Desktop virtualization review: VMware Workstation vs. Oracle VirtualBox

Few technologies have had a greater impact on business efficiency and IT productivity than virtualization. While most of the impact has been felt in the data center and in the cloud, virtualization has also transformed IT work on the desktop, where it retains an important role. Here I compare the two leading products in this category: VMware Workstation and Oracle VirtualBox.

The use cases for desktop virtualization are numerous and important. Most visible to the average consumer is the ability to run a different operating system on your local machine. This is especially common on Macs in order to run software designed for Microsoft Windows — that is, desktop apps and games that haven’t been ported to the Mac. (The top products for running Windows on the Mac are VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop for the Mac.)

In IT, however, testing is one of the main drivers for adoption. Testing for portability was the original scenario that made desktop virtualization popular, and it remains one of the core uses. By running desktop VMs, developers can test code locally for portability before it’s checked into the source code management system.

Likewise, QA teams can test software in a VM that duplicates user or employee environments. In the event a defect is discovered, test engineers can take a snapshot of the VM, which they can then make available to the developers for remediation. The ability to take snapshots of running environments neatly solves the “unable to duplicate the bug” issue.

VMs are also very useful in training. If you’re going to train a large group of people on a piece of software, rather than have them download and install the software (and waste class time solving one-off installation issues), you can have attendees download the VM with the software already installed. Not only do you save time, there is an assured uniformity of student experience. In addition, any user errors in the VMs will have no lasting effects on their host desktops and notebooks.

There are other use cases. For example, I go through a VM when I want to be safe on the Web. I have a VM that I use only for browsing to sites where security is a paramount concern: banking and other activities where malware would be particularly damaging. Likewise, I use a VM when visiting potentially dangerous sites where the possibility of viral infection is higher. In fact, malware analysis is a niche where desktop VMs are particularly favored because of the safety they provide: A VM that is infected will isolate the infection from the underlying host.

Desktop virtualization for pros

For IT professionals, VMware Workstation and Oracle VirtualBox are the two leading options for creating and running VMs. (There are other options, such as the open source Xen and the proprietary Hyper-V from Microsoft.) All of these products have the same fundamental design, which consists of a hypervisor (that creates and manages the VM) running on a hardware-emulation layer. This combination is a Type 2 hypervisor that must itself be hosted on a system running a full operating system.

The value of a given product derives equally from its VM management capabilities as it does from the quality, range, and performance of the hardware emulation.

In terms of management, all products in this category enable users to build, clone, and take snapshots of VMs. A clone is a true clone of the VM. Snaphots are clonelike images taken at a particular moment in time. Depending on the implementation, they are typically a set of deltas to be applied to the base VM.

Both products let users spin up and manage multiple VMs, but the management capabilities are distinctly limited. VMware Workstation 11 enables you to manage some VMs remotely if they are running on VMware’s platform. However, once you manage more than perhaps a dozen machines, these tools begin to lack the administration capabilities an IT site would want. For those use cases, products such as VMware vCenter and other front ends to large virtualization servers become the tools of choice.

Finally, it’s important to note that both VMware Workstation and Oracle VirtualBox have sites (the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace and VirtualBoxImages.com, among others) from which users can download preconfigured VMs (also referred to as “appliances”) that have been assembled by the community, frequently to provide a stand-alone service (Web server, database, and so on).

VMware Workstation 11

VMware Workstation 11 is the latest release of the product that started the current wave of interest in virtualization. Its precursors led directly to the cloud as we know it today. (However, virtualization as a technology long predates the modern computing era, having first appeared in IBM mainframes.) As mentioned previously, early versions of Workstation targeted developers and testers. From the traction it got with those users, it began to spread more widely into other areas of IT. Workstation runs on Windows and Linux and costs $200 ($120 upgrade).

VMware has regularly updated the product, with the latest release shipping in December of last year. Its primary additions when compared with Workstation 10 are the ability to construct truly massive VMs (up to 16 virtual CPUs, 64GB of RAM, and an 8TB hard drive), better performance, support for USB 3.0, and support for virtual sensors (accelerator, gyroscope, and so on) when running on Windows 8 tablets.

In terms of VM management, Workstation 11 offers encryption of a VM, restricted access, and expiration dates. It can also monitor VMs running on other VMware platforms, such as VMware ESXi or the VMware vCloud, and it can attach to other local VMs running in a different process.

In exchange for these gains, Workstation 11 now requires a host platform running a 64-bit operating system on a 64-bit processor. My tests were run on a Lenovo TS140 server with 16GB of RAM running Windows 7 x64.

The software is nothing but intuitive. Its main screen makes it easy to start existing VMs or create new ones. Old VMs run well with Workstation 11. However, some older VMs require the use of a separate utility, the vCenter Converter Standalone product, to convert their formats to one that WS11 can load and run. Although the converter is a free download, I found this manual provision of software to be an annoying inconvenience. The converter should be included with the base product. To be fair, VirtualBox uses precisely the same inconvenient approach of relying on a separate downloadable converter.

