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.
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"The performance is great."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"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."
"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 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 initial setup was very easy."
"This solution can be used on many different platforms including Windows and Linux."
"It's a pretty good product in terms of monitoring."
"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its stability."
"The flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"This is a highly scalable solution."
"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."
"VirtualBox provides an isolated, consistent environment"
"The only negative aspect of needing hardware support is a fully functional KVM can be dropped. It would be nice if the support for other platforms, like ARM or Risk, were as good as the x86 one. However, with the democratization of Chromebooks based on these chips and mobile devices, it will not take long for that to happen."
"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 KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"The virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"Technical support is not top-notch."
"Oracle’s support team should improve its response time."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The solution is a bit less stable than I would like."
"The installation is difficult and could be improved."
"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."
"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."
"We're working with them to be able to allow the local USB ports to be ported over to the remote desktop, running VirtualBox."
"The solution has to do a better job of promoting the product and its licensing capabilities."
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.