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.
"Documentation and problem-solving troubleshooting are the most valuable features. Performance (when fine-tuned and with "special" HW) is awesome, equal to or more than other enterprise closed-source solutions."
"The performance is great."
"Very cost-effective."
"KVM is stable."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"One of the best features of KVM is its user-friendly interface."
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"It is an open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"It's a pretty good product in terms of monitoring."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution were the support and performance of the product and the flexibility it gives you to work."
"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"Oracle VM Virtualbox is easy to use and does not require much training."
"I like that it is free and runs on Linux/Ubuntu - I wouldn't use any other solution. I am able to perform small developing tests."
"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable."
"The solution is very stable."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and made more user-friendly."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"Some things are pretty basic, and they could be more robust with more detail."
"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 speed is around thirty percent slower than another competitor. This would be something to work on."
"The main drawback in the solution is probably disaster recovery."
"The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
"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."
"Oracle’s support team should improve its response time."
"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 could be more user-friendly."
"This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should be improved."
"This solution needs improvement with the business continuity planning, disaster and recovery management and using centralized data storage."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"We're working with them to be able to allow the local USB ports to be ported over to the remote desktop, running VirtualBox."
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.