Hyper-V vs Oracle VM VirtualBox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on May 12, 2022

We performed a comparison between Hyper V and Oracle VM Virtual Box based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both of these solutions tell us they are straightforward and easy to install.
  • Features: Hyper-V is a Microsoft product so it works seamlessly with all Microsoft products, and integrates very well with other solutions. The Hyper-V is a great end-to-end solution that has an amazing failover feature. Some of our users tell us Hyper-V can have some stability issues; your stack can become bloated very easily. If you are looking to scale up or down you will need to purchase the data center license, which can be costly.

    Oracle VM Virtual Box users like that the solution is multi-platform. Once you create a virtual machine in one environment, you can easily switch over to see how it will run in other situations. Other valued features are the pause and snapshot features. Users feel the memory and hardware are too heavy; CPU usage should be lower
  • Pricing: Hyper-V users are satisfied with the pricing and licensing structure. Oracle VM Virtual Box is open source, so there is no cost.
  • Service and Support: Users of both solutions are satisfied with the service and response they have received.

Comparison Results:

Our users like Hyper-V best. Many of our users are deeply committed to the Microsoft ecosystem, so it is an excellent seamless fit. Additionally, users find the failover feature very important and, as Hyper-V is not a heavy solution, it does not overuse resources. Hyper-V makes it easy to move any virtual machine across push servers without complication. Finally, Hyper-V is very easy to manage and offers great performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Hyper-V vs. Oracle VM VirtualBox Report (Updated: March 2024).
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is stable.""The initial setup was straightforward. It was easy to install.""It is an affordable platform.""Microsoft has documentation that is easy to find, helpful, and readily available.""There are two very good things about this product including licensing and stability.""We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time.""The flexibility and API are the most valuable features. It helps us be able to integrate with other systems and then push data easily.""The virtualized applications and real time audition of the VMA is quite a good feature."

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"This product is extremely easy to install, use, has a great GUI and is incredibly stable.""Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use.""I like that it is free and runs on Linux/Ubuntu - I wouldn't use any other solution. I am able to perform small developing tests.""The installation is easy.""The solution has high performance and is easy to use.""The solution's most valuable feature is its stability.""This is a highly scalable solution.""Technical support is good."

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Cons
"There is a hard limitation of 20 gigs per file with Dropbox, so you've got to overcome that by chunking the zip files into something smaller and manageable.""I'd like to see better predictive diagnostics, so I know what's going on with the machines.""Microsoft increased the price for this solution when adding the Storage Spaces Direct feature.""The live migration feature needs improvement.""It would be nice if they had video acceleration, they got rid of that and VMware has video acceleration.""We've had many issues with Hyper-V's stability, including resource crunches and memory leakage.""Hyper-V isn't a lightweight solution like VMware. Management could be more straightforward. Even as far as disk management tools are concerned, it would be better if that could be made simpler. The same applies to performance.""The solution is lacking in numerous features and lacks flexibility."

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"This solution needs improvement with the business continuity planning, disaster and recovery management and using centralized data storage.""It should have the functionality where if I move the mouse away from one screen, the context changes automatically.""The user interface needs to be improved.""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 needs to improve the methods used for starting and stopping the machine.""One valuable feature would be for it to work right the first time but it doesn't necessarily do that.""This should have better support for multiple network cards and some parts of the GUI should be improved.""The product lacks scalability since it is for desktops and not for servers."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's cheap, but not the best."
  • "Once we bought the datacenter version of the server, we did away with worrying about the cost of licensing our VMs separately"
  • "It comes with all the features and goodies inside the box, so you do not have to purchase anything else."
  • "We did not have to pay extra money for the Failover Clustering feature."
  • "We chose this solution because of the pricing and the simplicity of the product."
  • "I do not have any comments about pricing or licensing of the product."
  • "Microsoft recently tacked on a higher price for their software to use the storage migration in the Storage Spaces Direct array. That was just terrible."
  • "The pricing isn't too bad, because you can do the bare metal hypervisor, and it is pretty fair. Other competitors are more expensive."
  • More Hyper-V Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is a very cost-effective solution."
  • "Pricing does not apply for us, we do not have to pay for the service."
  • "The product is free to use."
  • "Everything is free within limitations. Once you go over a certain level of usage you have to license the product."
  • "It is pretty good for the price, which is free."
  • "This is an open-source product and it can be used free of charge."
  • "There are no licensing fees."
  • "The license I use is free."
  • More Oracle VM VirtualBox Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:KVM is better. But let's just look at the software instead of judging Hyper-V was a free solution from Microsoft to virtualize Server or Client OS as it is a feature on Windows Server since 2008 and… more »
    Top Answer:One of the best things about Proxmox VE is that it is open-source and very inexpensive. You get all of the same features as with the more well-known products. Proxmox VE is very easy to deploy - it… more »
    Top Answer:The product is easy to manage. It improves our VM management.
    Top Answer:KVM is easy to use, stable and flexible. It is mature and very fast. It is an affordable open-source solution that is easy to set up and manage. It offers very good security. It has a virtual manager… more »
    Top Answer:The product’s most valuable feature is the ability to manage multiple operating systems through one application.
    Ranking
    Views
    43,215
    Comparisons
    35,838
    Reviews
    23
    Average Words per Review
    363
    Rating
    7.8
    Views
    34,038
    Comparisons
    22,769
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    356
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    Overview

    Hyper-V is a hardware virtualization tool that allows users to create virtual computer environments with multiple operating systems on a single physical server. Each virtual machine has computer parts, such as memory, processor, storage, and networking, and acts like a standard computer - running its own operating system and software programs. Each component of the virtual machine can be configured to meet your specific requirements.

