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.
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"It is easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox."
"It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"KVM is stable."
"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"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 performance is great."
"The KVM service is well managed with a central policy interface."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that there is no cost because it is open source."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"This is a good and easy solution for running virtual environments."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution were the support and performance of the product and the flexibility it gives you to work."
"I like that it has a snapshot feature."
"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."
"In KVM, snapshots and cloning are areas where there could be a little more sophistication, like VMware."
"Its resource usage can be improved."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"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 product must provide better performance monitoring features."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"Oracle’s support team should improve its response time."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"The technical support needs to improve."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is not flexible, It's not like VMware."
"They could improve the graphics functionality of the product."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve the methods used for starting and stopping the machine."
"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."
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.