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Oracle VM VirtualBox

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Overview

What is Oracle VM VirtualBox?

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…

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Recent Reviews

Fantastic and Free

10 out of 10
May 10, 2023
Incentivized
We used Oracle VM VirtualBox as a quick and simple way to virtualize and consolidate multiple compute servers onto a single server. It is …
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Virtualization at its Best

9 out of 10
July 23, 2020
Oracle VM VirtualBox is being heavily used to recreate network designs on servers for both troubleshooting purposes as well as deployment …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

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  • Live virtual machine backup (37)
    8.2
    82%
  • Virtual machine automated provisioning (36)
    7.8
    78%
  • Management console (44)
    7.2
    72%
  • Live virtual machine migration (32)
    6.9
    69%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is Oracle VM VirtualBox?

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…

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  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions is designed to make cloud adoption easier, allowing the user to optimize the value of existing on-premises infrastructure, while leveraging the same tools, technologies and skills in the cloud. Gain rapid scalability, deployment in 35+ global data centers and access…

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Product Demos

Building a Demo Environment using Oracle VM VirtualBox Part 2

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Export Any OS From Oracle VM VirtualBox

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Oracle VirtualBox | Basic functionalities and live demo

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Building a Demo Environment using Oracle VM VirtualBox

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Demo - Building reliable Oracle Database 18c DevOps

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VirtualBox Demo 1 - Work with Critical Applications Securely (For end users)

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Features

Server Virtualization

Server virtualization allows multiple operating systems to be run completely independently on a single server

7.3
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is Oracle VM VirtualBox?

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.

Oracle VM VirtualBox Videos

VirtualBox Demo
To help you decide if VirtualBox is right for you, we've synthesized reviews from TrustRadius to see what the strengths, limitations, and best use cases of VirtualBox are.

Oracle VM VirtualBox Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Hyper-V, Parallels Desktop, and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) are common alternatives for Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Reviewers rate Live virtual machine backup highest, with a score of 8.2.

The most common users of Oracle VM VirtualBox are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(151)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 38)
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May 10, 2023

Fantastic and Free

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Oracle VM VirtualBox as a quick and simple way to virtualize and consolidate multiple compute servers onto a single server. It is an easier way to provide a proof of concept for virtualization than using a bare metal hypervisor with an admin machine. Once the concept successfully shows the benefits of virtualization and the advantages of consolidating to a lower server footprint, it is easier to sell virtualization. In addition, snapshots, software defined networking, and ability to access/share host resources make it easier to roll back/deploy changes to development, test, and QA environments. On top of all that, it is free to use.
  • Ability to easily share/access host resources; allows for development work on the host machine that can be easily transferred to the guest machines and vice versa.
  • Advanced bootup/bios options allow for a custom deployment scenario, test platform.
  • Full product and all options are free to use, unlimited.
  • Very small installation footprint and memory use.
  • Interface is clean, but could be more sleek.
  • Guest systems need to be shutdown in order to make edit any resources. This can be a bit disruptive. Not ideal for Production environments.
  • The add-on extensions can be a bit confusing and need to be updated separately. They should be bundled together with the main application to ease updates and keep current.
Ideal for use wherever a multi-OS guest environment is required, for system demos, or for development on different environments without having dedicated host systems for each environment. Best uses are for Dev/Test/QA.

