--- title: VirtualBox Reviews meta_title: 'VirtualBox Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 294 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how VirtualBox works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.5 review_count: 294 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-13' parent_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # VirtualBox Reviews **Vendor:** Oracle **Category:** [Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/virtual-desktop-infrastructure-vdi) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 294 ## About VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox is a free, open-source, cross-platform virtualization software that enables users to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single device. Designed for IT professionals and developers, VirtualBox supports Windows, macOS, Linux, and Oracle Solaris as host operating systems, making it ideal for testing, development, demonstration, and deployment across diverse platforms. Key Features and Functionality: - Cross-Platform Compatibility: VirtualBox runs on various host operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Oracle Solaris, and supports a wide range of guest operating systems. - High Performance: The software leverages the latest in chip-level support for virtualization, including support for AMD, Intel, and Apple silicon processors, to provide faster execution times for guest operating systems. - 3D Graphics Support: VirtualBox includes VBoxSVGA and VMSVGA interfaces to improve 3D graphics performance. - USB Device Support: It implements a virtual USB controller, allowing users to connect arbitrary USB devices to virtual machines without installing device-specific drivers on the host. - Disk Image Encryption: VirtualBox supports 128 or 256-bit data encryption keys, enabling transparent encryption of data stored in hard disk images using the AES algorithm. - Remote Machine Display: The VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension (VRDE) enables high-performance remote access to running virtual machines, supporting the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) with additional features like full client USB support. Primary Value and Solutions Provided: VirtualBox addresses several key challenges for its users: - Cost Reduction: By allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single device, VirtualBox reduces the need for multiple physical machines, thereby lowering hardware and operational costs. - Development Efficiency: Developers can test applications across different operating systems and versions using the same desktop environment, accelerating the development and testing process. - Simplified Software Distribution: Solution providers can distribute applications within a VirtualBox virtual machine, ensuring compatibility across various operating systems and versions without additional configuration. - Legacy Application Support: IT teams can extend the lifespan of legacy applications by running them on modern hardware through VirtualBox, avoiding the need for costly application rewrites or hardware replacements. - Secure Remote Access: VirtualBox facilitates secure access to restricted applications for remote workers by providing encrypted and isolated environments, ensuring data security and compliance without extensive rearchitecting of applications. In summary, Oracle VM VirtualBox offers a versatile and efficient solution for running multiple operating systems on a single device, enhancing development workflows, reducing costs, and providing secure, cross-platform compatibility for various IT needs. ## VirtualBox Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users praise the **easy-to-use virtualization management** of VirtualBox, enabling seamless integration of multiple operating systems. (4 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use** of VirtualBox, enjoying seamless integration and hassle-free setup for various operating systems. (3 reviews) - Users value the **seamless integration** of various operating systems in VirtualBox, enhancing their virtualization experience effortlessly. (2 reviews) - Users appreciate the **end-to-end encryption** of VirtualBox, ensuring data security for sensitive information. (2 reviews) - Users find the **customer support** of VirtualBox invaluable, enhancing their experience in development and testing environments. (1 reviews) - Users value the **seamless Linux integration** of VirtualBox, appreciating its ease of use and installation. (1 reviews) - Networking (1 reviews) - Open Source (1 reviews) - OS Support (1 reviews) - Setup Ease (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users often face **performance issues** with VirtualBox, including crashes, slow performance, and limited support for certain ISO files. (3 reviews) - Users experience issues with **communication clarity** , affecting the ability to share documents effectively in VirtualBox. (1 reviews) - Users experience **frequent crashes** and **ISO compatibility issues** with VirtualBox, negatively impacting their work efficiency. (1 reviews) - Users experience **lag due to limited resources** , as VirtualBox consumes excessive RAM from the Windows machine. (1 reviews) - Users find the **network setup complicated** with various modes in VirtualBox, depending on the version used. (1 reviews) ## VirtualBox Reviews ### 1. Virtualbox my story **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Proste M. | Informatique, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Virtualbox is for me like my second computer since I have it, I no longer dual boot. I request on a hard Windows partition and on it I start Linux or any other distribution, which allows me to transfer my work from one OS to another without having to restart. VBox is equipped with a complete network interface, that's my opinion. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** What I don't have, well, I don't know how to respond. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** You want to start a Linux machine on Windows or even test unknown operating systems, VirtualBox is there for that. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** The problem was to transfer files to another operating system on the same hard drive thanks to vBox and shared folders I can do it without restarting. ### 2. A practical service **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gilbert C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Virtualbox is a 100% free service if you like computing, programming, etc. Virtualbox is made to see a quality service with compatible drivers, everything is perfect. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** So I do not want to criticize Virtualbox in any way because it is not their fault, but unfortunately when an operating system is emulated on it, we cannot use the wifi card with the wireless on our original operating system, there is no difference. But if you want a different wifi for your Virtualbox, you need to invest in an external wifi card. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** You are looking for how to run a virtual machine on your PC for free, VirtualBox is made for you without a doubt. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Virtualbox allowed me to test multiple operating systems with colleagues, always easily. ### 3. Easy to use VM manager or Hypervisor **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I like the way we can launch new virtual machines with any guest OS of choice like ubuntu, centos, windows, etc. I also like the ease with which we can choose the network type - like wireless or ethernet or local network. