Item: Oracle VM VirtualBox
Rating: 7
Author: Nate Dillon

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Pros and Cons

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.

Return on Investment

It's a free way for us to use VMs with Vagrant for our development.
Running VMs allows us to closely match our production environment for local development.

Alternatives Considered

Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion

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.

Key Insights

Do you think Oracle VM VirtualBox delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Oracle VM VirtualBox's feature set?

Yes

Did Oracle VM VirtualBox live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Oracle VM VirtualBox go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Oracle VM VirtualBox again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

VirtualBox is a great VM option for use with Vagrant

Overall Satisfaction with Oracle VM VirtualBox