Oracle VirtualBox vs. Proxmox VE

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

Proxmox VE is a virtualization platform that provides a range of features and functionalities suitable for various scenarios. Here are some specific scenarios where Proxmox VE is well suited and some scenarios where it might not be the best choice:Well-suited scenarios:Virtualization of server workloads: Proxmox VE is well suited for virtualizing server workloads such as web servers, mail servers, database servers, and other similar applications. Its high-performance virtualization capabilities allow these workloads to run smoothly and efficiently.Hosting multiple virtual machines (VMs): Proxmox VE is ideal for hosting multiple VMs on a single server. It provides efficient resource management, allowing users to easily allocate resources to each VM.Clustered environments: Proxmox VE is a great choice for clustered environments. It supports clustering and can easily manage multiple servers, providing high availability and load balancing for mission-critical applications. Less appropriate scenarios: Limited hardware resources: Proxmox VE requires significant hardware resources to run efficiently. If you have limited hardware resources, it might not be the best choice. Simple applications: If you only need to run a single, simple application, Proxmox VE might be overkill. Other virtualization platforms or even a basic web hosting service might be more appropriate.

• 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).

Incentivized

• ZFS storage out of the box. The integration with ZFS is fantastic. You can easily create pools to store your VM images and data on, and the Proxmox web UI provides an easy way to check drive health, ZFS scrub status, etc.
• Great web UI. Practically everything configurable is available to do so from the web user interface. You'll rarely need to drop to the command line for administrative tasks, unless you want to, in which case you can do that too. The UI also provides graphs and visualisations to help you keep check of how everything is performing.
• Easy to setup a high availability cluster. Although Proxmox VE works perfectly well on a single server, you can also install it on multiple hosts and setup a cluster.
• Uses a Debian core system with an Ubuntu based kernel. This means everything to do with the base operating system is tried and trusted. We use a lot of Debian and Ubuntu installs, so having this run underneath Proxmox VE was an added bonus for us.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The web UI does not work as well on mobile devices. It is useable, but a mobile optimised / responsive UI would be nice to have. There is a mobile app, so that may alleviate this issue, but I have not yet tried it.
• Support in the community forums could be better. There are paid support plans, but new users trying out the software will not have access to this. Answers to questions can sometimes be terse, and I can imagine this may put some people off.
• The wiki is a bit hit and miss with certain topics. I've often seen outdated or missing information, and the whole thing looks like it could do with some polish. I'd love to see it opened up for the community to add to.

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I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used

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Proxmox VE provides the most capable, yet stable virtualization platform in the market today. Licensing options are also competitive and cost-effective for support, and support is extremely fast and knowledgable of getting issues resolved as quickly and soundly as possible.

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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

The interface is easy to use for most of it, but still lacks screens for some configurations. Also, a few of the screens are not as intuitive as they could be. This is specially true with disk and network configuration, where some graphic/visual representations of the configurations would be very useful

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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.

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Proxmox VE's ha-cluster functionality is very much improved, though does have a not-very-often occurrence of failure. In a 2-node cluster of Proxmox VE, HA can fail causing an instance that is supposed to migrate between the two nodes stop and fail until manually recovered through the command-line tools provided. Other than this, the HA clustering capability of Proxmox VE has proven to be reliable in 3 or more clustered environments with much less chance of these failures to occur.

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No issues, especially with the extensions addons.

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Proxmox VE's interfacing is always fast to load, both the Web interface and the command-line tool interfaces. Reporting is practically real time almost all the time, and you can see everything in mere seconds, easily able to identify if something is wrong or it everything is in tip-top shape as always desired

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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.

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They are fast, understanding, very intelligent, know their product very well, fast, responsive, and concise. Need I say more?

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We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.

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It worked, was easy and super fast to deploy, and provided everything we needed in a matter of minutes

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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

Proxmox Virtual Environment is better, less costly, it has better CAPEX and OPEX, is open source and more robust and flexible.

It is an agnostic product, one can use a PC clone or a high end server to install it, and it works flawlessly on both.

The product has a large life cycle, is stable and has few problems and vulnerabilities than the other propietary products.

Incentivized

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

Proxmox VE provides everything you need to quickly add new storage mediums, network and local, as well as networking interfaces, such as using Linux standard bridges and now Open-vSwitch bridges which can be even more scalable than before. Proxmox VE 4.0 dropped support for OpenVZ in favor of the more well supported and native LXC and made an upgrade path to it very simple.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Due to the open source nature of Proxmox, we have no licensing costs while training our employees
• We've migrated 100% of our clients to Proxmox and have found improved uptime, and flexibility.
• In the 10 years of using Proxmox, we've yet to lose any data or not be notified of backup issues.

Incentivized