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Sometimes when the VMs do not launch, the errors shown are not very informative. In such cases the only option would be to destroy the VM and re-create. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** good hypervisor to use for creating virtual machines and learning. Easy method to have multiple operating systems on same box. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use virtualbox to create VMs to use them as Ansible server - a repository of Ansible playbooks and run those playbooks on the network elements. Initially getting a Linux server to host playbooks was a challenge as that server needed internet and also should have access to the network elements. VMs based out of virtualbox helped me achieve both ### 4. Great virtual environment **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 23, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Easy to use, ease of access. Easy to build and burn and test virtual machines. Great to test before putting machines in production. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Error codes are never good enough to help troubleshoot actual issues. Always have to google around and around to try and find a fix. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Testing new products and software in test, before putting it in production. ### 5. Fast and Simple Virtualization Platform for Desktop **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Marketing and Advertising | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 01, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** VirtualBox has revolutionized how I can build out systems, support developers, test new features, and trial new applications on my local desktop. Installing this tool on my Windows desktop and then adding something like Vagrant has allowed me to go from no systems to new dashboard tools, new testing tools, new security tools, and new applications in minutes by following simple instructions presented by other engineers out there on the internet. From github projects, I clocked only about 20 minutes of time from nothing to a full working install of something I've never used before. Learning curve is simple for those with some rudimentary technical skills. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The VirtualBox guest additions is a bit convoluted to install, but not necessary to get work done. The networking can also be a bit complicated if you do not have a basic familiarity with some network hardware and network topology. Following along a blog instructions only works if your use case is just like whatever you found. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Try using VirtualBox first before anything else if you are on a Windows PC or Linux. If you use a Mac, try it and compare against VMware Fusion. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** We install new applications to test out in our environment and use VirtualBox with Vagrant images to allow teams of developers to start working on new projects within a day rather than weeks of trying to install software they are not familiar with. ### 6. Easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 24, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** The simplicity that gives you to deploy virtual system on a workstation. We can test out program with any system/operating system but only using one physical system. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The competence is better in terms of support/comunity **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Continue giving support to newer os appearing. You are in the right way. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Testing our products in lots of environments without having it physically ### 7. Best virtualization system for all uses **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cody B. | Signal Support System Specialist, Military, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 17, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Very simple to test programs and operating systems without having to format or partition your HDD or SSD. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Take a bit of fiddling to run certain setups such as MAC or android. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allowing secure access and infection containment. Must have for cyber security. ### 8. virtualbox **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 09, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** good hosting platform and options to select vm host configurations **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** the tools for advanced functionality are hard to install and show errors often **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** hosting vm os on systems across the network ### 9. Great for testing on windows **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bonnie L. | Software Engineer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I used this in school and at work. It' does its job like it's supossed to just like a normal computer and you can download all kind of OS on it! **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** It's pretty heavy on the computer so I try to not open it when I'm using a lot of programs. It's slow as well. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it for QA test on different OS. This works great, you don't have to buy like 20 different computers just to test ### 10. Efficiency **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 22, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Easiest way to set up a VM on my Mac for both school and work **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** High disk space utilization makes install a bit hard (back reqd before) **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Virtual machine solutions for higher education ### 11. Very good virtualization software **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Carlos G. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 30, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Allows emulating multiple operating systems with very good performance **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** It is not possible to virtualize machines with macOS. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allows having multiple operating systems available on the same machine at the same time ### 12. Virtual machine like a charm **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniele S. | Vice presidente, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 17, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Easy to install and maintain during the time with a lot of scripting opportunity **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** On debian repository often is not on sync with vagrant release support **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Supports a lot of format for virtual machines so check the type of image you want to use **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Running on dev machines a vm to work daily based on our needs ### 13. Power and flexibility **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 29, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** The easy way to setup and configure new virtual machines or import and export from others **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** When Guest additions plugin is failing and you are not able to copy from or to the Virtual Machine **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Use it to manage all your virtual hosts **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Access to remote hosts through dedicated VPNs ### 14. The world's best free virtual environment **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Free, and staple with good performance abilities **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** sometimes not compatible between certain host OS and guest OS. