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.
"I think nine out of the ten supercomputers in the world use Linux KVM, so I think that attests to the fact that it is a scalable product."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is backup. The product makes it easy to manage virtual machines. Other tools require third-party applications like VMware and vSphere. However, KVM doesn't require these applications."
"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."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"This product is very user-friendly and easy to use."
"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."
"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."
"The solution has high performance and is easy to use."
"This is a highly scalable solution."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its stability."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
"Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"Technical support is not top-notch."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"The solution lacks some open source remote administration tools. The reload of individual virtual machine definitions through the vboxweb service (via its API) without restarting it and the access to shared storage (to use teleport functions) need to be improved."
"One valuable feature would be for it to work right the first time but it doesn't necessarily do that."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"The installation is difficult and could be improved."
"The solution needs to improve its flexibility. It's not as flexible as VMware."
"This solution needs improvement with the business continuity planning, disaster and recovery management and using centralized data storage."
"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."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
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.