Not necessarily the best option for production system as it is riding on another host. I prefer to have bare-metal hypervisor for reliability and less chance of corruption of host platform.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I personally use VirtualBox to test applications. With VirtualBox, I can test the application without even installing it on my actual machine, and doing this protects my device from any damages. For example, if I accidentally select the wrong settings for the application I am testing, the changes only affect my Virtual Machine and this is a great advantage for me. I also use different operating systems for work and for personal purposes thus I use VirtualBox to install another operating system (like Linux) without removing the one I already use (Windows).
  • Allocating the memory you want for each machine.
  • Allows you to put as many virtual machines as your device allows you.
  • The changes you make to your virtual machine only affects your virtual machine, not your main device.
  • It would be great if the window can become adjustable to full screen because right now you need to install another software to just make the window fullscreen.
  • The responsiveness of the VMs is slow sometimes.
  • It sometimes takes very long for a machine to boot.
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.
Tyler Twitchell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Oracle VM VirtualBox is used to house VM's to test different applications on Virtual machines in order to validate functionality without the worry of compromising a real system and having to start over. We also use these VM's to obfuscate access to our production environments by first accessing a VM then connecting to a VPN from that virtual machine.
  • Running multiple VM's on a simple laptop or desktop
  • Making a backup of a VM to quickly roll back to a known good state
  • Easy deployment of various operating system types and configurations
  • Reporting is a little lacking
  • Network settings for VM's can be hard to find or understand for the casual user
Being able to build VM's to test different applications on Virtual machines in order to validate functionality without the worry of compromising a real system and having to start over is one of the greatest strengths of using an application like VirtualBox, and it does this well. The many options to create a VM of differing operating systems and functionality [make it] very simple and easy to do with this application.
Alejandro Daniel Copati | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VirtualBox is the tool we use to generate virtual machines in development environments. Either as much as to run Windows or Linux from Mac OS, or Windows from Linux. We have the need to have computers with the possibility of running these operating systems since the programs that we use for the industry are not all multiplatform.
  • Easy set up
  • Supports multiple operating systems
  • Free software
  • Nice interface
  • A lot of control over the configuration of the virtual machine
  • Coherence mode (like in Parallels)
VirtualBox is an excellent option when it comes to virtualizing an operating system in an easy and safe way. Add controls on how much hardware of the host machine is going to be dedicated to the virtual one, configure which ports are accessible from each one, etc. However, like any virtual machine, if you need to use many of the hardware resources for the virtual machine, it is recommended to use a native installation of the virtual machine, since the performance of both (host and virtual) can be affected considerably.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Oracle VM VirtualBox is being used across the development department, mostly to run training environments. This helps us prepare preconfigured VMs with all the tools our engineers need to complete their training at different levels throughout their careers. Providing these training environments was always a challenge before, and after trying cloud options to provide online instances of the training environment, we decided to create these VMs and give offline options on a as-needed basis for our employees and avoid costs from having a growing cloud server capacity.
  • Configuration is easy
  • Compatibility with Open Standards for VMs
  • Learning how to use it is very simple
  • Great features for communication with the host system makes it easy to share resources
  • Documentation about commonly used features should be more easily available
  • Having more examples of what's possible with the software would be great, maybe showcasing peculiar implementations from others and the problems they were able to solve
  • Maybe simplify common actions to be applied to multiple VMs at once
The most common scenarios for me where Oracle VM VirtualBox is well suited are when you want to create reusable resources and shared them on VMs for many users as a standalone solution and when you want to try things between different operating systems, you can opt for a VM to test things out without affecting the host system.
Satishbabu Gunukula, Oracle ACE | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Oracle VM VirtualBox is being used on an as-needed basis by one department only. It is being used when software is being developed on multi-platforms. Also it has capability of sharing file systems between the hosts, which allows the users to write the code and easily complile on multiple platforms.
  • Customization and dynamic sizing
  • Easy integration betweeen host and VM
  • It supports virtuliazation on major operating systems
  • Firstime setup will be challenging
  • Needs improvement with user interface
  • High resource utilization
Oracle VM VirtualBox is well suited for enterprise-level virtualization and really helps develop the software on multiplatforms.
David McCann | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VirtualBox is being used on an as-needed basis by engineers throughout the organization. The most common use-case is developers using Linux but needing some Windows features (such as Microsoft Teams, which isn't supported on Linux with govcloud). It can also be used in the case where software is being developed that's multi-platform. In this case, VirtualBox's capability of sharing file systems between the host and VM allows for easy compilation on multiple platforms, writing code on the host machine and having those changes instantly reflected in the virtual machine via file sharing.
  • Easy integration between host machine and VM window (mouse and keyboard capture, file sharing, etc.).
  • Support for many major operating systems.
  • Dynamic sizing of virtual hard drive space.
  • Easy integration of peripherals (USB, etc.).
  • Dynamic display resizing with window size changes.
  • The user interface feels a little dated.
  • For open-source operating systems, it would be nice if the ISO download process was automated, rather than requiring users download and provide the ISO themselves.
  • Installation of guest additions to the VM could be automated (or single-click opt-in).
It's great for personal use, effectively allowing a user to have "N operating systems on 1 box," but isn't appropriate for situations where the process of provisioning and configuring a new machine will happen repeatedly. For this, puppet, docker, or similar would be more appropriate. Another potential workflow would be where a user is only working with one operating system at a time, and changes between them are infrequent. For this, a boot manager such as grub would be more appropriate.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Oracle VM VirtualBox is being used by various clients for a combination of different uses. The main use is simple virtualization of Windows in a production environment. These virtual machine are typical single-use machines (e.g., running a specific database or server software), that don't require too many resources. In addition, Oracle VM VirtualBox is used as both a test bed for different pieces of software and operating systems and as an easy way to experiment with virtualization.
  • It supports virtualization of many, many different operating systems, including Windows and a plethora of Linux variants
  • It provides a large amount of customization to emulate different types of hardware
  • Its licensing terms are very generous
  • Its cost to entry is fantastic in that it is free
  • While free, it is very unpolished with numerous interface quirks and general lack of user friendliness
  • Oracle VM VirtualBox's virtualization technology is relatively slow compared to competitors (VMWare, Hyper-V, Parallels, etc.)
  • Abysmal GPU performance under virtual machines
Oracle VM VirtualBox is very well suited for low-profile virtual machines that are not doing much heavy lifting, and is ideally suited for virtualizing databases that can be run in a headless mode. On the other hand, Oracle VM VirtualBox is not good for running any kind of VM that requires extreme or even just good performance, and especially any VM that requires adequate GPU support.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As an Admin IT I use VirtualBox to test a lot of things. Whether it be for a windows machine or a linux machine, it gets used a lot. It allows me to test several things in a virtual setting instead of our actual machines. This way if anything goes wrong it isn't messing with our systems.
  • Can test software in a virtual setting
  • Storage can be changed dynamically
  • USB ports and ethernet can be used
  • Can be difficult to set up for first timers
  • Can be slow at tiems
In the IT world there are several times were software or other things need to be tested and virtual box gives users a perfect setting to test them without harming or changing settings on other machines. It doesn't have good mac support since apple makes that difficult, but windows and linux work great.
Scott Sokolik | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Oracle VM VirtualBox to run several virtual machines built with different operating systems. For example, we have legacy software that requires Windows XP to run. For this we have a Windows XP virtual machine that we run through Oracle VM VirtualBox.
  • Interface to system ports (USB, ethernet, com)
  • Ability to change storage dynamically
  • Ability to set up a saved storage space to share files between virtual machine and host system
  • Adding legacy ports such as LPT require a script that is run via a command prompt. It would be easier to have this enabled through main window interface.
Well suited for any virtual machine that does not require use of legacy LPT port.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Oracle VM VirtualBox is being heavily used to recreate network designs on servers for both troubleshooting purposes as well as deployment scenarios. VMs are generally created to host applications or programs that act as the building blocks for network, which are then imported into GNS3 for laying out the foundation of the network topology. Using such a solution allows the company to save on resources and makes better use of the available resources on the Server stack.
  • Optimal utilization of system resources, which in turn does not slow down your computer considerably.
  • Immensely popular among developers and students since it is free.
  • A well laid out user interface displaying all the VMs and giving details on each of them when selected.
  • For first timers it can be challenging.
  • Lacks in documentation because of it being open-source.
  • Redundant configuration for new VMs could be reduced by providing a universal configuration tool.
VirtualBox is well suited in the following environments:
  • Organizations that are resource constrained.
  • Organizations that want to get full utilization of server capacity can use the platform. Since it is free to download and use.
  • Universities use the platform to educate students on the basics of virtualization as well as for assignments.
  • Organizations that have a low or strict budget use virtualization to reduce the costs.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It might be used across the organization, but the only use I'm familiar with is in my department. We use VirtualBox so that students can work on platforms other than the ones that their computers natively support.
  • Easy to use virtualization.
  • Nice tool for teaching.
  • Easy updates.
  • Wide range of client operating systems.
  • Occasional slow performance (but not very often).
  • There's always room for a more friendly user experience.
VirtualBox is an indispensable tool for teaching Computer Science courses of all kinds at the college level. Most recently, I used VirtualBox to run a toy operating system in my OS course. Without VirtualBox (or a product like VirtualBox) students would have had to install the toy operating system directly "on the metal" on their computers. This would have been both inconvenient and a bit dangerous. In other courses, students get to learn to use operating systems that they would otherwise not have access to. In still other courses, VirtualBox provides a common image that all students, regardless of their laptop's platform, can use.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used more at the department level than across the whole organization. It is really up to individual departments to decide if they want to use VirtualBox for managing VM's. It addresses the business problem of having a VM management all-in-one-solution that can manage most platforms in use today (e.g. Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc.) Some solutions don't offer support for most all platforms, or some are more problematic when it comes to managing the wide array of platforms out there.
  • One thing it does really well is the actual interface (home screen) of the management console. It is well laid out as far as showing you the VM's you have installed and giving information on each of those VM's (such as General information, System Information, etc.).
  • Another good feature of VirtualBox is it generally doesn't use a whole lot of system resources for the most part, and generally won't slow down a computer too much while it is in use.
  • One thing that could be worked on is improving how the program affects system resources when running multiple VM's at the same time. For the most part, running just 1 VM doesn't tax system resources too much, but if you run multiple VM's, you may experience system slowdowns or other performance issues.
  • Another improvement can be made in how VirtualBox detects the host system to determine whether the host is 32-bit or 64-bit. My experience was that the application came back saying my system didn't have a 64-bit processor, but in fact it did, and it was running the 64-bit OS.
It is well suited for organizations that are looking for a low cost, or no cost, VM management solution. Some other commercial solutions can get quite expensive, but the best thing about VirtualBox is it's free. Also, it is well suited to environments that have a lot of different platforms (e.g. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) running, or where users are all using different platforms