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** run application in different environments ### 15. Best Free Virtual Machine Manager **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 31, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** What I like best about Oracle VirtualBox is that it is free and offers decent capabilities. The ability to port virtual machines in different formats is great in addition to taking virtual machine snap shots. Networking, USB and local file system access are easy and intuitive. The ability to install different operating systems is also easy to do and configure. The ability to do drag and drop between guest and host operating systems is easy. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** What I dislike about Oracle VirtualBox is that it lacks some feature rich capabilities; however, for basic virtual machine management, Oracle VirtualBox will get the job done. It would be nice if additional features could be incorporated into future releases such as greater support for operating systems and advanced networking capabilities across different operating systems. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you are just looking for basic virtual machine capabilities without any advanced features, Oracle VirtualBox will definitely get the job done. Support is somewhat limited, but support forums can help you get the information that you need. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** The business problems we are trying to solve with Oracle VirtualBox are software and application testing in addition to malware analysis. Oracle VirtualBox allows you to achieve each of these objectives in a testing environment with the ability to take snap shots, duplicate virtual machines and roll back changes. There are some capability issues with some OSes, but overall, this product works great especially since it is free. ### 16. Excellent software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brad E. | Senior Computer Programmer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 01, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I started using Virtual Box in March 2014. There are many virtualizations solutions on the market, however, Virtual Box has one big differentiator: It is open source which means it is free to use. Surprisingly, it also has many of the features of the paid competitors. Like other paid competitors, you can do things such as drop and drag files between guest and host; set up a virtual network drive on the guest machine to access the host files; copy and paste between guest and host, suspend machine states and even save states to roll back to for future use. All of these features work very well. If you are using a Mac and have Bootcamp installed, then you can even access the Bootcamp drive which is very handy if you want to do some work in Windows without having to boot up into the full Windows system. There is a great support community, so you can often find a good selection of tutorials and videos to help installing and setting up virtual machines. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Virtual box does have a few minor annoyances. Firstly, some of the more advance functions, such as setting up a network drive between guest and host and accessing a Bootcamp drive are a bit tricky to set up and can take a good half-hour to an hour of configuring to get up and running. It’s not too hard to do all this and you only need to set them up once, but it’s not possible to do these in one click. Another problem is that the interface is slightly ugly. This is a minor annoyance, because once you load a virtual machine, you will rarely see the interface. And the interface is very useable, so it doesn’t create any usability problems. But every time I look at it, I wish it was more pretty and less grey! **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you need to emulate other systems and only need basic tools (such as copy and paste between guest and host) go for Virtual Box. If you need more advanced tools (such as being able to access the Bootcamp drive on a Mac) and don’t mind spending a good half hour to set this up once, then go for Virtual Box. If however, you need these advance tools and don’t like setting up things, then go for something like VMware Fusion. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it primarily to test websites and applications on a variety of platforms. It is much faster than owning the machines separately. The ability to suspend and restart sessions is a huge time saver, as it makes it faster to test specific features of a site or application. ### 17. Virtual Box is Awesome **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Museums and Institutions | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 21, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's so, so easy to use! My work uses a help desk ticketing system that doesn't work on Macs, which is what I use. Virtual box allows me to log into a windows enviornment so I can access that software on my Mac. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** It could be a little faster when starting up but they very well be because of our slow internet connection. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Since my department uses Macs and our help desk ticketing system only works on Windows machines, it allows us to remotely log into a Windows enviornment so we can access that software. ### 18. Awesome Software for building a test machine **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jackie R. | Associate Director of Telecom & PC Support, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 09, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It was easy to build a test vm computer with this product. Best part it was free. It allow me to test some software in different mode. I was able to make backups so if I made a mistake I could go back to a restore point with out having to rebuilding. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Help documents was bit confusing. I wish there was a real manual on the networking part. They should use more screen shots. But what can you do its a free product. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Test and use you can't go wrong. Anyone can use this product. Its really helpful and easy to setup., **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** It help me test an old PBX software that was working on a Windows 7 or Win10 machine. It allowed me to test and not worry about messing up the real machine. ### 19. A simplified version to virtual computing. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rudolph A. O. | Customer Support & Experience Representative, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 14, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's easy to use, easy to set up and not much is required. