We performed a comparison between KVM and Oracle VM VirtualBox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both KVM and Oracle VM VirtualBox have their strengths and weaknesses. Oracle VM VirtualBox seems to be the more favorable choice of the two, since it offers good scalability whereas scalability seems to be an ongoing issue for KVM users.
"The performance is great."
"It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"The most valuable feature of KVM is its stability."
"Documentation and problem-solving troubleshooting are the most valuable features. Performance (when fine-tuned and with "special" HW) is awesome, equal to or more than other enterprise closed-source solutions."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"KVM is stable."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"Technical support is good."
"VirtualBox provides an isolated, consistent environment"
"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’s most valuable feature is the ability to manage multiple operating systems through one application."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox has a platform where the support team responds to frequently asked questions by its users. Every time I have had issues with Oracle VM VirtualBox, I always get a solution from Oracle's online platform or GitHub."
"The installation is easy."
"I like that Oracle VM is safe and stable. It is also very easy to administer. For example, opening a VM or adding a host adapter is extremely easy."
"Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"I have encountered difficulties in getting the tool's documentation."
"One thing that maybe could be improved is making it easier to scale. It needs to be more clear on how to scale the storage space for virtual machines."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"It should have the functionality where if I move the mouse away from one screen, the context changes automatically."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"One valuable feature would be for it to work right the first time but it doesn't necessarily do that."
"Oracle needs to improve its hot virtual machine migration. It didn't work as intended. It should allow us to migrate between virtual machines, without stopping the database."
"It would be good if we could use Hyper-V Windows subsystems with Linux and VirtualBox on the same instance. Currently, to be able to use VirtualBox, we have to restart the machine into an instance of Windows where Hyper-V is disabled, which is understandably very inconvenient."
"This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should be improved."
"They could improve the graphics functionality of the product."
KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 39 reviews while Oracle VM VirtualBox is ranked 5th in Server Virtualization Software with 61 reviews. KVM is rated 8.0, while Oracle VM VirtualBox is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of KVM writes "Delivers good performance because of kernel-based virtualization". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Oracle VM VirtualBox writes "The solution is versatile, simple to use, and stable". KVM is most compared with Proxmox VE, Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, VMware Workstation and Oracle VM, whereas Oracle VM VirtualBox is most compared with Proxmox VE, Hyper-V, Oracle VM, VMware Workstation and VMware vSphere. See our KVM vs. Oracle VM VirtualBox report.
See our list of best Server Virtualization Software vendors.
We monitor all Server Virtualization Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.