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.
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The product's scalability is good...It's a very stable product."
"It offers a high-availability environment."
"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."
"I appreciate the network passcode feature in KVM, as it provides a convenient way to manage DNS and cloud hosting."
"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."
"I like that this is an open-source solution. It is very powerful, and it's easy."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"This solution creates a snapshot of virtual machines so you can create test environments."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the ability to manage multiple operating systems through one application."
"The versatility, simplicity, and stability of the product are it's most valuable features."
"I like that it has a snapshot feature."
"The pause feature is valuable. I can pause, which is something that not all hypervisors allow. The snapshot feature is also valuable."
"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."
"The solution is very stable."
"The configuration and installation is pretty straightforward."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"Monitoring and resolution could be improved."
"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 KVM tech support is really bad. They are not very responsive."
"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."
"The product must provide better performance monitoring features."
"I have encountered difficulties in getting the tool's documentation."
"The initial setup of this solution is more difficult than some of the competing products and it could be improved."
"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."
"It's not as robust as server platforms, nor does it need to be."
"The solution is a bit less stable than I would like."
"There are a few bugs that need to be updated."
"I think that this solution should be more user-friendly."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"They could improve the graphics functionality of the product."
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.