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Doesn't give you the ability to automatically install addons like fit to screen etc. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Virtual machine ### 20. Virtual systems **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Internet | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 18, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Easy and fast virtual machine management system **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Sometimes it is complicated to install some specific drivers. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have used it to have a Windows system to use Internet Explorer and Outlook on macOS. ### 21. Running Windows on my Mac **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Isaac M. | Application Developer, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** This application does a great job of allowing me to run Windows 10 on my Macbook Pro. The setup process was simple and I have not have had any issues. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The user interface is outdated, but it is not terrible. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** This is a great option for running multiple operating systems at once. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am able to build Crystal Reports for my clients on my Macbook because I am able to run the Windows operating system. ### 22. Best free and open source solution for virtualization **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Marco I. | Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It is free, under GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 license, and easy to use over multiple platform. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Not so easy troubleshooting and network configuration. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** We can create virtual environment in a easy way and distribute it across people for testing and development purpose. ### 23. Fantastic VM experience **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Greg S. | Director, Research Services, Higher Education, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 28, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Certainly the price (free!) is among the most attractive features of VirtualBox, but it's actually an extremely capable product that (for my use) is as good as products that cost hundreds of dollars. Amazingly, VirtualBox supports lots of different disk image formats, including the popular VMDK format, so it's easy to switch to VMWare (or other software) if you don't like VirtualBox. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Transferring files between the client and host can be a bit clunky. The Guest Additions makes this a bit better but it would be nice if somehow the client's disks showed up in the host's file explorer. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** A lot of the software I need to run will only work on Linux. VirtualBox allows me to have a complete Linux installation running within my Windows host environment. In fact, I can have several different Linux distributions for testing purposes, and can take "snapshots" of the environment in case there might be a need to go back to that exact point again in the future. ### 24. Virtualization for everyone in town. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jose Adan O. | DevOps Ambassador, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 17, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** What easy is to deploy a virtual machine with Virtual Box. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Process to install Virtual Box Tools in Linux environments. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you need an easy to deploy desktop virtualization solution, Virtual Box can help you very well. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** As a web developer i need a tool to sandbox different environments. ### 25. Development on different envirronment **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 22, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I use it on a development envirronment to have many system on a same machine to develop on a different operting system and it's very simple to create, start and use a different O.S. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Noting to dislay the only think could be some difficult to convert the machine for vmWare **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** It permits to me to have many dfferent machine/envirnment on the same PC, to develop, for example on a different OS or different customer envirronment. ### 26. VirtualBox is the best VM software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 02, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It is an open source and offer for free but contains of feature as same as paid product. What I love most are it is require a small size of ram and disk if compare to other VM product. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** I have nothing mention for dislike point. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** VirtualBox is opensource product so you no need to worries about cost but features of product as same as paid one **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I do love software implementation and I need so many os and configuration. By using VirtualBox, It is very easy to create multiple os on my local using VM ### 27. Never Use Local Software Again **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matthew C. | Senior Developer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 25, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's the best way to have a disposable environment that more closely inline with a server environment. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** I'm not a server admin so it can be difficult to debug issues on the server level when they arise. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you are using a local stack such as MAMP or WAMP, do yourself a favor and switch to something else using a VirtualBox backend. I started with Vagrant which changes their syntax too much. Then Docker was a company standard until we just recently switched to Docksal. All were good and improved on the previous. What they all had in common was the use of VirtualBox. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Having local environments that I can spin up in minutes without much of any local config on my computer. When everything is going smoothly, there's no better way to efficiently develop. ### 28. Virtualbox is a great free product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 28, 2018 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's free. It hosts Windows as a virtual machine without any problems and runs quite smoothly. It has most of the features as other virtual machine providers at no cost. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** There really isn't anything that I dislike. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** It's a solid product and free. Check it out. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to host virtual machines on local desktops for free. ### 29. Free software to run Virtual Machines **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Virtual box is free and available on various operating systems (Mac, windows, and linux). Virtual box works out of the box and is always reliable. The UX is intuitive. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Virtual box does not integrate into the OS the way parallels does on Mac. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** This is free and definitely worth a shot. Please make sure you allocate enough space and memory to your Virtual Machines. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Testing issues in multiple environments. ### 30. More options than VMware Workstation **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matthew S. | Owner, Computer & Network Security, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I love that VirtualBox has more options to be able to customize and save then compared to other Virtual Machine software out there like VMware Workstation. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** I honestly do not really dislike anything at all. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you are thinking about considering VirtualBox I would have to tell you that you should go with VirtualBox because I have been using VirtualBox for several years and in the past I was using VMware Workstation Pro and had to deal with the less amount of settings and customization then there are with VirtualBox. So I would have to say that overall I have been very pleased using the VirtualBox software for the past several years then I have for years using VMware Workstation Pro. I would rate this software 10/10 in my own opinion and 6/10 would be the rating I would give for VMware Workstation Pro **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am solving the ability to test software and run servers on virtual machines. I have realized that I can run multiple systems at one time on one machine while this saves me time and money. ### 31. Best virtualization program out there! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 12, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Very easy to create a virtual machine, and extremely powerful in configurations. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Working with external devices, like USBs, can be difficult at times. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Run multiple operating systems on a computer simultaneously. Test program on many different systems easily. ### 32. One of the best VM Apps **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Glass, Ceramics & Concrete | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Easy to deploy and used and supporting multiple operating systems **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** It can be slow sometime when you have too many stuff running **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Keep up the good work and keep supporting it **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Great for testing new apps running on a VM enviroment ### 33. Great tool but needs more work on seemlesly integrate to the host resources. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Moe S. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 08, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Ease of use, frequent updatres, stability **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Hard to configure access to host resources. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** We do not have to waste time building machines from scratch every time they get corrupted. ### 34. Easy to Use Virtualization Utility **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Deborah D. | Test Development Manager, Education Management, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 22, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's freeware that can run many different systems. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The interface is a bit clunky. It can be a little bit slow and unstable. You can't install printers from the host system automatically. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Although VB is easy to set up, you need to have an idea how much storage you are going to allot to your systems. If you aren't an experienced user of virtualization machines, it might not be the best choice for you. If you have an IT guy, make sure they are around to give you a hand when you go to install. Remember you also have to have an installation ISO or DMG file for the OS that you want to install. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have a Mac at work but need to run windows-only programs. In order to use my mac for this, I have to use a virtual machine. This works, it's free (better than Parallels). ### 35. Free multi-platform virtualization **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 03, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I can run virtualbox on anything from my Macbook to my Solaris x86 server. Commandline and api support are fantastic and allow easy scripting of common activities. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** rdp console support and usb2 passthrough are closed source for-pay options for businesses (free for home use) **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** May not be as polished as Vmware workstation or Parallels but cross-platform support and low to no cost licensing is hard to beat. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Rapid prototyping and sandbox testing of new software and configurations ### 36. When open source improve some expensive tools **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel A. | Energy & Utilities Consultant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 02, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** The ease of creating, importing, and managing your virtual machines **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The intensive use of memory from your system. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you want an open source software to work with Virtual Machines, this is your tool! **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Emulating servers to work in a closed environment (to be able to use the software without internet connection) ### 37. The best virtualization software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Medical Devices | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 28, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's easy to use, works very well, and is the gold standard for virtualizing a system. I use it constantly. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Sometimes the host OS can steal the super key **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Cross platform development and testing. ### 38. Best VM Manager **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Vaibhav K. | QA Systems Engineer, Computer & Network Security, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 24, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** I am able to load up any ISO disk and manage every virtual machine easily. I really love how easy it is to use and all the different things you can tweak for each virtual machine such as how much RAM you want to dedicate, video memory, storage, network and more. It is also great for running different operating systems, as a developer I can run Ubuntu and Windows at the same time. This allows me to use the features of both operating systems. Another great thing is, you can save the state of your VM. This means you can shut down the VM but when you resume you will still be able to come back to where you left off. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** There is literally nothing I dislike. Nothing is buggy, user interface and user experience is just perfect. No complaints. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** It's a great tool for managing systems on which are running different operating system. It's free and open sourced, you can customize it to your liking. There are almost no issues for the everyday user. It's a bug free program! **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a software developer and use various different machines and operating systems to make sure software is compatible with all the major operating systems. Also I need to use Windows and Ubuntu both at once. ### 39. virtual box **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 08, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** virtual box allows for faster access of **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** it does faster accesses but requires better user interface **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** spped ### 40. Allows to have several SO in one machine **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Telecommunications | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 28, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's very handful to test devices such as LG WebOS and Samsung Tizen **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** It requires java to install it if you don't have it **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Allows to have several SO in one machine to test several applications ### 41. Stable and easy to use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gerald L. | Associate, Banking, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 30, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** VirtualBox worked out of the box and no configuration is required. I am able to run Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 as guests in Windows 7 at the same time and without issues. Snapshots are reliable to create and restore from. Ports on local machine can be forwarded to the guest machine. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Tools for compacting disks are not that easy to use. For situations where there is a lot of fragmentation in the guest disk, the disk usage of the guest in the host VM becomes large. The steps for handling this scenario has to be found on the web, which involves a series of commands in both the guest and host. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Make sure to create a snapshot before trying to upgrade VirtualBox in case something goes wrong. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 in a workplace where Windows is the supported desktop OS. This helps me with development work on my local machine for deploying to Linux servers. ### 42. What was previously archaic and unintuitive is now awesome **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rod M. | Senior Digital Delivery Analyst, End User Device Management, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 09, 2015 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Oracle has clearly put a lot of work into this product. It supports VHDX and is much more intuitive than before. And hard to beat free. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Doesn't seem to have the Enterprise level toolset that VMware has. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Easy off the shelf product which is a strong contender against VMware. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** This product solves the heavy overhead that a full blown Desktop has by allowing quick creation and snapshots of VMs. Great development tool. ### 43. Good enough for regular virtual machine users **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Medical Devices | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 10, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Vagrant + VirtualBox is perfect for me. I use AWS in the day for my working, use vagrant + virtualbox at night for my side projects. It is a really good way for me to save my AWS bills for my side projects. also, if you get any problems, you are going to find a huge amount of answers from the online blogs. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** occasionally, some annoying bugs destroy the fun. but the virtualbox team develops updates quickly. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** vmware and virtualbox, you must know both of them. But you don't have to be a vmware or virtualbox expert, since Vagrant will help you hide the details of the different virtual machines under it. So, a good strategy = basic vmware knowledge + basic virtualbox knowledge + expert vagrant knowledge. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's really good for sharing the code and environment with my friends for our side projects. They use different platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac, but all of them are using vagrant + virtualbox, making sharing code in a convenient way. ### 44. The best Workstation software virtualization **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** daniel b. | freelancer, Internet, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Virtualbox is a great desktop virtualization software, you can create all the workstations with very easily if no zero configuration (but also is highly customizable). It just run faster and smoother, the file size is very low compared with other softwares like vmware for example, the installation is super easy, the performance, The remote file sharing is a pleause and the best is the integration with the host OS, is just very great. Cross platform user experience remains the same, it doesn't need any special configuration, it just works and it works great, you don't need any special configuration it's a ready to run enviroment with great features. I love the built in rdp also we can install a manage a virtualbox image on ssh, that makes him a must try product **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The thing that i might dislike is the portability, i think Virtualbox has a debt here, and also is made for desktop not for servers, it works great at desktop, but it has some debt when server is the thing. Also another this is that creating NAT rules is a bit cumbersome, It have some issues when sending files, and bridget connection requires a bit more effort, so we can conclude that networking is not good, **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** If you don't need a gui just combine virtualbox with vagrant and your work will be even more easily **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I need few local sandboxes enviroments to work, so my first choice is vagrant combined with virtualbox, and it 's just great, i have my RoR enviroment, my laravel enviroment my cakephp enviroment and it's all personalized and ready to run, my humble recomendation is that if you need a workstation software for virtualization, just choose virtualbox as your first choice and you can be sure you won't regret. ### 45. Virtual Box Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** andre h. | Product Graphic Designer, Internet, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 24, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** This is perfect for setting up text environment when you have limited physical resources. