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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Hyper-V

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AN/A

    $24.95

    per month

    Oracle VirtualBox

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AOracle VirtualBox is an open source, cross-platform, virtualization software, enables developers to deliver code faster by running multiple operating systems on a single device.

    $0

    per month

    Pricing
    Hyper-VOracle VirtualBox
    Editions & Modules
    Developer
    $24.95
    per month
    Bronze
    $49.00
    per month
    Silver
    $89.00
    per month
    Gold
    $135.00
    per month
    Platinum
    $199.00
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Hyper-VOracle VirtualBox
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Hyper-VOracle VirtualBox
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    Chose Hyper-V
    Though Docker provides cross-platform support and isolation, Hyper-V provides true virtualization over the host OS and creates boundary over guest OS that protects the security threats, resource-hogging on the host OS.
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    I used VMware vSphere at another company. However, for infrastructure with only two virtual machines, the VMware license cost is not worth it, because with the Windows Server Standard license you have the possibility to install two virtual servers at no extra cost.
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    Hyper-V is powerful and virtualizes Windows exceptionally well, with less tweaking. It is also cheaper, and allows our clients to budget more for more frequent expansion. Its only real competitor in my opinion is VMware, and that is because vCenter is much more intuitive than …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    Hyper-V is far superior to all other virtual host software I've ever used...PLUS IT IS FREE!!! Compared to Oracle Virtual Box, which is also free, Hyper-V is giving you enterprise-level security, management, features and deployment/failover functionality not found elsewhere. …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    I would say Hyper-V would be a peer to VMWare. Features and stability are solid and full-featured for both products. Each have unique shortfalls that the other does not. VirtualBox is a great tool for desktop or laptop virtualization. It is not targeted as much for the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    We use VirtualBox for non-production environments and pre-production testing because it's free. In our experience, we are not confident in VirtualBox for a production environment. On the flip-side, VMware is overkill for our needs and is too complex for our small I.T. dept to …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    Hyper-V competes very well with RHEV--not just on initial cost but also on capabilities and on learning. I know I've written a lot about learning, but it's significant when you have embraced a technology that is so difficult to use that no one wants to administer it. I've used …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    • Installing Hyper-V from the same media as the windows servers.
    • The default windows GUI makes Hyper-V easier to use for junior server managers.
    • Hyper-V gives the feeling that you already know it, while other products like VMware and VirtualBox need their own learning curve before …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    Hyper-v has been the most consistent across disparate host hardware.
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    Hyper-V being 'free' was the main reason we went for it here. We gave VMware Workstation/Server a try when initially evaluating virtualisation options, but Hyper-V won out for ease of integration into our existing environment. VirtualBox was more of a 'plug in' solution which …
    Incentivized
    Chose Hyper-V
    VmWare, VirtualBox, Vagrant.
    Incentivized
    Oracle
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    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 …
    Incentivized
    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
    Incentivized
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    Reasons why I prefer to use Oracle VM VirtualBox:
    • I've worked and taught in many environments where the OS used by others (or by me for employment reasons) is a mix of Windows and Mac OSX. Sometimes Linux is around if I can help it. Being familiar with VirtualBox means I won't …
    Incentivized
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    VM VirtualBox is the best free option on the market. While VMware Workstation can offer better performance than VM Virtualbox, it has a price. The alternative that VMware offers for free virtualization is VMware Player, but offers many fewer features, and falls far short …
    Incentivized
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    Oracle VirtualBox is the better choice due to its cost-effectiveness, ease of use and feature set. However VMware Workstation is more suitable due to its superior performance, better features and better integration with enterprise tools. VMware Workstation also provides a …
    Incentivized
    Chose Oracle VirtualBox
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    32 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    25 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    30 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Hyper-VOracle VirtualBox
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Hyper-V and Oracle VirtualBox
    Feature
    Hyper-V
    8.6
    71 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Oracle VirtualBox
    8.2
    50 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning9.059 Ratings8.036 Ratings
    Management console7.071 Ratings8.846 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup9.063 Ratings8.236 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration8.565 Ratings7.033 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security9.465 Ratings9.029 Ratings
    User Ratings
    Hyper-VOracle VirtualBox
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (72 ratings)
    9.7
    (53 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.5
    (16 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Hyper-VOracle VirtualBox
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    If budgets are stretched, Hyper-V is a very cost effective solution. Any veteran MS Windows administrators will have little issue in getting to grips with this. If you are familiar with VMware solutions, then you may find Hyper-V a little frustrating as it does lack some of the functionality of those products, however nothing that will prevent you from managing your virtual workloads and estate. Since rolling out Hyper-V 2019 we have had no real issues with it; ESXi seemed to have more issues and was less forgiving with hardware compatibility.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Easy to use GUI - very easy for someone with sufficient Windows experience - not necessarily a system administrator.
    • Provisioning VMs with different OSes - we mostly rely on different flavors of Windows Server, but having a few *nix distributions was not that difficult.
    • Managing virtual networks - we usually have 1 or 2 VLANs for our business purposes, but we are happy with the outcomes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    • It is simple to install - there is no advanced knowledge required to begin building virtual computers
    • It is easy to use - adding new virtual machines is simple with wizard-based deployment
    • It enables easy portability - moving virtual machines from one host to another is straight-forward and simple
    • It is free
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • The only issue I have with Hyper-V is I am unable to use Veeam on my Windows 2016 Server to backup my FreeBSD HAProxy VM.
