You also have several other possibilities, like QEMU, for instance - but those are less known/used so maybe not that useful if you want to use a VM for work and share it with co-workers. Which is the best VM program for a programmer?.VMware supports nested hardware-assisted virtualization while VirtualBox does not. You might also be interested by a couple of questions / asnwers about that subject, like, for instance : Both free, VMware supports USB 3.0 while VirtualBox does not. One thing that was not so good with VirtualBox was that it didn't support VM with several CPU that's possible, now, with versions 3.x, if I remember correctly.

If you want free software, VirtualBox OSE is the way to go.Įdit after comment, to clarify : by 'free', I mean 'libre' : both VMWare server/player and VirtualBox are free (as in 'cost not money'), but only VirtualBox OSE is free as in 'libre' - see Open Source VirtualBox and other editions If you are going to use it for some production system, maybe VMWare might be a safest bet, at least for support - and it's more widely used in the industry, I'd say. Im using a bit of both (VMWare at work, as it's the software that's used the most in the company I work for and VirtualBox at Home), and, to develop, I don't see much of a difference : both do what I need, which is provide a Virtual Machine, independant of the host system. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Oracle ensures the product always meets professional.

Virtualbox vs vmware on ubuntu