Proxmox VE vs VirtualBox

Overview

VirtualBox

Stacks31.1K

Followers25.6K

Votes1.1K

Proxmox VE

Stacks352

Followers334

Votes41

Proxmox VE vs VirtualBox: What are the differences?

Proxmox VE and VirtualBox are virtualization platforms used to run virtual machines (VMs) on physical servers. Let's explore their key differences in more detail:

Architecture: Proxmox VE is a bare-metal virtualization platform that utilizes the Linux KVM hypervisor and LXC containers. It provides a comprehensive solution with a dedicated hypervisor, a web-based management interface, and support for containerization. VirtualBox, on the other hand, is a type 2 hypervisor that runs on top of an existing operating system, allowing users to create virtual machines within their host operating system.
Scalability and Performance: Proxmox VE is designed for scalability and performance, enabling users to efficiently run multiple virtual machines on a single host. It supports advanced features like live migration, high availability, and clustering, making it suitable for enterprise environments with demanding workloads. VirtualBox, while capable of running multiple virtual machines, may have limitations in terms of scalability and performance compared to Proxmox VE.
Management Features: Proxmox VE provides a feature-rich web-based management interface that allows users to easily create, configure, and monitor virtual machines. It offers comprehensive management tools, including resource allocation, virtual network management, and storage management. VirtualBox also provides a graphical user interface for managing virtual machines, but its management capabilities may be more limited compared to Proxmox VE.
Target User Base: Proxmox VE is designed for enterprise users and IT professionals seeking advanced virtualization features and centralized management. It offers enterprise-grade functionalities like high availability and backup/restore options. In contrast, VirtualBox caters to a broader audience, including individual users, developers, and small businesses, providing a user-friendly interface for desktop virtualization.
Integration with Ecosystem: Proxmox VE seamlessly integrates with popular open-source virtualization and containerization technologies like Docker and Ceph storage. This allows users to leverage a wider ecosystem of tools and technologies for their virtualization needs. While VirtualBox supports a wide range of guest operating systems and integrates well with desktop operating systems, its integration options may be more limited.

In summary, Proxmox VE is geared towards enterprise environments with advanced virtualization needs, while VirtualBox caters to a broader user base, including individual users and small businesses.

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Detailed Comparison

VirtualBox	Proxmox VE
VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.	It is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.
Portability;No hardware virtualization required;Guest Additions: shared folders, seamless windows, 3D virtualization;Great hardware support;Multigeneration branched snapshots;VM groups;Clean architecture; unprecedented modularity;Remote machine display	-
Statistics
Stacks 31.1K	Stacks 352
Followers 25.6K	Followers 334
Votes 1.1K	Votes 41
Pros & Cons
Pros 358 Free 231 Easy 169 Default for vagrant 110 Fast 73 Starts quickly	Pros 9 HA VM & LXC devices 8 Ease of use 7 Robust architecture 6 Avoid vendor lock-in 6 Free

What are some alternatives to VirtualBox, Proxmox VE?

VMware vSphere

vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.

KVM

KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

Qemu

When used as a machine emulator, it can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performance. When used as a virtualizer, it achieves near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. it supports virtualization when executing under the Xen hypervisor or using the KVM kernel module in Linux. When using KVM, it can virtualize x86, server and embedded PowerPC, 64-bit POWER, S390, 32-bit and 64-bit ARM, and MIPS guests.

Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence.

Parallels

It is an application and desktop virtualization software vendor that offers management and delivery platforms for Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows desktop deployments.

VMware Fusion

It gives Mac users the power to run Windows on Mac along with hundreds of other operating systems side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting. It is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses.

Xen

It is a hypervisor using a microkernel design, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was developed by the Linux Foundation and is supported by Intel.

VMware vSAN

It is enterprise-class, storage virtualization software that, when combined with vSphere, allows you to manage compute and storage with a single platform. You can reduce the cost and complexity of traditional storage and take the easiest path to hyperconverged infrastructure and hybrid cloud. Evolve to an integrated hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution with vSAN to improve business agility, all while speeding operations and lowering costs.

Oracle VM Server

It is a zero license cost server virtualization and management solution that makes enterprise applications easier to deploy, manage, and support. Backed worldwide by affordable enterprise-quality support for both Oracle and non-Oracle environments, it reduces operations and support costs while increasing IT efficiency and agility.

Virtuozzo

It is an operating system-level server virtualization solution designed to centralize server management and consolidate workloads, which reduces overhead by reducing the number of physical servers required. Organizations use it for server consolidation, disaster recovery, and server workload agility.

Related Comparisons

Architecture: Proxmox VE is a bare-metal virtualization platform that utilizes the Linux KVM hypervisor and LXC containers. It provides a comprehensive solution with a dedicated hypervisor, a web-based management interface, and support for containerization. VirtualBox, on the other hand, is a type 2 hypervisor that runs on top of an existing operating system, allowing users to create virtual machines within their host operating system.
Scalability and Performance: Proxmox VE is designed for scalability and performance, enabling users to efficiently run multiple virtual machines on a single host. It supports advanced features like live migration, high availability, and clustering, making it suitable for enterprise environments with demanding workloads. VirtualBox, while capable of running multiple virtual machines, may have limitations in terms of scalability and performance compared to Proxmox VE.
Management Features: Proxmox VE provides a feature-rich web-based management interface that allows users to easily create, configure, and monitor virtual machines. It offers comprehensive management tools, including resource allocation, virtual network management, and storage management. VirtualBox also provides a graphical user interface for managing virtual machines, but its management capabilities may be more limited compared to Proxmox VE.
Target User Base: Proxmox VE is designed for enterprise users and IT professionals seeking advanced virtualization features and centralized management. It offers enterprise-grade functionalities like high availability and backup/restore options. In contrast, VirtualBox caters to a broader audience, including individual users, developers, and small businesses, providing a user-friendly interface for desktop virtualization.
Integration with Ecosystem: Proxmox VE seamlessly integrates with popular open-source virtualization and containerization technologies like Docker and Ceph storage. This allows users to leverage a wider ecosystem of tools and technologies for their virtualization needs. While VirtualBox supports a wide range of guest operating systems and integrates well with desktop operating systems, its integration options may be more limited.

In summary, Proxmox VE is geared towards enterprise environments with advanced virtualization needs, while VirtualBox caters to a broader user base, including individual users and small businesses.

Proxmox VE vs VirtualBox