    • There is some sort of checkpoint issue that I have been unable to figure out, but it works just fine on my Windows 2012 Servers. I do believe this is a Microsoft issue and not a Veeam issue though.
    • Another thing that could be useful that Hyper-V does not have would be some sort of GUI that shows the status of all the VM's on a given server to help us manage them easier and know what is going on. However, I do have Zabbix for this and that does a good job at monitoring all my servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    • I have had issues in the past when it has come to resizing VM disk storage. The issue is entirely detailed here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9103 -- the problem was caused because of having existing snapshots (which error message output was not detailing). I haven't had to deal with the issue due to my dynamic disk sizes not being small from the start anymore (this is mostly an issue for my Windows VMs where the base disk may need significant size for the OS). It looks like, for a resize, that a merge of all snapshots has to occur first -- one user on that list details a workaround to maintain snapshots by cloning the VM. (Note: 5.2 was just released a few weeks ago, and looks like it should prevent the problem happening in the future by properly informing users that it isn't possible with snapshots).
    • Certain scenarios, like resizing disks, required dropping into a terminal as there were no options to previously do so via the GUI. According to some recent posts, I've seen that v5.2 has added disk management stuff like that to the GUI (or will be adding it). I'm comfortable with dropping into the terminal, but in a teaching scenario or when evaluating the learnability of the tools, it complicates things.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Cheap and easy is the name of the game. It has great support, it doesn't require additional licenses, it works the same if it is a cluster or stand-alone, and all the servers can be centrally managed from a system center virtual machine manager server, even when located at remote sites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    It is very easy to configure new virtual machines and manage them. But you have to use different interfaces to perform various tasks. Especially as soon as it comes to clustering you have to use at least two different interfaces (Hyper-V Manager and Failover-Cluster Manager) to perform all necessary tasks. The newly released Windows Admin Center is a way into the right direction to get all management tasks into one single interface.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    In the past 2 years our Hyper-V servers have only had a handful of instances where the VM's on them were unreachable and the physical Hyper-V server had to be restarted. One time this was due to a RAM issue with the physical box and was resolved when we stopped using dynamic memory in Hyper-V. The other times were after updates were installed and the physical box was not restarted after the updates were installed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    Hyper-V itself works quickly and rarely gave performance issues but this can be more attributed to the physical server specifications that the actual Hyper-V software in my opinion as Hyper-V technically just utilizes config files such as xml, and a data drive file (VHD, VHDX, etc) to perform its' duties.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    Hyper-V is greatly supported by techs around the world. There are tons of forums, help websites and individuals ready to answer questions. I've never needed to contact Microsoft for help...because help is so easy to find out there. Do a search online for anything related to Hyper-V and you will certainly find an article with spelled out steps on how to do what you are looking to do.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Microsoft
    We had in person training from a third party and while it was very in depth it was at a beginner's level and by the time we received the training we had advanced past this level so it was monotonous and redundant at that point. It was good training though and would have provided a solid foundation for learning the rest of Hyper-V had I had it from the beginning.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Microsoft
    The training was easy to read and find. There were good examples in the training and it is plentiful if you use third party resources also. It is not perfect as sometimes you may have a specific question and have to spend time learning or in the rare case you get an error you might have to research that error code which could have multiple causes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    initial configuration of hyper-v is intuitive to anyone familiar with windows and roles for basic items like single server deployments, storage and basic networking. the majority of the problems were with implementing advanced features like high availability and more complex networking. There is a lot of documentation on how to do it but it is not seamless, even to experienced virtualization professionals.
    Incentivized
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    Oracle
    We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    VMware is the pioneer of virtualization but when you compare it with Hyper-V, VMware lacks the flexibility of hardware customization and configuration options Hyper-V has also GPU virtualization still not adequate for both platforms. VMware has better graphical interface and control options for virtual machines. Another advantage VMware has is it does not need a dedicated os GUI base installation only needs small resources and can easily install on any host.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Microsoft
    Nothing is perfect but Hyper-V does a great job of showing the necessary data to users to ensure that there is enough resources to perform essential functions. You can also select what fields show on the management console which is helpful for a quick glance. There are notifications that can be set up and if things go unnoticed and a Hyper-V server runs out of a resource it will safely and quickly shut down the VM's it needs to in order to ensure no Hardware failure or unnecessary data loss.
    Incentivized
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    Oracle
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • Hyper-V has provided for an extremely cost-effective virtual environment with disaster recovery. For the size of our business, it's all we need to ensure our desired level of continuity of services and protection against hardware failures.
    • Since we are a Windows shop, deploying Hyper-V means we don't have the added cost of a hypervisor, since it's included in the cost of the Windows Server license. It's all we needed to achieve our goal of running all our virtual machines on a single server with another, less expensive server on tap for replication and failover.
    • We wanted easy deployment and management with disaster recovery while having the ability to leverage our years of Windows SysAdmin experience. Hyper-V fit the bill.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Oracle
    • Minimal-to-no support needed from the DevOps team.
    • Provides a direct and an easy way to access multiple VMs inside the same machines which enables performing various testing and QA tasks without the need to switch hardware.
    • Automatic provisioning using tools (esp. Vagrant) which enables developing a base image once, and allows for exporting/importing anywhere across the developers team.
    • Very cost-effective (no fees or monthly subscriptions).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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