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.
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"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 product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"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 most valuable feature of KVM is its stability."
"It's a pretty good product in terms of monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that there is no cost because it is open source."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"This is a highly scalable solution."
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"This is a good and easy solution for running virtual environments."
"It's very simple to use."
"I think VirtualBox has good stability because I use it in an environment with several resolutions."
"Its resource usage can be improved."
"I believe KVM offers a unified answer, while ProxMark addresses orchestration. KVM lacks orchestration. If the aim is to centrally oversee multiple KVMs – let's say to freeze them – a centralized management solution is absent."
"The product must provide better performance monitoring features."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"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."
"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."
"Technical support is not top-notch."
"The stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category."
"The solution should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"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."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"The solution is not flexible."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is not flexible, It's not like VMware."
"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."
"This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should 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.