    Hyper-V creates a cost-effective, stable, and productive server virtualization environment by running multiple operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, and more, in parallel on one machine or server. Each virtual machine runs in its own isolated space, which means you can run many virtual machines simultaneously but independently of each other. This helps prevent problems such as a crash affecting the other workloads and enables different users to separately access various systems.

    Benefits of Hyper-V

    • Simplify application testing: With Hyper-V you can easily add and remove operating systems from your virtual machines, enabling you to run and test your applications on each of them all from one single computer.

    • Minimize resource usage and scalability: Virtual machines are easier to manage than physical hardware and less expensive. You can also maximize your server use by allocating its resources more efficiently than you can with physical hardware alone.

    Hyper-V key features:.

    • Replication and migration: Hyper-V can replicate virtual machines for backups onto different sites. Hyper-V also provides a migration tool for moving a virtual machine from one Hyper-V host to another without causing any downtime.

    • Remote connection: Hyper-V’s remote connectivity tool allows administrators to remotely access a virtual machine.

    • Security: Hyper-V keeps virtual machines secure from malware attacks, unauthorized access, and data breaching attempts.

     Reviews from Real Users

    Hyper-V stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, its replication capabilities, and the fact that its virtual machines utilize a small amount of resources..

    Liam L., the owner of a tech services company, writes, “It is actually very low on resources. It doesn't use many resources. It is also very easy to tailor. You can change things like the amount of memory and storage on the fly. It is very stable and reliable. I like its replication feature, which is very good. It is also very easy to move the virtual machines across push servers without any difficulty. Its performance is also very good. Now with this pandemic, a lot of workers are working from home. A lot of workers have been using laptops as their desktop computers, and they would remote into a virtual PC. There is no difficulty, and they can't tell the difference between this and the real one. It is much easier to manage.”

    Kevin E. an IT director at Homeland Technology Group, LLC, notes, “We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time.”

    Oracle VM VirtualBox is a robust AMD64/Intel64 and x86 next-generation virtualization solution that functions well for home use and is also powerful enough to handle the needs of a busy enterprise organization. This professional solution is open source and provides super-fast high performance in addition to many outstanding value-added features. VirtualBox functions effectively on Windows, macOS, Solaris, Linux, and more. Users can benefit from VirtualBox's dedication to continually developing the product and providing continual progressive updates and releases. The solution is supported by a trusted dedicated professional community and is backed by Oracle, which guarantees that the product is able to consistently meet and exceed quality controls and protocols at all times.

    Oracle VM VirtualBox Features

    Oracle VM Virtual Box provides many value-added features.  Some of these features include:

    • Consolidation: Oracle VM VirtualBox makes it easy for users to seamlessly run numerous virtual machines on a small number of hosts and will also facilitate comprehensive balancing of the loads between VMs. This helps to minimize and consolidate the hardware needed throughout the organization.
    • Diagnostics: VirtualBox provides excellent testing and disaster recovery. Users can use the virtual hard disk like a container. This container can be copied, frozen, backed up, or transported between hosts. Using the virtual machines (VMs), users can easily test multi-node network services for any networking, software configuration, or operating system issues.
    • Snapshots: Using snapshots, users are able to save or freeze a specific state of a VM and choose to revert back to the protected state if/when they desire. Users are able to make changes or experiment within the computing space. Should a problem arise, users can revert back to the selected snapshot; this makes the need for frequent backups and restores unnecessary.
    • Flexibility: The solution makes it easy to run different operating systems (OSes) at the same time. Users can run software designed for one OS on another OS. For example, users can easily run Windows on a MAC and not have to perform a reboot. As users can configure the kinds of virtual hardware to be presented with each OS, there is greater flexibility on which OS can be selected, and users can even choose older OSes or ones that are not currently supported by the original OS.
    • Cost-effective: Virtualization with Oracle VM VirtualBox enables users to considerably minimize overall costs by reducing the amount of hardware needed and the associated expenses of running the physical machines throughout an organization. This tremendous cost savings results in ROI being achieved in a very short period of time.

    Reviews from Real Users

    “Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy to use and does not require much training. It uses fewer resources. Teams using new operating system releases can quickly test and implement. This would make the development of new software releases faster and easier. It also helps users to write the program, test, and support it on multiple platforms. It has a good community as it is open-source.” - Satishbabu G., Oracle ACE

    “It is easy to use and does not require complex knowledge. It uses less resources, which is a requirement as it is used to onboard hardware with very little resources available.” - A PeerSpot user who is an IT Architect - AI at CGI

    Sample Customers
    Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.
    Airbus, Colorado State University, SCS Africa, Wolf Medical Systems.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Outsourcing Company8%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization29%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm16%
    University13%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Computer Software Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Educational Organization8%
    Government8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business47%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise28%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise37%
    Large Enterprise42%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise24%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    Buyer's Guide
    Hyper-V vs. Oracle VM VirtualBox
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Hyper-V vs. Oracle VM VirtualBox and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Hyper-V is ranked 3rd in Server Virtualization Software with 30 reviews while Oracle VM VirtualBox is ranked 5th in Server Virtualization Software with 10 reviews. Hyper-V is rated 8.0, while Oracle VM VirtualBox is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Hyper-V writes "Enables the creation of secure, isolated virtual environments for running applications and allows seamless transfer of virtual machines between nodes without impacting users". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Oracle VM VirtualBox writes "Simple to use, easy to configure, and reliable". Hyper-V is most compared with VMware vSphere, VMware Workstation, Proxmox VE, KVM and Nutanix AHV Virtualization, whereas Oracle VM VirtualBox is most compared with Proxmox VE, KVM, Oracle VM, VMware Workstation and VMware vSphere. See our Hyper-V 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.