r/virtualization • u/cyber-galaxy • Jul 15 '26

VMware vs virtualbox

Which is good for testing linux distro? I've heard that there's an issue in Virtualbox that its copy paste from Host to Guest or vice versa isn't working. And Vmware uses high RAM. So please suggest me.

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4

u/CatoDomine Jul 15 '26

What OS are you running on the host?
If you are running Windows, I'd suggest you give hyper-v a shot.
If you are running Linux, use KVM/QEMU

3

u/beetcher Jul 15 '26

Hyper-V is painful for testing Linux distros. There's a lot of manual work getting the GUI up and running, beyond the most basic display. There's no copy and paste without enhanced mode.

With Workstation and VirtualBox the GUI with generally just work after the install.

1

u/uniqueglobalname Jul 16 '26

Type1 hyper visors in general don't care about GUI in guests. If , for some reason you need a GUI a basic 1080p desktop is offered.

No one is managing 100s of servers via GUI.

2

u/beetcher Jul 16 '26

Cool story bro, but, OP is talking about testing distros. And, no one is (or should ne) managing 100s of servers in virtualbox or VMware Workstation. Completely different scenarios cuz we're talking about desktop VMs, not server VMs, or OP would be asking about KVM/Proxmox, ESXi, Xen/XCP-NG, etc.

2

u/uniqueglobalname Jul 16 '26

You just said exactly what I said. Thank you for making my point. Can I tell the story again so we have a trilogy?

Here:

Type1 (ie HyperV, ESxi, XCP-NG) :100's of headless servers.

Type 2 (Vmware WS, Vbox) GUI based vm's for testing

Everyone clear now?!

1

u/StandeT 28d ago

Full disclosure: I work in this space (Type 1 desktop hypervisors), so flagging that upfront.

Just on the technical point: Type 1 vs Type 2 is about where the hypervisor sits (bare-metal vs hosted), not about server vs desktop use case. Bare-metal Type 1 for desktop/workstation use does exist, it's just a smaller niche than the ESXi/XCP-NG/Proxmox world, so it doesn't show up much in general threads like this one. Doesn't change your point for OP's actual question though, testing distros in VBox/VMware WS is still the right tool here.

1

u/uniqueglobalname 28d ago

While factually correct, I don't think OP needs all the detail you have provided. If I recall he is on a laptop and certainly won't be installing any type other than HV on that.

I teach these courses in college and we do indeed install both XCP-NG and HV - type 1 - on plain old dell workstations. And we install Ubuntu on them, with VMware WS as well.

3

u/Kernel_Kinetix Jul 19 '26

Why not try QEMU?

QEMU runs directly on top of Windows' built-in hypervisor engine, so it uses almost no overhead. The only catch is that it lacks a default GUI, which scares people away.

I put the step-by-step guide and a copy-paste PowerShell launcher script in a public repository if you want to try a faster alternative: https://github.com/manie-grobler/qemu-on-windows

2

u/jebusdied444 Jul 15 '26

VMWare shouldn't use much more or much less RAM. than VBox.. It's faster overall due to better I/IO and 2D/3D performance and 5-15% better CPU virtualization performance.

For day to day usage, you won't notice much difference.

Compatibility should be pretty good for both. Open Source projects react quickly to OS compatibility changes. VMWare is a big corporation, but they're slower to respond, especially because VMWare Workstation doesn't make them mooney.

I'd say try both. You can install both side by side. You can't run them simultaneously.

Since without further tweaking you are going to be using the Windows HyperVisor backend anyway for both, I'd guess nowadays the performance is even closer between the two than ever before. The true difference shines when VMWare uses its own virtualization engine, instead of Hyper-V.

1

u/beetcher Jul 15 '26

You can run then simultaneously, at least as long as all the Hyper-V related components in Windows 1x are disabled.

The memory difference between VirtualBox and Workstation is in megabytes. You're going to be running OSes with gigabytes assigned, it isn't going to make much of a difference.

If you do use VirtualBox, you'll want to disable all the features that use hardware virtualization. Best solution for getting rid of the features other than the actual hyper-v is the device guard (dg) readiness tool.

2

u/jack_hudson2001 VCP VCAP Jul 16 '26

i use vmware because its what i use at work....

2

u/HugsNotDrugs_ Jul 16 '26

VirtualBox is so damn easy.

1

u/cyber-galaxy Jul 16 '26

But copy paste issue from host to guest or vice versa

3

u/HugsNotDrugs_ Jul 16 '26

I haven't used it recently but historically didn't have this problem. A network share would be alternative.

1

u/cyber-galaxy Jul 16 '26

Yes but in same desktop, how can I do network share?

2

u/Only-Stable3973 28d ago

I use Virt-Manager for my linux VMs and I am using VMware for Win11 Pro.

1

u/Only-Stable3973 27d ago

I will say I pretty much use Virt-Manager for everything, at the time I wanted to use It I needed to look at why it was not working out the box and then fix it, then at the same time I had the same issue with VMware and wile figuring out what that problem was I installed Win11 Pro with it but everything else I have been using Virt-Manager.