Benchmark: VMware vs Virtualbox [closed]

Question

I tested VirtualBox 2.1.4 and VMware Workstation 6.5.1 for later use as a development VM

Host: Ubuntu64, 4GB RAM, Core2Duo E6600, Samsung HD502IJ
Guest: Windows XP Home, 1GB RAM, 8GB virtual disk
Benchmark Software: SiSoft Sandra Light, HD Tune

What is your experience or suggestion for a VM mostly used for development tools (not as a headless server)?

Answer 1

In my experience, VMWare Workstation is the way to go, especially on a development machine (I worked on a large development project for Siemens involving .NET 2.0 Forms, ASPX and SQL Server 2005 Databases, all running within VMWare virtual machines):

• Networking is vastly superior - you can actually make VPN connections!
• Configuration is simpler and more flexible
• The Workstation client provides a nicer end-user experience (subjective, I know...)
• I've found it to be more performant across the board

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

After 3 years of intensive use of VirtualBox, VMware Player and VMware workstation (at work), I personaly chose VirtualBox in Linux enviroment, and VMware products in Windows. This is my opinion, I think an objective one. I dare anyone to tell me that I'm wrong.

Answer 3

Personally, and I have no 'hard data' to back this up, VirtualBox seems to be faster and a lot more responsive to me (than VMWare Workstation)

Answer 4

I do some test on VMware and VirtualBox and published them on my site (www.ilsistemista.net): http://www.ilsistemista.net/index.php/software/virtualization.html

In short: while VMWare has its advantages when used on a stand alone server, the fact that is does not support RHEL or CentOS > 5.1 (there is glibc problem) is a great problem for me. Instead, I really like VirtualBox, that now is the primary virtualization platform at my company (www.assyoma.it).

I hope that the article will be useful...

Answer 5

I use VMware Workstation at work and Sun VirtualBox at home. My employer pays for VMware and MS Windows in the office. At home w/ Ubuntu Linux, Virtualbox is easier to maintain, performs as well as I require and is free. VMware Player is too feature limited.

The main reason chose VirtualBox at home was maintenance. When I need to use a virtual guest, I want it now; not after 5-7 minutes re-compiling kernel modules. Some may argue it is a consequence of my linux distro choice - not VMware's fault. Without debating one Linux distro's merits over another, suffiuce it to say Ubuntu meets all my needs. If VMware delivers only token Ubuntu support, I'll use VirtualBox.

Answer 6

In my experience i've found that vmware seems to be faster than virtualbox, although i don't have any hard data to back it up.

Even though vmware has been faster for me i still use virtualbox because it's "good enough" and is free (and im cheap).

Answer 7

I found that ubuntu 3d graphics work OUT OF THE BOX in VirtualBox 3, where VMWare 7 doesn't support, out of the box at least. The advanced features like advanced visual effects (expo, smooth desktop scrolling, cube, etc) just work. VMWare is superior in snapshots to VBox. VMWare allows branching of a snapshot tree, vbox doesn't (easily at least). VBox doesn't support multiple monitor spanning (if you have a 3-monitor setup) as transparently as vmware. Because of compatibility with VMWare infrastructure (ESX) I would prefer vmware for headless server operations and virtualbox for anything that requires user interaction (photoshop, GUI, etc).

Also, there are tons of features in vmware such as ACE to lockdown virtual machines that just don't exist in virtualbox.

Answer 8

I have been using both for better than 5+ years I have seen both Virtualbox and VMware mature. I will say in a Enterprise Network VMware is way to go period. I have VMWare Workstation 7+ and I love it. I use virtualbox as a test bed for Linux born Guest it is less painful to use than VMware. Try installing VMWare guest addons versus virtualbox guest addons and you will see what I mean. SO that being said I say VMware in a production windows network (2k,2003,2008,W7) and virtualbox for Linux based guest (Webservers,Ubuntu,Centos,ETC)

Answer 9

I had a very bad experience developing within a VMWare image, but I believe that was due to misconfiguration issues (VMWare only using a single core on a dual-core box and the box itself using PATA emulation when accessing its SATA drive). Pity, really, as we had a fairly complex environment (portal development using WSAD + WebSphere + MQ + Message Broker) that was a PITA to configure properly...

I played with NetBeans running on a Solaris guest in a Virtualbox running under XP on a dual-core box with 2G of memory and I didn't really notice a difference between it and an instance running natively, but that was just with a toy app.

Answer 10

Using testing tools like hdtune in a VM is not very informative.
Suppose one VM immediately returns from all FS calls and lets the underlying OS sync latter while another waited for the OS sync() to return.

A better test would be something more like your real tasks - try compiling the Linux kernel on both.

Answer 11

Physical Drivers speed isn't correct obviously. Sata disks average read speed can't reach 357M/s which test in VM. I think virtualbox test data is more really.

Answer 12

I bought VMWare version 3 way back, and have been using VMWare ever since. Only once have I re-installed my guest, and that was to upgrade one guest from NT 4 to XP. I have been using the paid versions, but since I do not use it for commercial purposes anymore I could be using VMWare Player. My host OS has changed over the years from Windows to Linux to Mac OSX and back again to Windows now.

It has been the one thing I could rely on... having a stable development environment with all my tools always configured properly and at the ready.

I have dabbled using coLinux (has problems on 64bit hosts) XEN, UML, VirtualBox (slow disk support... bad for compiling) and Parallels (great on Mac, no PC version). VMWare is the best no-hassle all-round option you have.

Answer 13

Installing on ubuntu is very hard for VM but apt get worked for Virtualbox. I couldnt complied VM but in the third of time, I set up XP using virtualbox