Oracle VM VirtualBox

VMWare Workstation required VMware Workstation Pro to create the system before we could use it. The license requirements for the latter was the issue as we needed this for dev/test environments as well as to show POC on virtualization without necessarily incurring a cost at the outset.

Oracle's solution is entirely free, although a bit clumsy and visually outdated. Hyper-V can and will be a better match due to having more resources, offering full Microsoft Support, and being focused mainly on corporative uses, but for a small environment, it can be like killing an ant with a missile. So in those scenarios, VirtualBox will be a really good option.

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.

While Parallels Desktop has always positioned itself better than VirtualBox, it will never be able to compete against free and open-source software. Yes, it is true that it has some extra seasonings that can make the scale move towards Parallels at the time of the election, VirtualBox will always be at hand and will be a useful tool in terms of the virtualization of devices and operating systems.

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Docker, and automated machine provisioning in DevOps often uses the metaphor "treat your machines like cattle, not pets." VirtualBox's intended use is definitely in the creation, management and use of "pet" machines, whereas many similar products are more in the "cattle" business. Vagrant might be comparable, but focuses more heavily on automation to configure the target machine, ideally to make teardown and rebuild slightly easier. Vagrant is probably a middle ground between Docker and VirtualBox, largely being replaced in terms of use case by Docker. In other words, VirtualBox's primary purpose is creating virtual machines for personal use.

The main benefits of Oracle VM VirtualBox are its licensing terms (it is free), its open-source nature, and its active community. However, its various competitors do a much better job when it comes to both ease of use and, most importantly, speed. For example, Parallels Desktop on the Mac is advanced enough to support DIrectX 12, Hyper-V integrates extremely well with Windows and especially Windows server, and VMWare's plethora of products are infinitely scalable.

We've used VMware, and continue to use it for some projects. But, in my experience, the latest updates to VMware run very slowly, particularly on macOS. Many blog posts offer tweaks to help speed up VMware, but none of these tweaks make a significant difference.

With regards to how some of the other virtualization software packages stack up again VirtualBox, I would say VirtualBox is ahead of the game especially when it comes to cost savings, as there is no ongoing cost for running the software. A big disadvantage to one of the other virtualization software packages that is used in our environment in a few instances has been the ongoing subscription/licensing renewal cost, which is done yearly. With VirtualBox, we don't have to worry about keeping up with this.

Another big advantage with VirtualBox as compared to some other software packages is the ability to run/manage a variety of different platforms/OS's as VM's, and also the ability to install/run VirtualBox on a number of different host systems.

We primarily use Oracle VM VirtualBox because it's free, and it is the default provider for Vagrant, which we use for our development VMs. The user interface of VirtualBox looks a little clunky in macOS, but I actually almost never see the main VirtualBox interface because I only use it with Vagrant from the command line. I also use Parallels for running Windows on my Mac. I chose Parallels for running Windows because of the better interface, better hardware emulation and support, and better integration with macOS.

Oracle Virtual Box is better than the VMware Workstation as it offers a great user interface and a wizard to get you started with ease. It is also very simple to install and can be done by newbies, yes, even the intern can install this for you as you work on something else.

I would prefer Oracle as it is much more user-friendly, easier to set up, and good for large communities.

As I mentioned earlier, Oracle VM VirtualBox and VMware Workstation offer roughly the same type of features. One of the main differences is that VMware Workstation is a commercial product while Oracle VM VirtualBox is open-source. Resource utilization and graphics support is much better on VMWare, but overall performance is higher with Oracle VM VirtualBox.

VirtualBox is just as robust and as functional as the VMware desktop product. It actually has more features and in some ways is easier to work with. I've also found that VirtualBox supports newer operating systems better than VMware Workstation. There's also the cost advantage of VirtualBox. VirtualBox works equally well on all operating systems.

I have used Parallels as well as VMware Workstation and have always returned to VirtualBox. VirtualBox is free which makes it easy to try. Compared to the others, it does everything I need. In +7 years I have not been able to justify the cost of a Parallels Desktop or VMware Workstation when compared against VirtualBox. They simply cannot justify their high costs, the products offer nothing extra most users would need.

It's free, fast, and really well built. Obviously, VMware is the key competitor, but I consider that more of an enterprise app for building and managing entire networks of virtual systems, whereas VirtualBox is fantastic as a personal VM tool. What it lacks in enterprise-grade features, it makes up for in speed and ease-of-adoption.

In a Windows environment, Docker would not even be possible, to begin with. Also, on the way around, having a Linux based Machine, without Oracle VM VirtualBox, one would have to create a partitioned disk and enable it at boot time in order to be able to run Windows in such a machine. So, Docker would not be possible for Windows (Thanks Oracle VM VirtualBox!) and Windows software would not be possible in a Linux based environment.

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.

We feel like we made a good decision going with Oracle VM VirtualBox because it was more enterprise ready. They had great customer success team and proper API compatibility which allowed for great integration into our legacy tools. The support we got from the development community also help lead to faster pace development.

I have used a couple of other hypervisors but those softwares are no longer operational and have became obsolete.

We chose Oracle because they have various amounts of products to integrate with.

Parallels works very nicely on Macintosh computers, but I prefer to use VirtualBox when possible because of the costly subscription fees and poor networking support of Parallels. I recommend VirtualBox as well for any user that wishes to experiment with various operating systems.