Comparison between VirtualBox and others...

[Technologov]

Hi all !

I found a very good article with comparison between prev. generation products:
http://www.techairlines.com/virtualbox- ... ion-6-5-3/

Basically the author points at several extra features of VMware: (That I would be happy to see in VirtualBox too)
-screenshots
-video stream record (AVI format)
-record/replay VM execution (I don't know how they do it)
-Branched snapshots (Fixed in v3.1)
-Performance (Disk I/O, OS install and files copy)
-Files Drag-n-Drop
-Unity seems to be more advanced than "Seamless" mode.

...and few more features from me: (compared to VMware WS 7)
-Automatic Guest OS install
-Map Guest OS disk into Host OS filesystem (when guest is powered off) -- there is some 3rd party module made by OSS community, but only for Linux hosts...
-Aero support in Vista/Windows 7 guests

If you find good articles, please share !



-Technologov

[sej7278]

virtualbox didn't beat vmware for anything did it?!

i've not used vmware workstation in years, but i can definitely say any version of vbox is faster than vmware server 1 or 2 (their free product) by miles.

workstation just isn't worth the 189usd price tag, although i have seen fusion (the mac version) for as low as 22usd, but that's pretty poor in my experience too - flaky and slow.

vmware don't seem to be coming up with anything new - their desktop products just concentrate on getting directx accelerated and their server products are all about new ways of managing multiple machines.

i guess after a point you run out of new things to add to a virtualiser, concentrating on guest/host compatibility and speed increases is where the ongoing work is i'd say, not aero/compiz/games or adding silly web gui's.

[Perryg]

All of the test I have seen are subjective to say the least. Someone testing on their own system using their own time piece.
What I would like is some solid comparisons from a testing lab. Not just some Joe with a PC making statements like your mileage may vary.
Actually this does not matter to me either. VBox does what I want and is so close to native it is almost scary. (SMP difficulties excluded)
In fact in some instances it actually works faster than native which is really strange.

[stefan.becker]

You compare apples with pears.

VMWare Server is a Server Produtct, not made for a desktop and good graphic performance.

And if you compare prices: VBOX PUEL is free for private use. VMWare Player is this, too. And with Version 3.0 of VMWare Player you can create guests without editing vmx-files.

Both companies create great software products. I use both worlds.

[Entity]

Last time I checked VMware workstation (6.5), VirtualBox was still more responsive in a Windows guest.

[popej]

I'm using mostly VMware Player. I don't see much difference in general use, but the main thing is that VMware SMP really works. With 4 vCPU guest can be many times faster then in VBox. And SMP for 32-bit OS works without hardware virtualisation, which is a bonus for my laptop

[mpack]

All of the test I have seen are subjective to say the least.

Not to mention the strange selection of tests: the test of write speed to a USB flash drive strikes me as particularly dumb, since the timing is bound to be dominated by the slow write speeds inherent in such devices (which are optimized for cheapness, capacity and read speed - not write speed), particularly over USB. The fact that he measured any difference at all between VBox and VMware in this test has me doubting the quality of the test procedure.

[Technologov]

Let's slightly update:
Vmware got one more major feature:
-Printer Pass-through

VirtualBox (4.1) in the meantime got several killer features:

-Aero / WDDM, playing catch-up with VMware
-UDP Tunnels (allows for creation of a new category-killer app; GNS3 Network Simulator - VirtualBox Edition)
-PCI Pass-through (server feature currently, but may become desktop feature in few years)
-GuestControl Execution

So, for now the power balance look like this:

Unique features of VirtualBox 4.1, compared to VMware 7.1:
-Scaled mode
-GuestControl Execution
-UDP Tunnels
(+server-oriented features: )
-PCI Pass-through
-Page Fusion + Memory Ballooning

Unique features of VMware 7.1, compared to VirtualBox 4.1:
-Printer Pass-through
-Faster and better Direct3D
-File Drag-n-drop
-Unattended GuestOS install
-Ability to mount disk images on host OSes

---
-Technologov

[twipley]

In fact in some instances it actually works faster than native which is really strange.

I have had that feeling, too. Only exception to this was archiving some folder through 7zip's shell menu which took an infinite time because of some obscure issue, which by the way went away when archiving the exact same thing through the software's GUI instead. But that is an exception, generally it is amazingly fast for virtualization software.

[Technologov]

Now, with VMware WorkStation 8 is out, it has some new killer features:
-nested VT-x/AMD-v
-AutoStart VMs on host boot

But it has one big drawback:
-no longer supports 32-bit host CPUs. (32-bit host OSes still supported)

In some cases, WS 8 just plays catch-up with VirtualBox 4.1:
-64 GB of RAM supported (per guest)
-Intel HDA

All-in-all the amount of improvements in VMware 8.0, is poor, considering the 2 year time period from VMware 7.0.
VirtualBox usually introduces 2-3 killer features every major release (read: every 6 months).

Progress has slowed down significantly. But, in my opinion, this is because the product has reached maturity, beyond which it is
very difficult to develop and innovate, just like Windows XP reached maturity 10 years ago, and it is very hard to develop beyond
already mature and feature-complete product.

-Technologov