Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VirtualBox VS virt-manager

Compare VirtualBox VS virt-manager and see what are their differences

VirtualBox logo VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as...

virt-manager logo virt-manager

The virt-manager application is a desktop user interface for managing virtual machines through...
  • VirtualBox Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-17
  • virt-manager Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-05

VirtualBox features and specs

  • Open Source
    VirtualBox is open-source software, which means it is freely available for personal and commercial use. Users can access and modify the source code, enhancing flexibility and customization.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    VirtualBox supports multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Solaris, making it highly versatile and suitable for various environments.
  • Ease of Use
    VirtualBox offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for both beginners and experienced users to create and manage virtual machines.
  • Snapshot Feature
    VirtualBox allows users to take snapshots of their virtual machines, enabling them to save the current state and revert back to it if necessary, which is useful for testing and debugging.
  • Guest Additions
    VirtualBox provides Guest Additions that enhance the performance and usability of guest operating systems. Features include shared folders, clipboard sharing, and improved graphics performance.

Possible disadvantages of VirtualBox

  • Performance Overhead
    VirtualBox may introduce performance overhead compared to running software directly on physical hardware. This can affect the speed and responsiveness of the virtual machines.
  • Limited 3D Graphics Support
    The 3D graphics support in VirtualBox is not as robust as some other virtualization solutions, which may be a limitation for users requiring heavy graphical applications.
  • Lack of Enterprise-Level Features
    While VirtualBox is suitable for personal and small-scale use, it may lack some advanced features and scalability options required for large enterprise environments.
  • Complex Network Setup
    Setting up complex networking configurations in VirtualBox can be challenging and may require additional knowledge and effort.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running multiple virtual machines in VirtualBox can be resource-intensive, potentially leading to system slowdowns if the host machine does not have sufficient CPU and memory resources.

virt-manager features and specs

  • User-friendly Interface
    Virt-manager provides a graphical user interface that makes it easier for users to manage virtual machines, especially for those who are less comfortable with command-line tools.
  • Integration with libvirt
    Virt-manager seamlessly integrates with libvirt, allowing users to manage different types of hypervisors such as KVM, Xen, and QEMU, among others.
  • Snapshot Management
    The tool supports snapshot management, allowing users to take and manage snapshots of their virtual machines easily.
  • Resource Allocation
    It provides an intuitive way to allocate resources such as CPU, memory, and storage to different virtual machines, making it easier to optimize performance.
  • Remote Management
    Virt-manager allows users to manage virtual machines on remote hosts via SSH, giving flexibility in managing VMs across different physical machines.

Possible disadvantages of virt-manager

  • Linux-centric
    Primarily designed for Linux users, meaning Windows and macOS users may face challenges or limited functionality when using virt-manager.
  • Performance Overhead
    Graphical tools like virt-manager may introduce a slight performance overhead compared to managing VMs via direct command-line tools.
  • Complexity for Large Environments
    While virt-manager is great for small to medium setups, managing a large number of virtual machines can become cumbersome due to the limitations of the GUI.
  • Limited Advanced Features
    Some advanced features available in command-line tools or other sophisticated management solutions may not be fully supported in virt-manager.
  • Dependency on libvirt
    Its functionality heavily depends on libvirt, making it less versatile if you need to manage hypervisors not supported by libvirt.

VirtualBox videos

VirtualBox vs VMware Player - In-Depth Comparison on Ubuntu 18.04

More videos:

  • Review - Oracle VM VirtualBox Review (Real User: Erik Benner)
  • Tutorial - How to Use VirtualBox (Beginners Guide)

virt-manager videos

Creating Virtual Machines in QEMU | Virt-manager | KVM

More videos:

  • Review - Virt-Manager Is The Better Way To Manage VMs
  • Review - Virt-Manager, QEMU and KVM (2020) | Practical IT

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VirtualBox and virt-manager)
Cloud Computing
66 66%
34% 34
Virtualization
85 85%
15% 15
Virtual Machine Management
Virtualization Platform
49 49%
51% 51

