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 open ecosystem, and we see there is a benefit in open-source solutions."
"I appreciate the network passcode feature in KVM, as it provides a convenient way to manage DNS and cloud hosting."
"I have found KVM to be scalable."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"KVM is stable."
"KVM has a rich options set which can be directly used or via wrappers, such as libvirt."
"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."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"This is a good and easy solution for running virtual environments."
"This solution can be used on many different platforms including Windows and Linux."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"This solution creates a snapshot of virtual machines so you can create test environments."
"The installation is easy."
"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."
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
"In KVM, snapshots and cloning are areas where there could be a little more sophistication, like VMware."
"In our setup, we do not have any dashboards or orchestration, and it is hard to manage. We have 25 gig network cards, but the software driver we have only supported 10 gigs."
"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 are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
"The stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category."
"I would like to see more focus on microservices and integration with Kubernetes or OpenShift."
"I find the solution to be incredibly unstable, constantly falling over and not working properly."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"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."
"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 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 should work to simplify the system. However, it should be flexible enough to allow for special cases."
"Having live migrations to move a running server to other hardware would be great."
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.