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.
"KVM is stable."
"There is a strong emphasis on availability, and they have numerous API interfaces for distributed storage and the solution is quite known for its openness."
"The most valuable feature of KVM is its stability."
"Good screen and keyboard sharing feature."
"It offers a high-availability environment."
"Our production servers are running in Linux, and this solution supports that environment well."
"If you are a Linux desktop user, KVM is the solution to go with if you have to start virtual machines with Linux or other operating systems with almost zero extra configuration needed."
"What I like most about KVM is that it's very easy to use. Everything is built-in, even when writing command lines."
"The snapshot feature is very powerful; it protects us from disaster."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to copy bidirectionally between the desktop and the virtual machine."
"This is a good and easy solution for running virtual environments."
"This product is very user-friendly and easy to use."
"The flexibility as well as performance wise and as well as data volume, we have huge volume stored."
"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable."
"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."
"I like that it has a snapshot feature."
"There are some issues with the graphics and some software that is very complex."
"One thing that maybe could be improved is making it easier to scale. It needs to be more clear on how to scale the storage space for virtual machines."
"The networking with wireless devices needs improvement."
"Support for VF is needed, where you can, for example, export from VMware to KVM."
"We are not getting good support from KVM, and it is not that user-friendly."
"Some things are pretty basic, and they could be more robust with more detail."
"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."
"One problem I have is that it's not very scalable when it comes to resizing the VM disk dimensions. For example, if you have initially set a virtual drive to 10 GB and you want to upgrade it to 15 GB, it's not that easy."
"When I select the Ubuntu operating system from within the virtual machine, it sometimes hangs."
"The technical support needs to improve."
"It's not as robust as server platforms, nor does it need to be."
"The solution is not flexible."
"Having live migrations to move a running server to other hardware would be great."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"It could improve slightly with enhanced reporting capabilities that show the current status of the network."
"The memory and hardware usage could be a little bit lighter. Right now, it's quite heavy on the usage. The CPU usage should be lower."
KVM is ranked 4th in Server Virtualization Software with 38 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.