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VirtualBox and virt-manager

VirtualBox Reviews

Best Alternatives of VirtualBox for Windows
I’m sure you can appreciate the irony in the name of this program, but this is also a very accurate description of what Portable-VirtualBox is. In essence, this free and open source program is VirtualBox and does not need to be installed, making it useful even if it is contained on a USB drive. Portable-VirtualBox works by virtually downloading and installing VirtualBox on...
10 Best VMware Alternatives and Similar Software
VirtualBox now supports a broad number of guest operating systems and operates on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts. VirtualBox is constantly evolving, with regular patches and an ever-growing list of features, and it supports various OSs and platforms.
12 Best FREE Virtual Machine (VM) Software in 2020
VirtualBox is an open-source hypervisor for x86 computers. This tool supports the creation and management of virtual machines. It runs on Windows, Linux, BSD, and others.
Source: www.guru99.com
What are the Top Most Open Source Virtualization Software?
VirtualBox provides full virtualization for any operating system to run in a virtual environment with all the software installed within, abstracted from the existing operating system.
7 VirtualBox Alternatives You Can Consider
There are lots of virtualization software out there that let you run multiple applications from different platforms in the same hardware. One of them is VirtualBox by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox is an open source and freeware that lets users create a virtual environment to run a different operating system on the same machine. It runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Solaris....

virt-manager Reviews

We have no reviews of virt-manager yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, virt-manager should be more popular than VirtualBox. It has been mentiond 65 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

VirtualBox mentions (32)

  • Barbie Secret Agent game for Mac
    Also, if your sister has an Intel Mac instead of an M1 Mac, I highly suggest VirtualBox and setting up something like Windows XP on that instead of Windows 11-- the steps will be pretty similar, and VirtualBox is free. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Is virtualbox.org down?
    I am unable to reach any page within the virtualbox.org domain including forums, but I can't find any post online about others having this issue. Is there a known problem at virtualbox.org or should I look locally? I usually get the error 502 - Bad Gateway. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Multipass: Ubuntu Virtual Machines Made Easy
    Some of these tools include Oracle VM VirtualBox (that I've used since before the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle), VMWare Workstation Player, and QEMU, but last year, I found out about Multipass. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Can I use a Mac?
    You can use a Mac, then use Parallels or Virtual Box for any virtual machines you might need(I prefer Parallels). There are Educational versions of Windows amongst other Microsoft products available to you through NJIT. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Will anyone continue on debian 11?
    I thought Debian doesn't have VB packages? Or are you the talking about the ones from http://virtualbox.org web site? Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

virt-manager mentions (65)

  • Locked in: the inextricable dependency on VMWare
    Libvirt is a C library developped by RedHat under the terms of the GNU LGPL license, that provides a generic API that abstracts the bits and bytes of the underlying hypervisor, networking and storage technologies. Using libvirt generic API permits to benefit from a large ecosystem of open source software and tools. As an example, it is possible to use the virt-manager client to create and manage virtual... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Reproducing the printer hack of Windows 95
    It's still being updated. I don't see anything on the virt-manager homepage or GitHub that would suggest it is deprecated. https://virt-manager.org/ https://github.com/virt-manager/virt-manager It can't do literally everything Qemu/libvirt can do using only the UI, but given that it has escape hatches to directly edit libvirt configurations, and... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Proxmox VE: Import Wizard for Migrating VMware ESXi VMs
    I would love to see a serious comparison (features & performance) between VMWare ESXi, Proxmox VE and let's say a more stock RHEL or Ubuntu. And maybe even include FreeBSD/bhyve. Because yes, in terms of core functionality it should be in the same ballpark. And in terms of UI, Virtual Machine Manager [0] was not that bad. [0] https://virt-manager.org/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines
    Shout out to https://virt-manager.org/ - works much better for me, supports running qemu on remote systems via ssh. I used to use this all the time for managing bunches of disparate vm hosts and local vms. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Oracle data base
    If not, I would just run a CentOS Stream 8 virtual machine using either GNOME Boxes or virt-manager, and set up networking and ssh so you can access the database from the host. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VirtualBox and virt-manager, you can also consider the following products

VMware Workstation - VMware Workstation is a multiple operating system handler to easily evaluate the any other type of new operating systems.

VMmanager - VMmanager is a QEMU/KVM server virtualization management software, which presents perfect tools for creating virtual machines, providing VPS services, and building cloud infrastructure.

QEMU - QEMU (short for "Quick EMUlator") is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor that...

Proxmox VE - Proxmox is an open-source server virtualization management solution that offers the ability to manage virtual server technology with the Linux OpenVZ and KVM technology.

Hyper-V - Install Hyper-V on Windows 10

oVirt - oVirt is a virtualization management application.