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VMware Workstation vs. VirtualBox vs. Parallels
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy takes an in-depth look at VMware Workstation 7, VirtualBox 3.1, and Parallels Desktop 4, three technologies at the heart of 'the biggest shake-up for desktop virtualization in years.' The shake-up, which sees Microsoft's once promising Virtual PC off in the Windows 7 XP Mode weeds, has put VirtualBox — among the best free open source software available for Windows — out front as a general-purpose VM, filling the void left by VMware's move to make Workstation more appealing to developers and admins. Meanwhile, Parallels finally offers a Desktop for Windows on par with its Mac product, as well as Workstation 4 Extreme, which delivers near native performance for graphics, disk, and network I/O. 'There's some genuine innovation going on, especially in the areas of hardware support and application compatibility,' Kennedy writes. 'All support 32- and 64-bit Windows and Linux hosts and guests, and all have added compelling new VM management capabilities, ranging from automated snapshots to live VM migration.'"
If cost is an issue why do these reviews forget the free VMWare Server it does most everything most users would need at no cost vs workstation
Right, 2nd place because of cost alone:
With support for up to 32 virtual CPUs per VM, VirtualBox is now the class leader in terms of raw virtualization muscle. The introduction of branched snapshots is a major usability upgrade from version 3.0, while the new Teleportation feature (live VM migration) means that VirtualBox is now poised to challenge VMware and Microsoft in the datacenter.
If you actually bother to boot up and try VirtualBox you will find it very buggy compared to VMware...
Sorry, I have to disagree. I have many, many instances of VirtualBox running and I love it. I *have* had some issues, but only with some really far out edge cases. I find it to be very easy to use, and reliable. As a sysadmin, VBoxManage is awesome for scripting.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
That is one way to look at it.
I have used Virtual Box and I find that it getting bumped down for ease of use is a bit silly. It isn't hard to use at all. It maybe slightly more difficult to install but once installed it is trivial to use.
So lets drop ease of use and "value" from the matrix.
If you do that they tie at 8.6 for the top spot.
Before you dismiss Virtual Box out of hand take a good look at the matrix.
The only area outside of ease of use that VirtualBox got less than a 9 on was VM management where it got an 8.
Also take a look at the weights of each column. Ease of use is 25% while cost is only 10%.
I think the cost and the Ease of use are both interesting metrics. With a cost of Free I can see no reason not to try VirtualBox first. If you find the ease of use and VM management good enough for your task then you have a huge win. The other may have demo systems you can try for a limited amount of time but they will still cost you money so VirtualBox really should be the first system on anybody's list to try.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Linux's KVM module and the "Virtual Machince Manager" (VMM) app that uses it needs to be measured on here. The interface is simple and easy.
It has shiny features too:
- live OS migration.
- Tools like "Test Drive Ubuntu" can use it to give you one-click "Test your bug in a daily build VM".
- FOSS on FOSS (Linux, BSD, etc) no-latency driver requests being passed to the Host OS, meaning only 1 context switch per Virtual-Physical interrupt.
- It's contributers are all still in the business of improving it (unlike all those mentioned except Parallels)
- It's FOSS, has very little code, is the fastest growing
- Its modules can run code for other CPUs (good for the oncoming ARMs).
Hardware virtualization helps for Windows virtualization. Please measure programs that use it (other than with Virtualbox which doesn't cooperate).
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It took very little time for me to discover that VMware has absolutely no colour management capability, which completely kills any chance you have of using Windows-based, colour-managed applications like Photoshop (unless you are intentionally not using a colour-managed workflow).
The color matrix/LUT itself must obviously be created and applied in the host OS (I use Argyll and an X-Rite i1 Display 2 all on Linux, which work great) but it's useless if the Windows application isn't aware of the display profile.
I did a bit of reading and it turned out VirtualBox does support hardware display profiles for Windows guests; the same afternoon I had a Windows XP VirtualBox guest running Photoshop CS3 with full colour management and has since been working great. Strongly recommend to other Linuxy designer-types finding themselves in a similar situation.
On a related note, if ever you do create a calibrated monitor profile using Argyll that you intend to use with Firefox, use a matrix type profile, not a LUT -- Firefox apparently does not support the more accurate LUT profiles at all, but matrix profiles work just fine. I use the LUT for the general display profile but point firefox explicitly to an alternate matrix profile so that photos containing embedded display profiles show up with gamma and especially saturation levels for my display.