LXD is a system container and virtual machine manager. It offers a unified user experience around full Linux systems running inside containers or virtual machines. LXD is image based and provides images for a wide number of Linux distributions. It supports various use cases, with support for different storage backends and network types and the option to install on hardware ranging from an individual laptop or cloud instance to a full server rack. LXD is written in Go. It is free software…
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Oracle VirtualBox
Score 9.3 out of 10
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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.
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Linux Containers LXD
Oracle VirtualBox
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LXD
Oracle VirtualBox
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Free/Freemium Version
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Linux Containers LXD
Oracle VirtualBox
Features
Linux Containers LXD
Oracle VirtualBox
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Scenarios where you need an authentication server, a GIT repository the system works very well 'cause you don't need any scalability and the ease to configure and share the same Linux system image across the containers and the rollback process is quick. I didn't put any critical applications there not because of the limitations but due to a company policy.
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.
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).
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.
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
Linux Containers LXD feels like a more primitive version of docker, docker-compose and similar projects from the docker ecosystem. The Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml methods of specifying a container setup, as well as the network and file configurations afforded by Docker make working with containers much easier and more reproducible than with Linux Containers LXD.
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
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.