It is less suited in environments that want to have access to many different channels of support, such as phone, web, email. As an end-user, with VirtualBox, you pretty much have online/KB articles to refer to for help/support with the product, and also a Community forum for getting help/feedback from other users of VirtualBox.
Nate Dillon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My department mostly uses Oracle VM VirtualBox for running virtual machines from the command line with Vagrant, and VirtualBox is free to use and available on several different platforms. We use virtual machines for all of our development because this enables us to more closely match the servers used in our production environment.
  • Works well with Vagrant.
  • Runs other operating systems as a virtual machine, like Windows or Linux.
  • Not the best user interface.
  • Not the best at running Windows in a VM.
Oracle VM VirtualBox works great if you just need a simple virtual machine provider for use with Vagrant. It also works well if you need to run another operating system in a VM and you don't care too much about nice host OS integrations. Other VM software can get kind of expensive, and VirtualBox is a pretty good option if you don't want to spend any money. If you are looking for the best experience running Windows in a VM, then I would recommend looking elsewhere.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Virtual box is used by several teams across the organization. In my case, as I'm a cybersecurity specialist, I use it on a daily basis to create temporary VMs to test exploits and payloads. Some other teams also use temporary VMs for malware analysis.
  • Easy to use
  • Easy to customize the VMs
  • Low resource consumption
  • Better support for GPU intensive VMs
In my case, I only use VirtualBox for temporary VMs, and I can say they are perfect for that. I haven't used it to permanent VMs or big applications.
November 22, 2019

