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."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"This solution is open source and easy to configure."
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy."
"It is easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox."
"The GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before."
"The solution is very stable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to copy bidirectionally between the desktop and the virtual machine."
"The solution has high performance and is easy to use."
"It's a pretty good product in terms of monitoring."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"This product is very user-friendly and 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."
"VirtualBox provides an isolated, consistent environment"
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"In our setup, we do not have any dashboards or orchestration, and it is hard to manage. We have 25 gig network cards, but the software driver we have only supported 10 gigs."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"I have previously used VMware and KVM is easier to use. However, they both have their strengths depending on their use cases. They are mostly equal. One of VMware's advantages is it has better support."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
"In KVM, snapshots and cloning are areas where there could be a little more sophistication, like VMware."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"The speed is around thirty percent slower than another competitor. This would be something to work on."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
"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."
"The communications setup lags. It does not connect properly so the batching and networking is a bit slow."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is not flexible, It's not like VMware."
"It should have the functionality where if I move the mouse away from one screen, the context changes automatically."
"It could improve slightly with enhanced reporting capabilities that show the current status of the network."
"The technical support needs to improve."
KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 38 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.