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.
"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."
"A very reliable solution which can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with reasonable overhead."
"The most valuable feature is hypervisor. I can host at the same time different operating systems in Linux Windows."
"The GUI interface makes the management of KVM easier than ever before."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"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."
"Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is very stable."
"This solution creates a snapshot of virtual machines so you can create test environments."
"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable."
"Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use."
"The flexibility and the closed platform, so it allows you to run in multiple platforms, Windows, Linux, Macintosh."
"The solution is very convenient and easy to use."
"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."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"Monitoring and resolution could 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 initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"The stability of this solution is less than other products in the same category."
"The KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"I have encountered difficulties in getting the tool's documentation."
"One valuable feature would be for it to work right the first time but it doesn't necessarily do that."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"The technical support needs to improve."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"Having live migrations to move a running server to other hardware would be great."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"Oracle’s support team should improve its response time."
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.