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 easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox."
"It offers a high-availability environment."
"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 GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before."
"The initial setup was simple."
"This solution is open source and easy to configure."
"A very reliable solution which can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with reasonable overhead."
"The most valuable feature of KVM is its stability."
"It is easy to use and does not require complex knowledge."
"The flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"The solution is very stable."
"I think VirtualBox has good stability because I use it in an environment with several resolutions."
"The solution has high performance and is easy to use."
"The installation is easy."
"This product is very user-friendly and easy to use."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"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."
"The speed is around thirty percent slower than another competitor. This would be something to work on."
"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."
"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 main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery."
"The grid interface of KVM needs improvement. It could be more beautiful, especially when compared to VMware."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"The memory and hardware usage could be a little bit lighter. Right now, it's quite heavy on the usage. The CPU usage should be lower."
"The solution should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."
"It could improve slightly with enhanced reporting capabilities that show the current status of the network."
"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."
"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."
"The solution is a bit less stable than I would like."
"The installation is difficult and could be improved."
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.