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.
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"This solution is open source and easy to configure."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"The product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"I appreciate the network passcode feature in KVM, as it provides a convenient way to manage DNS and cloud hosting."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its stability."
"This product is very user-friendly and easy to use."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"Technical support is good."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that there is no cost because it is open source."
"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."
"Technical support could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an improved user interface and dashboard. This type of improvement will make it easy or help our engineers understand the solution from a requirement point of view."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
"One problem I have is that it's not very scalable when it comes to resizing the VM disk dimensions. For example, if you have initially set a virtual drive to 10 GB and you want to upgrade it to 15 GB, it's not that easy."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The communications setup lags. It does not connect properly so the batching and networking is a bit slow."
"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."
"We're working with them to be able to allow the local USB ports to be ported over to the remote desktop, running VirtualBox."
"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"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."
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.