Although VMware is the market leadervirtualizationAs for solutions, there's a lot to be said for open-source alternatives with enterprise-level support - like Oracle VirtualBox.
In this article, we take a look at how these international virtualization and networking giants compare by comparing their virtualization tools, free and premium features, and pricing.
How to choose the best virtualization tool
Virtualization offers small and large businesses the segmentation of computing power and application services while working on different operating systems such as Windows, macOS, Linux, Android OS and iOS devices. for developers,HybridCompatibility is increasingly important, but today's virtualization solutions also come with a number of advanced features.
Oracle VM VirtualBox and VMware vSphere offer standard virtualization in their open source and free editions. However, these solutions are characterized by their enterprise functions and license options and are comparable.
Continue reading:Best Server Virtualization Software for 2021
Notes on virtualization tools
Here are some key elements to look for when evaluating virtualization tools.
- configuration managementfor programmers and IT specialists
- Return on investment and savings compared to legacy systems or alternative data sharing options
- use of devices igroupScale management for virtual operations
- High availability andBackupsto maintain business continuity
- features likeload balancing, live migrations and incentive offers
VirtualBox vs VMware
| Oracle VM VirtualBox | VMware vSphere | |
| software license | Open and reserved | Proprietor |
| core processors | 32 virtual processors | 32 virtual processors |
| Physical Storage (Max) | 8 TB | 16 TB |
| Central line | So | So |
| grouping | NO | So |
| High availability | So | So |
| fuse | NO | So |
| Live migrations of VMs | So | So |
| Load balancing of virtual machines | So | So |
| Free trial period | yes (unlimited) | Yes (60 Days) |
| price list | None to high | medium to high |
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Oracle VM VirtualBox
TheOracle VM VirtualBoxis an open-source solution from the networking giant that enables the use of multiple operating systems on one physical device.
VirtualBox's entry-level software package offers standard desktop virtualization features and is compatible with Windows, Linux,Solarisand macOS operating systems. Other core features include up to 32 vCPUs, live migration between VMs, and guest access to optimize performance and usability. Industry-standard Open Virtualization Format (OVF) support allows users to seamlessly migrate existing virtualized systems to or from VirtualBox VMs.
All of the above features are available for free with the VirtualBox source code and platform binaries available under the GNU GPLv2 license. Developers can also add extension pack features under the Personal Use and Evaluation License (PUEL). These additional features include disk image encryption, host and PCI webcam adapters,Remote-Desktop-Protokoll(RDP) and Virtual USB 2.0 (ECHI) and 3.0 (xHCI) devices.
Convenient for existing customers, Oracle offers commercial licenses and support with Enterprise plans. Broader virtualization efforts can benefit from the Enterprise packagePatch-Management, centralized tracking of extension pack activity, 24/7 support and multiple RDP connections per VM.
VirtualBox features
- Typ 2Hypervisorlet it existAppswalk alongside the host
- Import and export virtual machines with Open Virtualization Format (OVF) and Oracle Cloud
- Guest additions like shared folders, liquid windows, and 3D virtualization
- Native Virtual Disk Image (VDI), VMDK (VMware) and VHD (Windows) support.
- Remote access with the powerful VirtualBox remote desktop extension
- It supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris operating systems
- Create, save and delete snapshots to restore a VM to its previous state
Inexpensive Oracle VirtualBox
The Oracle Enterprise plan is available for premium features based on two metrics: Named Workstation Users and Sockets. At $50 per workstation named user with a minimum order of 100, the workstation route increases to $5,000. An additional $11 per workstation or $1,100 for a minimum group includes software upgrade license and support for the first year.
| A named workstation permanent user | Workstation user (Min. Zam.: 100) | For the nest | |
| Firma VirtualBox | 50 $ | 5000 $ | 1000 $ |
| License and Support | 11 $ | 1110 $ | 220 $ |
| The total cost of | 61 $ | 6100 $ | 1220 $ |
Alternatively, prospective customers can also purchase an enterprise solution for $1,000 with an additional license and support cost of $220. The total price for one slot is $1220. With both shopping channels, customers receive discounted prices when ordering larger quantities.
Continue reading:Best Cloud Services for 2021
VMware vSphere
BeforevSphereVMware's flagship solution was the bare-metal hypervisor ESX (now ESXi), designed for enterprise organizations deploying virtual servers. ESXi came to vCenter eight years later as two core components of the vendor's virtualization platform.
vCenter Configuration Server is a central manager of a customer's virtual infrastructure, providing additional visibility, automated control, and application awareness. Administrators can manage virtual machines through vSphereCustomer WWWwith enterprise-level virtualization tools that streamline virtual machine orchestration. Enterprise virtualization tools available to users include distributed switches, profile-based storage, and embeddedcontainer, and more.
vSphere 7.0 was released in 2020 with a number of features to meet the growing needs of hybrid infrastructures. Tanzu, VMware's native container management platform, is ready to accelerate and modernize applications with Kubernetes integration. With the Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere 7 provides application performance and resiliency to handle heavy workloads beyond the cluster levelload balancing.
Uptime continues to be of critical importance for content delivery providers and IT operations, which is why both high availability and fault tolerance are essential characteristics. Even in the event of a hardware failure, vSphere hosts can automatically migrate to maintain services. Other built-in security features include logging, monitoring, encryption, and role-based access and control.
Continue reading:Data center study 2021: Less downtime, more expensive
VMware features
- Web client GUI for carriers using VMware Cloud for software-defined data centers
- Cross-platform compatibility with an extensive partner and integration network
- Internal security through vSphere Trust Authority and external identity federation
- Redesigned vMotion for live migration of high memory and CPU loads
- Lifecycle Manager to plan, update and review stakeholder systems
- service up tonetwork interface cards(NIC) und Precision Time Protocol (PTP)
Cheap VMware vSphere
vSphere is available free of charge or by upgrading to one of the vendor's commercial licenses. Starting with the Essentials plan, customers receive an ESXi hypervisor and vCenter with basic virtualization capabilities. Essentials Plus extends live migration with vSphere Data Protection, High Availability and vMotion.
| essentials | Standard | Major pluses | Firma Plus |
| $578 per year | $1,268 per year | $5,596 per year | $4,305 per year |
For nearly a fifth of the price of Essentials Plus, vSphere Standard includes vMotion, vSphere Replication, and vShield Endpoint for reliable image management, network security, and redundancy. The Enterprise Plus plan adds features like vSphere Trust Authority, data-at-rest encryption, and flexible IT services for modern hybrid infrastructures.
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corporate backgrounds
oracle
An early innovator inrelational database management(RDBMS), Oracle has forty years of experience in providing modern software solutions to enterprise customers. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the international IT provider continues to push the boundaries of what it can offer. Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2010 included VirtualBox, released three years earlier by German software company Innotek.
VMware
More than 20 years ago, VMware virtualized the x86 architecture for enterprise organizations. The Palo Alto-based provider is a leader in the virtualization industry with a stack that spans desktop, server, cloud, application and container management. According to IDC, VMware's market share has declined in recent years but is still dominanthalf the market shareend of 2020.
Continue reading:AMD and Intel: a history of two third-generation x86 processors
Choose VirtualBox vs VMware
Oracle VirtualBox and VMware vSphere are two of the market leading enterprise virtualization options, but which one is best for your business?
efficiency and possibilities
While Oracle offers a solid open-source solution, industry-leading VMware's virtualization tools are hard to beat. As features like clustering and backup APIs become more important, VirtualBox can't compete with the stack of tools and features that vSphere has created. VMware can also support twice as much RAM per host with 16TB, giving developers more workspace per VM used.
The latest Garter Magic Quadrant for x86 server virtualization infrastructure has VMware iMicrosoft(Hyper-V) is well ahead of niche providers such as Oracle,Citrix, IVirtuoso.
Pricing and Licensing
For developers looking to save on costs, VirtualBox has an edge over VMware's free plan. Oracle's open-source virtualization software offers users more flexibility in accommodating changes and distribution compared to VMware's proprietary licenses. VMware consistently offers enterprise solutions at a higher price point, which means some SMBs can't or don't want to invest.
Because pricing models and features vary by solution, each organization must decide for itself whether Oracle's Named Workstation or Socket enterprise plans are a better fit than VMware's comprehensive virtualization offering. At around $6,000, the minimum order quantity (100) VirtualBox workstations plus licenses and support is little more than the vSphere Essentials Plus plan.
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FAQs
VirtualBox vs VMware | Choosing the best virtualization tool? ›
VirtualBox supports a variety of virtual disc types (VMDK, VHD, HDD, and QED), as well as integration tools like Vagrant and Docker whereas VMware does not support a large number of different disc formats. Virtual machines created by VMware are faster than those created by VirtualBox.
