production environment. So, for me, the technical support is not critical. 

I will rate this solution an eight out of ten due to its environmental guide. For the next release I think the developer should work on reliability and security. But it is a good product.