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.
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"KVM is stable."
"The GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"There is a strong emphasis on availability, and they have numerous API interfaces for distributed storage and the solution is quite known for its openness."
"I like that it's easy to manage. It's also more powerful when it comes to security than others. That point of view is the one consideration. The other consideration is that it's cost-effective."
"A very reliable solution which can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with reasonable overhead."
"The most helpful aspect of KVM is the fact that the interface is so minimal. It includes just what you need to set up the VMs and manage them, and it's very simple to do so."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to copy bidirectionally between the desktop and the virtual machine."
"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."
"It is easy to use and does not require complex knowledge."
"This product is very user-friendly and easy to use."
"This solution can be used on many different platforms including Windows and Linux."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"The good thing is that it is multi-platform. Once you create a virtual machine in one particular environment, you can switch over to see if you can run it in other environments. For example, if you are on Windows and you create this virtual machine, you can actually go ahead and change the operating system. You can switch it over to Linux or Mac OS and see if you can run the VirtualBox on those particular machines. It even runs on some of the commercial operating systems that are not mainstream, such as Solaris and BSD. These kinds of operating systems are also supported by VirtualBox. The other thing that is good about VirtualBox is that it is open source. So, if you need to do any modifications for your own purposes, you can just download the source, modify it, and deploy it in your environment. It is pretty good and very versatile. You can create and manipulate virtual machines from the command line, which is also very important. It's something that some other products on the desktop side do not have. VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop don't have a good command-line interface to create and manipulate virtual machines, whereas VirtualBox has it out of the box, which is pretty good."
"This solution creates a snapshot of virtual machines so you can create test environments."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"Technical support is not top-notch."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"We still occasionally build Interlaced Wireless Protection within our environment. The ecosystem entails areas, where we support agents, and release backup and security solutions. Collaboration with independent software vendors (ITOLs or ITOLED) is necessary to offer these solutions to customers. However, the scope of the ecosystem in KVM is not as extensive as that of VMware's. In contrast, VMware boasts a robust partner network, allowing for comprehensive customer solutions. On the other hand, KVM’s ecosystem is comparatively limited in comparison. I would like to see FT features in KVM."
"The product must provide better performance monitoring features."
"The speed is around thirty percent slower than another competitor. This would be something to work on."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"The solution should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"It could improve slightly with enhanced reporting capabilities that show the current status of the network."
"The communications setup lags. It does not connect properly so the batching and networking is a bit slow."
"It's not as robust as server platforms, nor does it need to be."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
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.