In executing tests on Workstation 11, I ran into almost no headaches, and in the few cases an item surprised me, I found useful information in the ample VMware documentation. Good documentation has for years been one of the hallmarks of VMware products. This continues to be true.

Performance, especially on graphics, was notably better in Workstation 11 than in VirtualBox. VMware has long invested in graphics (it was one of the first products to support the Aero Glass UI that appeared in Microsoft Windows Vista, for example), and the benefits of this investment show. Running Windows Experience Index 4.1 (where higher numbers are better), the native host system scored a 6.6, the Workstation VM a 4.6, and the VirtualBox VM a 1.0. Most users don’t expect a VM to run high-speed graphics, but if they need to, Workstation 11 will deliver a satisfactory experience.

In terms of processor power, Workstation 11 came in at 7.2 on the same benchmark versus the native machine’s 7.3, showing how well VMware has exploited features in the x86 processor to minimize the drag caused by hosting a separate OS layer.

Oracle VirtualBox 4.3.20

Oracle acquired open source VirtualBox with Sun Microsystems in 2009, and it has continued to support the project. While the core is open source, some aspects are closed source. The license specifies that VirtualBox may be employed at no cost for personal uses. This option has made it a favorite of hobbyists and developers working on personal projects.

Commercial use requires a license, which sells for $50 per named seat. However, the minimum purchase is 100 seats (whereas Workstation 11 can be bought one seat at a time). Support for VirtualBox is offered at additional cost, although many questions can be answered with the documentation and the community around the product.

The first detail that stands out in VirtualBox is the range of host platforms it runs on. If you need virtualization for Mac OS X, Solaris, or 32-bit Windows hosts, VirtualBox has you covered. VirtualBox rewards you with a practical UI that facilitates construction, deployment, and management of VMs.

VirtualBox’s support for configuring VMs is neck and neck with Workstation 11. At the high end, Oracle claims you can build VMs with 32 virtual CPUs (vs. VMware’s 16), 1TB of RAM (vs. VMware’s 64GB), and up to 32 virtual NICs (to VMware’s 10). While it is hard to evaluate such a machine, it appears that for extremely large VMs, VirtualBox holds the edge.

In terms of supporting the latest hardware, VirtualBox doesn’t yet offer USB 3.0, but VMware does, nor is VirtualBox’s hardware implementation nearly as performant, especially in graphics, as I mentioned earlier. Processor performance also lags. Whereas VMware notched a 7.2 on the processor portion of the Windows benchmark, VirtualBox scored only a 5.8. However, on I/O operations, VirtualBox was tied with Workstation 11 at 5.9 (vs. 7.9 on the native host). The difference in graphics speed was noticeable. Some operations appeared to freeze the screen briefly. However, as I discussed earlier, high-end graphics tend not to be a common use case for either of these products.

While I found, in general, Workstation’s user interface and features were more polished and easier to navigate, VirtualBox offered one notable feature that is better implemented: the ability to start up a group of VMs simultaneously. In VirtualBox, you can create such groups and launch them in a single operation. On Workstation 11, however, your only option is to put all the VMs into a separate directory and start up the directory.

A final consideration is how much RAM VMs require to run. On VirtualBox, VMs immediately allocate the full complement assigned to them. Launch a 4GB VM, and it consumes the full 4GB. On Workstation 11, though, that same VM requires only 1.5GB. Similarly, other VMs required roughly half their configured allocation.

These differences are rooted in philosophy. VirtualBox wants to assure that all VMs will always have complete access to their ration of RAM. Workstation recognizes that most VMs don’t use anywhere close to their allocations of RAM. If they do, then the allocation is made as the memory is needed. This approach can lead to problems if the server is maxed out at the moment of allocation. It’s a choice between absolute guarantee and a pragmatic balance. The question is not minor as most VM hosts typically feel the constraints of RAM before other physical limitations. Obviously, these constraints will depend on the mix of VMs and their respective activities.

Both Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Workstation are professional-quality virtualization solutions that support an enormous range of guest operating systems. When InfoWorld reviewed these same products in 2012, reviewer Serdar Yegulalp concluded that both products were excellent, although he gave VMware Workstation the edge: “It isn’t just the performance, but the polish and the […] integration.” I agree with this assessment. Both products have advanced in the interim, but VMware has maintained its edge in these three areas.

Edge or not, hobbyists and home users who are sensitive to pricing will prefer VirtualBox, as will users hosting their VMs on Mac OS X, Solaris, or 32-bit Windows, as will sites that require the very largest VMs. All other users, though, will find VMware Workstation 11 to be a smooth, highly intuitive, full-featured virtualization solution with excellent performance.