Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Add tool
libvirt vs Vagrant: What are the differences?
Developers describe libvirt as "An open-source virtualization API". 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. On the other hand, Vagrant is detailed as "A tool for building and distributing development environments". 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.
libvirt and Vagrant belong to "Virtual Machine Management" category of the tech stack.
Some of the features offered by libvirt are:
- manage virtualization platforms
- accessible from C, Python, Perl, Java and more
- supports KVM, QEMU, Xen, Virtuozzo, VMWare ESX, LXC, BHyve and more
On the other hand, Vagrant provides the following key features:
- Boxes
- Up And SSH
- Synced Folders
Vagrant is an open source tool with 18.7K GitHub stars and 3.77K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Vagrant's open source repository on GitHub.
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn MorePros of libvirt
Pros of Vagrant
Pros of libvirt
- Low overhead2
- Free2
- Built into most Linux distros2
- Fast2
- Native KVM and QEMU2
- Native hypervisor2
- Can fully manage via CLI or VirtManager2
- VirtIO direct hardware access2
- VirtIO direct hardware support1
Pros of Vagrant
- Development environments352
- Simple bootstraping290
- Free237
- Boxes139
- Provisioning130
- Portable84
- Synced folders81
- Reproducible69
- Ssh51
- Very flexible44
- Works well, can be replicated easily with other devs5
- Easy-to-share, easy-to-version dev configuration5
- Great3
- Just works3
- Quick way to get running2
- DRY - "Do Not Repeat Yourself"1
- Container Friendly1
- What is vagrant?1
- Good documentation1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of libvirt
Cons of Vagrant
Cons of libvirt
Be the first to leave a con
Cons of Vagrant
- Can become v complex w prod. provisioner (Salt, etc.)2
- Multiple VMs quickly eat up disk space2
- Development environment that kills your battery1
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
What is 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.
What is 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.
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
What companies use libvirt?
What companies use Vagrant?
What companies use libvirt?
See which teams inside your own company are using libvirt or Vagrant.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn MoreSign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
What tools integrate with libvirt?
What tools integrate with Vagrant?
What tools integrate with Vagrant?
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+33 20
1924
+27 13
5499
+39 5
1314
+24 11
1625
+35 13
1619
What are some alternatives to libvirt and Vagrant?
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).
VirtualBox
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.
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.
OpenStack
OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.
Docker
The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere