Likelihood to Recommend DigitalOcean Droplets are the best choice for developers teams that need reliable Linux servers to deploy their projects, the ability to create a droplet for testing purposes then destroy it, and only get charged for the few hours used makes the chances of messing up very slim. DigitalOcean Droplets is a great solution because the servers are scalable and the process of adding more resources like CPU or RAM to an existing droplet takes only a few minutes and once a server is scaled up it can also be scaled down if necessary which is perfect for supporting a temporary peak in traffic for example.
Read full review It is best suited when you want to have different operating systems on your laptop or desktop. You can easily switch between operating systems without the need to uninstall one. In another scenario, if you expect some application to damage your device, it would be best to run the application on the VM such that the damage can only be done to the virtual machine. It is less appropriate when time synchronization is very important. At times the VMs run their own times differently from the host time and this may cause some losses if what you doing is critical. Another important thing to take note of is the licensing of the application you want to run your VM. Some licenses do not allow the applications to be run on virtual servers so it is not appropriate to use the VM at this time.
Read full review Pros Simplicity to scale services--the interface is very quick and effective to use Reliability--this is key for us, as any downtime effects our reputation Keeps the costs down--hosting our own equivalent infrastructure would cost a lot more Read full review It is simple to install - there is no advanced knowledge required to begin building virtual computers It is easy to use - adding new virtual machines is simple with wizard-based deployment It enables easy portability - moving virtual machines from one host to another is straight-forward and simple It is free Read full review Cons In terms of an availability zone, they have limitations not available in most of the geographical locations. No live support is available which can cause problem if you have outage. Number of service is quite limited. Read full review I have had issues in the past when it has come to resizing VM disk storage. The issue is entirely detailed here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9103 -- the problem was caused because of having existing snapshots (which error message output was not detailing). I haven't had to deal with the issue due to my dynamic disk sizes not being small from the start anymore (this is mostly an issue for my Windows VMs where the base disk may need significant size for the OS). It looks like, for a resize, that a merge of all snapshots has to occur first -- one user on that list details a workaround to maintain snapshots by cloning the VM. (Note: 5.2 was just released a few weeks ago, and looks like it should prevent the problem happening in the future by properly informing users that it isn't possible with snapshots). Certain scenarios, like resizing disks, required dropping into a terminal as there were no options to previously do so via the GUI. According to some recent posts, I've seen that v5.2 has added disk management stuff like that to the GUI (or will be adding it). I'm comfortable with dropping into the terminal, but in a teaching scenario or when evaluating the learnability of the tools, it complicates things. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
Read full review Usability Easy and quick to use. Runs at sufficient speed even with 5/6 VMs running, and can handle a bridged network with ease. Easy to disassociate from the host to ensure the environment built within VB is quarantined should anything happen, meaning no risk to physical hardware. Quick to pick up. Quick to add new machines. Cloning feature very quick and comprehensive. I've never had a VM crash or freeze.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Dependency on the Host OS means it is as reliable as it is possible to be. Application errors are beyond the purview of the application.
Read full review Performance No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
Read full review Support Rating Oracle have a very fast response rate and a strong user community. One can geet help from many sources if they choose to research for themselves.
Read full review Implementation Rating We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
Read full review Alternatives Considered DigitalOcean Droplets is continuously evolving to be more and more powerful. It has great features and has low cost options, which is really great for developers. Its CDN, Loadbalancer, etc. make it a good place to host a high-traffic application. Moroever, DigitalOcean Droplets has a nonprofit program that helps nonprofit sites to run their infrastructure, which is tremendous and no competitor of DigitalOcean Droplets does that.
Read full review VirutalBox is very similar to using Vmware with the slight difference in appearance and what might be considered a less polished look. However, what it lacks in polish and looks it makes up for in functionality, easy of use and the wide range of operating systems and features it supports without the need of buying the full professional edition
Read full review Scalability The only problem I have found is that the deployment is dependent and intrinsically linked to the Host OS. This is different from bare metal solutions which remove that dependency on a Host OS. The latter is more reliable and removes a layer of potential failure.
Read full review Return on Investment Digital Ocean has been great helping us move web apps to the cloud Digital Ocean has been really helpful when hiring contractors The interface could use some work, but overall its not terrible Read full review For personal use, there is no monetary investment, I am running 5 CentOS servers flawlessly in my home lab. Saves a ton of money in an enterprise environment by not having to purchase physical test servers. (Cost of Enterprise product is way lower vs Cost of standing up physical servers and/or cloud servers) Makes virtualization very easy and friendly for everyone for test instances. Read full review ScreenShots