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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Infrastructure as a Service
  4. Virtual Machine Management
  5. VirtualBox vs boot2docker

VirtualBox vs boot2docker

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

boot2docker
boot2docker
Stacks263
Followers211
Votes95
GitHub Stars8.3K
Forks1.3K
VirtualBox
VirtualBox
Stacks31.1K
Followers25.6K
Votes1.1K

boot2docker vs VirtualBox: What are the differences?

boot2docker: Lightweight Linux for Docker. boot2docker is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Tiny Core Linux made specifically to run Docker containers. It runs completely from RAM, weighs ~27MB and boots in ~5s (YMMV); VirtualBox: Run nearly any operating system on a single machine and to freely switch between OS instances running simultaneously. 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.

boot2docker can be classified as a tool in the "Virtual Machine Management" category, while VirtualBox is grouped under "Virtualization Platform".

Some of the features offered by boot2docker are:

  • Kernel 3.14.1 with AUFS, Docker 0.10.1, LXC 0.8.0
  • Container persistence via disk automount on /var/lib/docker
  • SSH keys persistence via disk automount

On the other hand, VirtualBox provides the following key features:

  • Portability
  • No hardware virtualization required
  • Guest Additions: shared folders, seamless windows, 3D virtualization

"Lightweight" is the top reason why over 42 developers like boot2docker, while over 357 developers mention "Free" as the leading cause for choosing VirtualBox.

boot2docker is an open source tool with 7.99K GitHub stars and 1.14K GitHub forks. Here's a link to boot2docker's open source repository on GitHub.

Lyft, Coursera, and Typeform are some of the popular companies that use VirtualBox, whereas boot2docker is used by Typeform, Docker, and Accenture. VirtualBox has a broader approval, being mentioned in 724 company stacks & 978 developers stacks; compared to boot2docker, which is listed in 70 company stacks and 30 developer stacks.

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Detailed Comparison

boot2docker
boot2docker
VirtualBox
VirtualBox

boot2docker is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Tiny Core Linux made specifically to run Docker containers. It runs completely from RAM, weighs ~27MB and boots in ~5s (YMMV).

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.

Kernel 3.14.1 with AUFS, Docker 0.10.1, LXC 0.8.0;Container persistence via disk automount on /var/lib/docker;SSH keys persistence via disk automount
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
GitHub Stars
8.3K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.3K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
263
Stacks
31.1K
Followers
211
Followers
25.6K
Votes
95
Votes
1.1K
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 43
    Lightweight
  • 35
    Use docker when it's not natively possible
  • 11
    Use it for fast demo without big image
  • 3
    Easy to use
  • 3
    Containers
Pros
  • 358
    Free
  • 231
    Easy
  • 169
    Default for vagrant
  • 110
    Fast
  • 73
    Starts quickly
Integrations
Docker
Docker
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to boot2docker, VirtualBox?

Vagrant

Vagrant

Vagrant provides the framework and configuration format to create and manage complete portable development environments. These development environments can live on your computer or in the cloud, and are portable between Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Proxmox VE

Proxmox VE

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.

VMware vSphere

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.

Otto

Otto

Otto automatically builds development environments without any configuration; it can detect your project type and has built-in knowledge of industry-standard tools to setup a development environment that is ready to go. When you're ready to deploy, otto builds and manages an infrastructure, sets up servers, builds, and deploys the application.

libvirt

libvirt

It is an open-source API, daemon and management tool for managing platform virtualization. It can be used to manage KVM, Xen, VMware ESXi, QEMU and other virtualization technologies.

KVM

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

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.

Azk

Azk

azk lets developers easily and quickly install and configure development environments on their computers.

Parallels Desktop

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

Parallels

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

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