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 product is really good...One can get good performance because of kernel-based virtualization."
"If you prefer command-line, there are all kinds of command-line options."
"The initial setup was simple."
"The key aspect is that the KVM directly interacts with the Kronos. There's no clear indication of indirect communication with Kronos. It is not linked to Kronos, and interaction is straightforward without any intermediaries."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"I appreciate the network passcode feature in KVM, as it provides a convenient way to manage DNS and cloud hosting."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"The cloning is a very useful tool."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution were the support and performance of the product and the flexibility it gives you to work."
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"Technical support is good."
"I think VirtualBox has good stability because I use it in an environment with several resolutions."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"I like that it has a snapshot feature."
"The scalability of the solution is very good."
"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 virtual manager and the graphical QEMU for KVM need some improvement."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"Its resource usage can be improved."
"Business continuity features need to be added."
"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."
"We would like to have a software lifecycle solution included in this solution. We can handle the software needed for KVM, but also the software that we provide. A lifecycle component would be very beneficial."
"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."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"It should have the functionality where if I move the mouse away from one screen, the context changes automatically."
"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."
"The solution is not flexible."
"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."
"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."
"The solution has to do a better job of promoting the product and its licensing capabilities."
"The AI and the UI could be improved. The user interface is a little outdated and the AI is not very attractive."
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.