Love at first install

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Virtual box helped me in the evaluation of guest operating systems such as Kali Linux and Backbox Linux before I chose to stay with Kali Linux. I had to choose these between this software for penetration testing of a certain product that we were rolling out into the market.
  • I did not have to install the operating systems to evaluate them
  • I could run two or more instances of these operating systems concurrently
  • Oracle made it simple to start and stop the virtual machines and also save the state so as to continue where I left off
  • Oracle should find a way to put sound on these operating systems without having to download guest OS add-ons
  • When putting a flash, Oracle should pick that the flash has been inserted to the new OS and not have to go back and add it to the filters
Oracle Virtual Box is very well suited when one wants to use an operating system that they have but cannot install it on their computer, either for security or because they do not have space. One can create a virtual hard disk and continue to use it without problems as any other hard disk.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our testing and core engineering teams are collaboratively using Oracle VM VirtualBox to test the performance and quality of our various standalone applications on different operating systems. When creating applications that run on a consumer's system locally, there is a great deal of uncertainty on whether the given application will work under all types of environments such as type of OS, OS architecture, amount of hardware resources, etc. We are using Oracle VM VirtualBox to eliminate these uncertainties.
  • Shared Clipboard between host and virtualized OS. Not only can you copy/paste text, but you can also drag-and-drop files between OS.
  • Great Support for USB Devices. Unlike many other alternatives out there, none of them rival VirtualBox in the amount of supported USB Devices.
  • Unlimited Number of Snapshots. From my own experience, VirtualBox is the only virtualization solution that supports an unlimited number of saved snapshots.
  • High CPU and Memory Utilization. Even when running on more than capable hardware, Oracle VM VirtualBox uses and excessive amount of resources, slowing the host OS down.
  • Poor 3D Graphics Support. The amount of settings and features related to enhancing graphics in general is fairly limited for VirtualBox.
  • PCIe Passthrough functionality is quite buggy. Many other alternatives have fully implemented this, but VirtualBox has yet to do so.
Oracle VM VirtualBox is the best solution out there when it comes to enterprise-level virtualization. It is well-suited for most scenarios, unless you require extreme performance or advanced DirectX or OpenGL graphics in your use-case. If you need to cluster your virtualization environments together, you probably want to use VMWare.
Gledson Rodrigues | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the software in our NOC, as a laboratory, to conduct tests and train staff in new network technologies. This helps us to predict future problems and improve our infrastructure.
  • Compatibility with various operating systems. I can create VMs with different systems.
  • In our case, we work a lot of equipment operating systems like routers and switches, without any problem.
  • The merge, we set up scenarios with different systems and we get connectivity, all talking to simulate different situations.
  • The robustness of the system allows us to work with great scenarios.
  • It is not about where to improve in the solution, it is robust and if the user does not have reasonable hardware, you will not be able to work much on it. So it's more about the user side, the VMs weight.
As I've mentioned, proper scenarios are NOCs, laboratories that need both virtualization and test environments, and that have a reasonable infrastructure.
Smaller environments, with more basic hardware, cannot take good advantage of what the solution has to offer.
Kenneth Hess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
A lot of people across the organization use it for various reasons but mostly for testing and development. It's a quick and cost-free way to test scripts, programs, and new techniques without fear of damaging other systems. Virtual machines can be created or destroyed at will and no one is impacted except the virtual machine owner. It's a great way to test and work locally on something even before taking the test scenario or code to a multi-user system.
  • It runs a variety of operating systems and versions of operating systems.
  • It has no fees, subscriptions, or other costs associated with it.
  • One can quickly build, pause, or remove a virtual machine within minutes for testing.
  • It allows you to access the Internet and other network equipment without fear of direct attacks by using NAT.
  • I'd prefer an easier, background upgrade process without the nag dialog window.
  • I'd like to be able to set global settings so that I don't have to configure them each time I install a new VM.
VirtualBox is well suited for test and development. It is handy because you can build VMs in a variety of formats and port them to other systems running VirtualBox and use them with other virtualization technologies. It is not suited for production business use but only as a workstation test solution.
October 03, 2019

