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Oracle VirtualBox vs. vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinued vs. VMware ESXi

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Oracle VirtualBox

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AOracle VirtualBox is an open source, cross-platform, virtualization software, enables developers to deliver code faster by running multiple operating systems on a single device.

    $0

    per month

    vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinued

    Score7 out of 10
    N/AVMware vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS) is an automated operations management solution that provides integrated performance, capacity, and configuration management for highly virtualized and cloud infrastructure. The product is currently discontinued.N/A

    VMware ESXi

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AA bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.N/A
    Pricing
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Considered Multiple Products
    Oracle
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    I have used VMware ESXi for the purpose of running virtual productions servers. It's a different use case from VirtualBox, but they can be compared in some aspects:
    - Both have room for improvement in UI - but VBox is somewhat more intuitive
    - Both have decent performance in …
    Incentivized
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    It's much more useful than VMware Workstation Player because you can't edit anything at all with that free version of vmWare. This is just about as capable as VMware Fusion and Workstation until you pay even more to use vSphere, and then you start having enterprise features.
    Incentivized
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    Since OracleBox can do most of what VMware can, but free, the benefit is obvious. The quick set up and tear down are also a huge benefit. I chose Oracle VM VirtualBox for these reasons primarily, but there are countless others too. I would definitely say that this is the way to …
    Incentivized
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Chose VMware ESXi
    At the time we did our comparison we found that VMware scaled much better than Hyper-V, lighter weight, and much more reliable. My recommendation if Hyper-V is needed for anything such as Windows containers, is to use nested virtualization and installing Windows Hyper-V within …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    Compared to VirtualBox, VMware ESXi feels a lot more enterprise-grade when comparing the two. As ESXi is a VMware product we knew the level of quality and support we would receive from the vendor. VirtualBox is an open-source platform for virtualization and we liked the fact …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    Building and operating in a virtual environment would be impossible without a reliable and efficient virtualization platform, such as VMware and Hyper-V. Before deciding which platform to choose for conducting your business operations, consider the differences in VMware and Hype…
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    ESXi is hands down the winner when compared to its competitors, in terms of technical capability. VMware has maintained its leadership role in virtualization technology. Hypervisors from Microsoft, Oracle, Citrix pales in every way when compared to ESXi. Have you ever heard …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    We used Oracle VM VirtualBox for sandbox and local testing. It is not a HyperVisor, but a virtualization platform. It requires a Host OS to install on. When we implemented VMWare ESXi, the cost of Citrix Hypervisor was more, and Hyper-V was still in its infancy. Ultimately the …
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    While all of the above hypervisors have their pros and cons, ESXi has the advantages of being free, well supported by the community, easy to setup, easy to use, and good hardware support.
    Incentivized
    Chose VMware ESXi
    I have worked with several other virtual machine platforms such as Microsoft Hyper-V and Oracle VM VirtualBox and find not only the ESXi is a better platform for us, ESXi also seems to be easier once you have learned the basics.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    18 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Would buy again
    93 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    86 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    94 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    91 Answers
    Features
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Oracle VirtualBox and vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinued and VMware ESXi
    Feature
    Oracle VirtualBox
    8.2
    50 Ratings
    2% above category average
    vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinued
    -
    Ratings
    VMware ESXi
    8.2
    128 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning8.036 Ratings00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
    Management console8.846 Ratings00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup8.236 Ratings00 Ratings8.0112 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration7.033 Ratings00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security9.029 Ratings00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Small Businesses
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    SolarWinds Virtualization Manager (VMAN)
    Score10 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter
    Score7.6 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.5
    (53 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (129 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (55 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Oracle VirtualBoxvCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS), discontinuedVMware ESXi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    If you already have the Enterprise level licensing, you may as well use it as opposed to pay for another third-party plug-in, i.e., SolarWinds.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    If you're looking for the industry standard in server virtualization, I would recommend ESXi. After decades of expertise in the field, VMware continues to provide a strong product, production-ready, with an easy-to-learn interface that allows for quick management along with less costly upfront onboarding and training. Grab the free personal-use license and install in your homelab to start!
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Oracle
    • 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