What is better VirtualBox or VMware? ›VirtualBox supports a variety of virtual disc types (VMDK, VHD, HDD, and QED), as well as integration tools like Vagrant and Docker whereas VMware does not support a large number of different disc formats. Virtual machines created by VMware are faster than those created by VirtualBox.
Which is easier to use VMware or VirtualBox? ›VMware Vs VirtualBox: Key differences
There is large scope for the various operating system in VirtualBox while VMware has a narrow scope also the interface of VirtualBox is easy to use while on the flipside the interface of VMware is quite complex and hard.
Most Versatile Virtual Machine Software
The best free virtual machine software for Linux is also the most versatile for other operating systems. Oracle VM VirtualBox is an open-source software that supports the widest range of guest operating systems of any virtual machine software on this list.
Intel Xeon processors are the most popular choice for virtualization. They offer a wide range of features, including support for multiple cores, hyper-threading, and virtualization technologies. Intel Xeon processors are also highly scalable, allowing you to add more cores and memory as your needs grow.
Why use VirtualBox over VMware? ›VirtualBox supports software virtualization, while VMware doesn't. Software virtualization emulates a complete computer system and runs guests on top of it. This type of virtualization allows you to run virtual machines that use a different platform than the host.
What are the limitations of VirtualBox? ›VirtualBox has limited support for 3D graphics (up to OpenGL 3.0, Direct3D 9). 3D acceleration must be enabled in the VM settings manually. A maximum 128 MB of video memory is supported. Graphics drivers must be installed on the host machine, and VirtualBox Guest Additions must be installed on the guest machine.
Why is VirtualBox the best? ›VirtualBox is excellent if you only need to run VMs on a few machines and want access to a command line interface in addition to the GUI. Both solutions offer a “snapshot” feature that has proven highly popular as a response to one of the inherent challenges of virtualization: mistakes.
What are the advantages of using VirtualBox? ›VirtualBox allows any system to install and operate as many virtual machines as its memory and disc space allow. Depending on the host system's configuration, one can use this solution to deploy anything from desktop-class machines and small embedded systems to cloud environments and large datacenter deployments.
Does VirtualBox slow down PC? ›Another reason for the slow performance of VirtualBox, especially if you are using a laptop, is the power plan you use for how your device consumes and saves power. In order for VirtualBox to run smoothly and without delays, Power Plan must be set to High Performance.
Is VirtualBox discontinued? ›
It is discontinued as of February 2019. Users were migrated to VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus and VMware vRealize Operations Standard.
What is best virtual machine to run Windows? ›- Best Overall: VMware Workstation.
- Best for Mac Users: VMware Fusion.
- Best Free Option: Oracle VM VirtualBox.
- Best for Running Windows and macOS: Parallels Desktop.
- Best for (Some) Windows 10 Users: Hyper-V Manager.
- Best for Linux Users: QEMU.
VirtualBox recommends that the memory size be at least 512MB, however, the more memory you make available to the VM, the smoother and more powerful it will be. As a rule of thumb, 1/4 of the amount of memory you have on your computer should be just fine.
Which virtualization is currently the most widely used technique? ›Hypervisor-based Virtualization: which is currently the most widely used technique.
Who is the leading virtualization provider? ›VMware. VMware is one of the largest players in the virtualization space, being the first company to commercially virtualize the x86 architecture. While VMware has a comprehensive portfolio of products, their most notable products are for virtualization and hypervisor solutions.
Why Hyper-V is better than VirtualBox? ›Hyper-V can only be installed on Windows-based systems, while VirtualBox is a multiplatform product. Hyper-V supports clustering features such as failover clustering and load balancing. Microsoft virtualization solution would be a good choice for companies that already use Windows-based environment.
Which is better VMware or Oracle? ›Oracle VM supports hard partitioning which can significantly reduce software applications licensing costs. VMware vSphere is a powerful and complete server virtualization platform that allows its users to create and manage virtual data centers and machines.
Why does VirtualBox use so much CPU? ›Your processor does not offer hardware-assisted virtualization so VirtualBox is using software-based techniques, which will use more CPU time and make everything slow.
Can VirtualBox run VMware machines? ›Related. Oracle VirtualBox, formerly Sun VirtualBox, is an open source virtualization platform that allows you to run multiple operating systems on a single machine. If you are switching from VMware to VirtualBox, you can import or read a VMware virtual machine in VirtualBox.