VirtualBox is a gift!

Christopher Boyd | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use VirtualBox to spin up Linux VMs in my day job and recommend it to my students for building VMs on their various systems.

VirtualBox is what first allowed me to learn about VMs, and eventually Linux, without having to worry about having dedicated hardware or about quickly putting up and tearing down a whole computer's OS. I use VirtualBox today for build pipelines (software and game dev on Linux) as well as a testbed for software I'm getting ready to deploy on my company's servers, such as automation scripts or cron jobs. It also is great for working on local web dev tasks without having to be connecting to the internet and a real server.
  • Very simple and easy to understand. I'm able to pass this application on to my students and colleagues and they have no trouble getting their bearings and setting up VMs.
  • Quick to launch VMs and the UI (both the app and the overlay when working in a VM) are simple and make it easy to get things done while also staying out of my way.
  • It feels like a product that should cost a lot. It works well and is maintained. I've never had any problems with it.
  • The downside to the simple design is that some people are turned off by this and assume it's not a good application.
For anyone who needs to be able to quickly spin up VMs with little fanfare, VirtualBox is great. For people new to VMs, or wanting to try out a new OS, VirtualBox tries to adopt the most sensical default options when starting a VM. Unlike past versions where I'd have issues, as of writing the current version is excellent at getting my video card, audio, and internet setup so that it simply works with the VM and the OS I'm setting up.
Claudio Fernando Maciel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Oracle VM VirtualBox as the base for virtualizing all Docker as well as Vagrant machines in the computers which are Windows-based. There are several computers, both dev, and test servers which take advantage of virtualization services in our company, thus Oracle VM Virtual Box comes to our aid in a very satisfactory way.
  • Easy zero to hero configuration.
  • Excellent backup (snapshot) functionality, which one can take advantage of at a few clicks in order to restore an old snapshot.
  • Scripting functionalities, which we use in our dev and testing servers to bring different machines up, during services bootstrapping.
  • Memory and processing segmentation. Differently from technologies such as Docker (in Linux), one must segment the overall RAM and Processor usage in order to spare it to the virtual machine being created.
  • Faulty recovery when virtual machines improperly shutdown. As one needs to bring the faulted machine up again, there is a sequence of clean up that must take place before the given virtual machine can be brought back to life.
Oracle is advisable for both creating a constellation of different OS's inside the same machine, thus separating the varied configurations that may be necessary for each virtual machine. One can in this way avoid all the hassle of having way too many versions of systems, such as a Java Version Machine, for instance, of for solving any other conflicting dependencies that may arise when there are just too many versions and types of systems being used in the company.

