Oracle VM VirtualBox vs. Oracle VM

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Oracle VM VirtualBox
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Open source, cross-platform, virtualization software that enables developers to deliver code faster by running multiple operating systems on a single device, used to deploy applications on-premises and to the cloud. Oracle VM VIrtualBox is Oracle's cross-platform virtualization offering, acquired with Sun Microsystems in early 2010. The software was originally developed by Innotek GmbH.N/A
Oracle VM
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Oracle's server virtualization products support x86 and SPARC architectures and a variety of workloads such as Linux, Windows and Oracle Solaris. In addition to solutions that are hypervisor-based, Oracle also offers virtualization built in to hardware and Oracle operating systems to deliver the most complete and optimized solution for the entire computing environment.N/A
Pricing
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Oracle VM VirtualBox
7.3
49 Ratings
13% below category average
Oracle VM
7.2
6 Ratings
15% below category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning7.836 Ratings5.76 Ratings
Management console7.244 Ratings7.56 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup8.237 Ratings5.65 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration6.932 Ratings8.84 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security6.628 Ratings8.44 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
Small Businesses
Proxmox VE
Proxmox VE
Score 9.3 out of 10
Proxmox VE
Proxmox VE
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(52 ratings)
7.8
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Oracle VM VirtualBoxOracle VM
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.
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Oracle
Well suited: development work as they provide a very nice free tier, datacenters in Latin America with very low ping, heavy loads for DB if you use Oracle DB Less appropriate: fast webservers as they use hard disks for several tiers, fast MySQL databases as the server is shared, auto-scaling functionality is not present.
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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
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Oracle
  • Installation and setup of VM Server are pretty straight forward.
  • Many different guest operating systems are supported.
  • There can be up to 128 virtual machines per physical server.
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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.
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Oracle
  • Not as flexible as VMware.
  • Could have slightly better templates for provisioning database nodes.
  • In terms of performance it lags a bit behind Red Hat's KVM solution.
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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
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Usability
Oracle
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.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
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.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Performance
Oracle
No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
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.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
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.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
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
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Oracle
The ease of use on the Oracle platform is greater, flexibility and compatibility also helped in the choice, in addition to the cost-benefit.
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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.
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Oracle
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Oracle
  • 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.
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Oracle
  • Migrating our workload from AWS to Oracle gave us a huge benefit in cost reduction.
  • We've experienced a lot of outages.
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