What are the disadvantages of VMware? ›One of the main drawbacks of VMware is its cost. VMware products are not free, and you may need to purchase licenses, subscriptions, or support plans to use them. VMware also requires more resources than Hyper-V, as it runs on top of an existing operating system, rather than being part of it.
What are the risks of using Oracle VirtualBox? ›
- You Don't Update the Virtual Machine. ...
- File Sharing Is Enabled Between Host and VM. ...
- Using a Vulnerable Application. ...
- Using an Outdated VirtualBox Version.
Answer: Some users have claimed that they find VMware to be faster compared to VirtualBox. Actually, both VirtualBox and VMware consume a lot of resources from the host machine. Therefore, the physical or hardware capabilities of the host machine are, to a great extent, a deciding factor when virtual machines are run.
Why do people use Oracle's VirtualBox? ›Software developers rely on Oracle VM VirtualBox Enterprise for the development and debugging of their applications in multiple operating systems and environments on one device. Developers can clone an environment on their personal desktop/laptop without impact to production services.
Is VirtualBox a hypervisor? ›A well-known example of a hosted hypervisor is Oracle VM VirtualBox. Others include VMware Server and Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, KVM, QEMU and Parallels.
Does VirtualBox use a lot of RAM? ›VirtualBox itself doesn't need that much RAM. Usually, 4 GB will do if you want to run one large or two or three smaller VMs.
What are three 3 advantages of using a virtual machine? ›Advantages include increased reliability, network speed, security and better monitoring of data usage.
What are the disadvantages of using a virtual machine? ›- Compatibility issue. Migrating existing systems into VM environments can be difficult due to compatibility issues between software versions used across different platforms. ...
- Performance overhead. ...
- Hardware limitations. ...
- Complexity. ...
- Security risks. ...
- License cost. ...
- Single point of failure.
Virtualbox is a powerful virtualization software that allows users to run multiple operating systems on the same physical hardware. However, in order for Virtualbox to work properly, it requires hardware virtualization.
What is the minimum CPU for VirtualBox? ›VirtualBox requires a minimum of 2GB of RAM and a minimum of 10GB of free disk space. It also requires a 64-bit processor, such as an Intel Core i3 or higher, or an AMD Ryzen or higher.
Why is Internet so slow in VirtualBox? ›Have you ever had ridiculously slow network performance in your VirtualBox guest OS? The problem is usually solved by an extremely simple little trick. All you usually need to do is head into the settings (make sure the Virtual machine is turned off), and then changing the network adapter to a different adapter type.
Does VirtualBox use CPU? ›
Oracle VM VirtualBox supports symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) and can present up to 32 virtual CPU cores to each virtual machine. You should not configure virtual machines to use more CPU cores than are available physically. This includes real cores, with no hyperthreads.
Is VirtualBox better than VMWare for gaming? ›Conclusion. VMware Player offers solid GPU performance both in Windows and Linux. VirtualBox offers less GPU performance (and some glitches) in Linux only. Avoid VirtualBox 3D Acceleration with Windows guest OS.
Where VM is better than container? ›VMs solve infrastructure problems by letting organizations get more out of servers and facilitate limited workload portability. Containers solve application problems by improving DevOps, enabling microservices, increasing portability, and further improving resource utilization.
Can you passthrough a GPU in VirtualBox? ›Virtualbox does not provide to the VM direct access (passthrough) to the host GPU. However, Virtualbox does provide 3D acceleration through Guest Additions, which accelerates some VM graphics by running them on the host. For GPU passthrough on a Windows host, you need to use Hyper-V.
Can I play Windows games on VirtualBox? ›If you installed this straight to a system, no virtually, then you can just install games as normal. If you used VirtualBox, then you need to connect a CD, DVD or ISO to Windows 11 to perform an install of a game.
How much RAM is recommended for VirtualBox? ›VirtualBox recommends that the memory size be at least 512MB, however, the more memory you make available to the VM, the smoother and more powerful it will be. As a rule of thumb, 1/4 of the amount of memory you have on your computer should be just fine.
How much RAM does VirtualBox take up? ›Depending on what guest operating systems you want to run, you will need at least 512 MB of RAM (but probably more, and the more the better). Basically, you will need whatever your host operating system needs to run comfortably, plus the amount that the guest operating system needs.
Does VirtualBox take up RAM? ›VirtualBox does not use the hard disk for virtual RAM. It uses the computer's physical RAM for virtual RAM. In the screenshot 4096 MB of the available 16384 Base Memory (the physical RAM) is allocated to the guest OS and the remainder of the physical RAM is available to be used by the host OS.