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    • Resources allocation estimates are amazing, this feature allowed us to increase density on our hosts by reclaiming RAM and CPU from over allocated VMs letting us increase the amount of VMs per host. The report was very clear and easy to understand.
    • The planing feature enabled us to gather all the info we needed to plan hardware purchases as it showed us, with our current rate of deployment, when we would reach capacity in or environment.
    • The heat maps provided excellent drill down capabilities allowing for proactively resolving potential issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.
    • Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.
    • VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Oracle
    • 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.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    • It would be nice to be able to make configuration changes either directly in vCenter Operations Manager or have it link back to the correct locations in vCenter.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.
    • I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Oracle
    I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    It is critical to our business, what started out as a way to do certain functions, it has now become core to ensuring our product is available to our customers and reducing our costs to operate and reduce our recovery time and provisioning servers. Their support is great and the costs to renew is reasonable.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Oracle
    I love using the Graphical User Interface. The VirtualBox Manager is very easy to understand and use. You can quickly create, configure and manage all your virtual machines in one window. It makes operating virtual machines easy and simple. When using VBoxManage it gives the user comprehensive control over VirtualBox so that you can use automation and scripting at the command-line interface
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    The interface is fairly intuitive for most things, and the areas that are a little less obvious usually have fantastic documentation in the online knowledgebase. In 3-4 years of managing our ESXi hosts, I think that I have only opened 4-5 support cases for things that I could not figure out myself or find answers to on the website.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Without the need to patch the servers with bug fixes and enhancements we whave not experienced any downtime with VMware issues. Even the bug fixes and updates do not cause of downtime as we just migrate the servers to the opposite node and update the one and then move servers back. Very simple and painless.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Oracle
    No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    We do not notice any difference between a physical and virtual server running the same workload. In fact we can scale quicker with the virtual server than we can with the physical.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    Support has always been very good with vCenter Operations Manager.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    I can't say enough good about VMware's support team. To an individual they take ownership of the case, provide thorough answers, and follow up regularly. On one occasion, a problem we experienced with NSX Endpoint was escalated to development for a permanent resolution after a workaround was found. In my experience, most companies would have tried to find a way to close a case like that instead of taking it all the way. Most importantly, when production is down and every second counts, they VMware teams understand that urgency and treat your issue as if it were the only one they had to deal with. You can't ask for better.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Oracle
    We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Jsut read and follow anything your storage provider may require to allow the integration of VMware with storage operations, outside of that VMware jsut works.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Oracle
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    The UI is heads and shoulders above VM Turbo, much clearer and user friendly. I did not like the cost modeling used in that product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    As long as you're using Nutanix AOS on Nutanix hardware and are paying their software support fees, AOS is a valid competitor to VMware and can save money due to not needing a license and having their server management system built into the base host management system. If you aren't using Nutanix hardware, however, VMWare is in most cases the best way to go. I cannot comment on HyperV, but most IT people I know either use it because they have to (most) or they like it better (not many).
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Oracle
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    it has been fair and easy to understand. I know VMware is looking at wanting to change from CPU to core pricing so we will see what that looks like when it happens.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    We started out with a two-server cluster and adding a third or fourth is very straightforward and simple with no issues. You just need to be aware of the size of your Vcenter Server to handle the workload, but still the resources needed is very minimal
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Oracle
    • Minimal-to-no support needed from the DevOps team.
    • Provides a direct and an easy way to access multiple VMs inside the same machines which enables performing various testing and QA tasks without the need to switch hardware.
    • Automatic provisioning using tools (esp. Vagrant) which enables developing a base image once, and allows for exporting/importing anywhere across the developers team.
    • Very cost-effective (no fees or monthly subscriptions).
    Incentivized
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    Discontinued Products
    • The over allocation report allowed us to postpone new hardware purchases by 16 months by reclaiming resources.
    • Pro activeness to resolve issues with the build in alarms
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMWare ESXi licensing is affordable for our business - and the licensing model is simplistic. Not like that of Microsoft with having to keep track of server licenses and CAL licenses for users.
    • VMWare ESXi also has hardware-monitoring built-in, so that further saves us money from having to be spent with another vendor.
    • As much as I hate the saying "a single pane of glass" does fit for this product. You can manage your servers, monitor hardware status, create and export backup snapshots, manage virtual NICs, connect to various storage devices. We're very happy with this product.
    Incentivized
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