Oracle VirtualBox vs. VMware Fusion

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Oracle VirtualBox
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Oracle VirtualBox is an open source, cross-platform, virtualization software, enables developers to deliver code faster by running multiple operating systems on a single device.N/A
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Vmware Fusion is a virtual user session software built to run Windows applications on Macintosh to run any Windows applications.N/A
Pricing
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Considered Both Products
Oracle VirtualBox
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.
Chose Oracle VirtualBox
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
Chose Oracle VirtualBox
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 …
Chose Oracle VirtualBox
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 …
Chose Oracle VirtualBox
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 …
Chose Oracle VirtualBox
Considering it is free, the comparison seems slightly unfair, however my personal preference is still Virtual Box. The added features within Fusion are nowhere near important or useful enough to justify spending budget money on it. Therefore, despite VB being less aesthetically …
VMware Fusion
Chose VMware Fusion
Oracle virtualbox has not reason to exist anymore, considering VMware Fusion pro is free for personal and not business use. I think VMware Fusion is better in every aspect. Parallels it's a great alternative, especially if you need only windows. If you need also linux Fusion is …
Chose VMware Fusion
As mentioned previously, perpetual licensing was the #1 reason. The interface is also cleaner, simpler, and less bloat. Parallels also seem to run a bit slower. Fusion was also more stable and significantly faster in both raw performance and graphics compared to Virtualbox. …
Chose VMware Fusion
  • GitHub and Bitbucket are both used by our company for code sharing and are much easier to use for collaborative source code versioning. We internally use GitHub and have some clients who use Bitbucket. In some cases, we have software projects that are very hard to configure, …
Chose VMware Fusion
To be fair, with other products, if pricing was a problem for the organization, I would choose VirtualBox, because it works very well on Mac environment and it has most of the features that VMware Fusion has. However, I personally like the way I can run my Microsoft Windows …
Chose VMware Fusion
VM Fusion is a leader. It has more functionality and capability for workstation virtualization application. Its unity view and resource management of virtual guests is far superior to any other Mac workstation virtualization applications on the market.
Chose VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion works much better for us because of the migration capabilities. We use VMware vSphere and the migration/conversion is seamless. Some of the other virtualization application do not covert or migrate VMs onto other platforms as easily.
Chose VMware Fusion
I actually think it's almost exactly the same as VirtualBox. VirtualBox I used for hosting a Linux distribution, and I think that there are inherently more problems to configuring a Linux distribution than there are to a Windows virtual machine, so mostly my issues were due to …
Features
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Oracle VirtualBox
8.2
Ratings
1% above category average
VMware Fusion
-
Ratings
Virtual machine automated provisioning8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Management console8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 8.7 out of 10
Parallels RAS
Parallels RAS
Score 6.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Oracle VirtualBoxVMware Fusion
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
VMWare Fusion is perfectly suited for an application developer because it allows the dev to create cross-platform applications across the entire spectrum of operating systems without changing devices. An example of where it is less appropriate would be an environment where users are not required or have no need, to use multiple operating systems.
Read full review
Pros
  • Can spin up multiple VMs on a host-only network that speak to each other and allow for interesting test environments spun up at will.
  • Cross-platform functionality allows me to run it on my Linux Desktop and know that tutorials I make with it could be approached by someone on a Windows or Mac OSX system. Hyper-V is limited to Windows, and VMware Workstation requires a license (VMware Player is free, but is not open-source and is more limited in comparison to VirtualBox).
  • If you are testing tools like Vagrant and Test-Kitchen, VirtualBox often seems to have the highest amount of support and documentation when it comes to compatibility (though, many people do use Hyper-V or VMware Workstation without issues).
Read full review
  • Running isolated software development environments. Setting up environment variables and installing the right software versions for a given project can be time consuming and fragile. By doing all of this within a virtual disk image, we can easily switch between software environments without risk of breaking anything.
  • Running Windows-only programs on a Mac is invaluable. We use MacBook Pro laptops for our primary development environment. There are simply some programs we cannot run on OS X. Having VMWare Fusion is an invaluable asset for running Windows apps on Mac laptops on the go.
Read full review
Cons
  • The memory footprint is high, and requires above 8 GB of memory to run an Ubuntu VM smoothly (considering developing inside ubuntu OS inside a MacBook Pro).
  • Some known issues with OVF/OVA images import/export. We had the issue of some sections in OVF being ignored (especially Startup and Install sections).
  • Some intermittent issues when mounting external hard drives and trying to access them from within the running VM.
Read full review
  • It is very rare for this to happen, but sometimes the Windows environment loses the internet connection while the Mac environment still has it. Rebooting the Windows environment in VMware Fusion fixes it.
  • It does not always recognize printers that are set up through the Mac, particularly if they are connected via WiFi instead of hardwired.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
Read full review
For Apple workstations VMware Fusion is the virtualization software to use. No other application (free or paid) can do what Fusion can. The features and constant updates make Fusion an application that cant be beat.
Read full review
Usability
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
Read full review
I made an 8 because it's good in almost every aspect. As I said if you are on macos and you need both windows and linux I think is the best options out there. Otherwise if you need only windows there is a competitor that could be better for performance and integration.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
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.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Performance
No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
Read full review
It does what it says, and it does it well. AND...the technical support is second to none. Within an hour, I'm getting a phone call back from a COMPETENT ENGINEER that knows what he/she is talking about. For the less than 6 times I've had to call, I NEVER had to be escalated to another tech support person. BRAVO!!!
Read full review
Implementation Rating
We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
Read full review
This is a workstation application and no install insights are needed.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
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
Read full review
As mentioned previously, perpetual licensing was the #1 reason. The interface is also cleaner, simpler, and less bloat. Parallels also seem to run a bit slower. Fusion was also more stable and significantly faster in both raw performance and graphics compared to Virtualbox. Virtualbox also had a tendency to random freezings on some of our Linux instances on occasion.
Read full review
Scalability
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.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Direct cost savings - it enables me to do the work I need to do without purchasing additional physical computers
  • Time savings - it allows me to perform testing and reversion that would take much longer on a physical computer
  • Increased productivity - it enables me to more easily integrate with customer environments
Read full review
  • Users using a VM often don't need something as "fancy" as VMware Fusion, and instead can use a free option like Virtual Box, so we waste money on using an extra amount of VMware Fusion licenses.
  • Developers using and IT admins using VMware Fusion for testing saves us time and money. Simply, we know mistakes would take time and money to fix, but VMware is powerful, allows for proper and fast testing.
Read full review
ScreenShots