If one is looking for something that may be easily copied, Oracle VM VirtualBox may not be the best choice. Docker is better for this (in case Windows is not the base OS), for it gives a scripted way of configuring one's virtual machine, and then pulling it from an online repository.
Justin Bongard | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
If we need a Linux environment, we create it in VirtualBox. We'll use the environment for running tools like penetration testing or checking items for malicious code.
  • VM used by one person at a time on that user's PC
  • running a VM server on a server
  • Running Windows or Linux
  • Using with BOINC so they can run virtual environments on your PC
  • Last I used it, there wasn't a great wizard to convert a machine like VMware's Conversion wizard
  • No way to move a running VM to another drive
  • Not a great snapshot management system.
It's suited for basic VM hosting. If you are needing a hypervisor, load balancer for running VMs, to replicate them across servers, etc, you'll definitely want to go for vmWare instead.
Jordan Squire | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Oracle VM VirtualBox quite extensively at our company to virtualize software. The main use case that we have is for our software engineers. Our engineering team has a single approved developer virtual machine that all of us use. It makes developer support and the replication of problems much easier knowing we are all on identical environments. Also for new hires it makes getting their environments set up a quick and easy process. Other departments use it to run Windows or Linux applications on their Macs.
  • Software virtualization.
  • Environment replication.
  • Environment portability.
  • Multiple operating systems on one machine.
  • Environment snapshots for easy recovery after or to revert changes.
  • Detailed environment configuration with suggestions based on your host system's resources.
  • It's free.
  • VM errors typically crash the VM.
  • If the host machine runs out of disk space the VM will become unreadable even after freeing space. Fortunately VirtualBox keeps a previous copy, but you have to manually restore it.
  • Somewhat buggy, so you learn how to work around the bugs.
  • Some host hardware is not supported.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VirtualBox is a very light-weight software which is available as a hypervisor. This software can be installed on any OS (Windows, Mac or any flavour of Linux) and be leveraged for virtualization. Within our organisation, VirtualBox is used by couple of departments. The departments which handle the internal and external development or testing of the applications highly rely on this piece of software. As per business problems, it is always better to have 10 machines in a single base machine rather than 10 different physical machines. So with VirtualBox these types of problems are solved and multiple systems/ servers are deployed in the base machine which help us to do multiple tasks and once and keep a number of servers live at a single point in time.
  • Total size of the software: is one of the best part of this hypervisor. I have used tons in my career and this is the lightest among all of them so far. This is a great plus point because:
  • It keeps you hard disk happy because whatever space the virtual instance will take is the only space being occupied since the space captured by the software is negligible.
  • The performance of the CPU as well as the virtualisation engine boosts up to a very huge level.
  • Supports up to 32 virtual machines: This software can hold the power of 32 virtual machines which might take up physical space of the entire small sized office. This can hold an entire company in one installation of VirtualBox.
  • Support for all the OS: It can be installed either in Mac or Linux and of course the widely used Windows and all of them can be linked in a local network seamlessly. So there are no such boundaries regarding the Operating Systems.
  • VirtualBox still have some features which I am still not able to understand even after having used the software from so long time. I have never found proper videos which provide full fledged training materials on this software. This is a big lag as there might be some option available that can help in our day to day life, but we are still not aware about that option.
  • The design can be revamped and transformed to a fancy one. There are no animations and even the Mac version of the software contains comes pixels at times. This can decrease the overall liking of the people which can become a serious issue in the near future.
Oracle VirtualBox is best suited if you work on multiple machines/ OS's at one time or even during different parts of the day. This will help you work from your single base machine and help you to achieve all the tasks very easily and efficiently. It is even helpful for students who want to learn new things and try new Operating Systems without actually migrating to one.
If you do not use multiple machines or maybe just using Windows the whole day for your job functions, then this software might not be useful for you.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used VirtualBox to test various operating system configurations, and occasionally to enable users to use Windows applications on Mac computers. I've used various virtualization suites such as Parallels VM but VirtualBox is easy to deploy and gets the job done without having to worry about costly upgrade fees. I especially have had better luck networking virtual machines than with other virtualization solutions.
  • Networking
  • Cross-platform compatibility
  • Testing
  • Speed of installation
  • I've found it could use better and more detailed settings for optimizing the screen output for various displays.
It's especially well suited whenever a quick solution is needed due to the ease of deployment. I've found it's less suited for graphics design compared to other VM solutions which seem to optimize the display output better on various types of monitors.
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