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The application tends to use a lot of system resources **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use this for setting up virtual servers or workstations when testing cases or test labs ### 46. A computer in a computer **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 12, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It's free and simple to use if you have some technical background. It's great for testing software in a sand boxed environment. You can set it up in minutes and easily keep backups of different system images. You can test software for different operating systems very quickly. The app is still actively updated and maintained and bug fixes and performance improvements keep coming. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** It's not as simple to use or have as much app within a window integration like VMware, but for the value it gets the job done. Graphics emulation, especially for 3d performance could be improved. If there could be **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** For a free virtualization solution it's hard to go wrong. For quick testing it gets the job done. If you need some exotic operating system combination then pay for something like VMware but otherwise VirtualBox should satisfy most user needs. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm able to test software across a wide range of operating systems all within my own single system. I can easily test different configurations without having to affect my main system. Browser testing in different software is very important these days with web applications, so having something like Virtualbox helps make that process easier. ### 47. Great for Linux **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 10, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** Free and great for using with a raspberry pi or Linux systems if do not have a Linux machine. Can easily preload an operating system of your choice without any hassle and loads it quickly. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** The layout needs abit of work but can't complain too much as it's free! **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Loading various raspberry pi and arm devices with different operating systems. ### 48. A superior opensource alternative to VMware Player **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Accounting | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 28, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** It opensource nature, multi platform support (both host and guest), and that it has a large user base together with an active team of developers. Updates and new features appear relatively quickly. Opensource nature allows me to use this software freely. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** Certain extended features are only available under the PUEL (Personal Use and Evaluation License). For a small business to rightly use these extended features, it requires a license which has a minimum purchase quantity. **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Very expensive for a small deployment (1-5 users) which requires use of the extension pack that is licensed under PUEL. Great for using at home (non-commercial use). **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Virtualization and optimization of hardware resources. Segregation of environments when performing testing and evaluation of software. Ability to run multiple environments (Windows, Linux) on a single box without having to reboot. ### 49. came in as a handy software to work on multiple Operating systems-Virtualization made easy.! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2017 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** the ease of installation, configuration and operation, **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** can be improved from user-friendliness perspective. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** Have been able to successfully deploy the software applications using virtualization techniques. The validation of application on multiple platforms could easily be performed. ### 50. Awesome virtualization software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rúben G. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 14, 2016 **What do you like best about VirtualBox?** The best thing about VirtualBox is that is free and very intuitive. You can easily manage your virtual machines give them more/less RAM more disk space or more CPU. **What do you dislike about VirtualBox?** I think the only worst thing about this software, is that he got a worst performance against for example VMware (but VMware is a payed software). **Recommendations to others considering VirtualBox:** Is a good solution, to try a virtual machine, but if you need a permanent solution a recommend using a paid solution. **What problems is VirtualBox solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used to test this software to test and implment Linux/GNU distros and FreeBSD solutions like Pfsense (for firewalls). All this in a school environment. ## VirtualBox Discussions - [How easy is it to install VirtualBox and what is it used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/10403-que-ta-facil-es-instalar-virtual-box-y-para-que-nos-sirve) - 2 comments, 1 upvote - [How do I create a virtual machine in VirtualBox?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-do-i-create-a-virtual-machine-in-virtualbox) - 2 comments - [Is VirtualBox free?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-virtualbox-free) - 2 comments - [What is VirtualBox software virtualization?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-virtualbox-software-virtualization) - 1 comment - [How does virtual box work?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-does-virtual-box-work) - 1 comment - [View VirtualBox pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/virtualbox/reviews?page=5§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-15+14%3A28%3A17+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=9b51fa44-9e43-4078-9ab7-ea6e94beb1a4&secure%5Btoken%5D=9c28e68c42655ef587391c002cde42a606b43b7a1cbf9f40386ffea86d001a7a&format=llm_user) ## VirtualBox Integrations - [Google Workspace](https://www.g2.com/products/google-workspace/reviews) - [Vagrant](https://www.g2.com/products/vagrant/reviews) - [Windows 11](https://www.g2.com/products/windows-11/reviews) ## VirtualBox Features **Functionality** - Desktop Virtualization - Application Virtualization **Performance** - Scalability - Portability - Data Recovery **Desktop Management** - Desktop Provisioning - Image Management - Load Balancing **Functionality** - OS Integration - Resource Saving - Performance Management - Security **Support** - Multi-Device Portability **Agentic AI - Server Virtualization** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making **Security** - Two-Factor Authentication - Single Sign-On (SSO) - Encryption - Access Controls and Permissions ## Top VirtualBox Alternatives - [Citrix DaaS](https://www.g2.com/products/citrix-citrix-daas/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (520 reviews) - [VMware vSphere](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-vsphere/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (746 reviews) - [VMware Workstation Pro](https://www.g2.com/products/vmware-workstation-pro/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (136 reviews)