What is VirtualBox?
VirtualBox is a virtualization software program that allows users to run multiple operating systems on a single machine. Developed by Oracle Corporation, VirtualBox enables users to install and run guest operating systems like Windows, Linux, macOS, etc. on their computers without having to reboot or use multiple physical machines. This allows testing software, running legacy systems, and using different OS environments conveniently on the same PC.
VirtualBox creates virtual machines (VMs) that each contain a virtual hard drive, CPU, memory, network interfaces, etc. The VMs run in complete isolation from each other as if they are on independent machines. This sandbox-style virtualization makes VirtualBox a popular platform for software development, operating system testing, and disaster recovery scenarios where multiple OS access is required. The virtual environments can be easily customized, saved, copied, and reverted as needed.
As an open source product, VirtualBox is available for free and the source code is publicly available. It is cross-platform compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, and Solaris hosts and guests. VirtualBox extends the capabilities of physical hardware, allowing greater flexibility and efficiency.
The History of VirtualBox
VirtualBox was originally created by software company Innotek GmbH in 2007 as an open source virtualization software package. It was first released to the public on January 17, 2007 (1). In 2008, Sun Microsystems acquired Innotek and took over development of VirtualBox (2). When Oracle later acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, VirtualBox became part of Oracle’s product portfolio (3). Oracle has continued to develop and maintain VirtualBox up to the present day.
VirtualBox was created to make virtualization technology easily accessible to home and enterprise users. The goal was to provide a flexible, high performance virtualization platform that could run on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and support a wide range of guest operating systems. Since its open source release in 2007, VirtualBox has become one of the most popular and widely used virtualization solutions.
Sources:
(1) https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News_pre_4_3
(2) https://www.javatpoint.com/virtualbox-installation
(3) https://infosec-jobs.com/insights/virtualbox-explained/
VirtualBox Features
VirtualBox has some noteworthy features that make it a popular virtualization platform. First, it allows you to install and run multiple operating systems on a single physical machine. This allows testing and using different OS environments easily on one computer.
Second, VirtualBox offers excellent portability and cross-platform capabilities. It can be installed on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Solaris hosts. This flexibility makes it accessible to users across different operating systems.
Lastly, VirtualBox is an open source platform with an active development community. Being open source allows for transparency, security audits, and community contributions to new features and fixes. The active forums and contributors result in rapid updates and innovation for VirtualBox.
Licensing Options
VirtualBox has two main licensing options: an open source free edition and paid proprietary enterprise editions.
The free edition of VirtualBox is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This open source license allows anyone to use, modify, and distribute VirtualBox without paying any licensing fees. The free version can be downloaded directly from the VirtualBox website for personal or commercial use (https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads).
In addition to the free GPL version, Oracle offers paid proprietary VirtualBox enterprise editions for businesses, including VirtualBox Enterprise and VirtualBox Professional. These enterprise versions provide additional features beyond the open source free edition, such as live migration of VMs, remote machine display, multi-node management, and SLA guarantees. Pricing for the enterprise editions starts at around $1,000 per CPU socket and requires purchasing a license from Oracle (https://www.oracle.com/virtualization/virtualbox/purchasing.html).
So in summary, VirtualBox can be used for free via the open source GPL edition, but enterprises have the option to purchase proprietary versions from Oracle that include advanced capabilities and commercial support.
The Free Edition
VirtualBox offers a full-featured free edition that is available for personal and evaluation use. The free edition provides complete virtualization capabilities, including:
- Support for a wide range of guest operating systems like Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris
- Ability to run multiple virtual machines simultaneously
- Virtual networking and remote machine access
- Shared folder and clipboard functionality between host and guest
- Full virtualized hardware support including USB, graphics, sound, and hard drive controllers
The free edition of VirtualBox lacks some advanced features aimed at enterprise use cases like remote machine management, multi-user access controls, and automated deployment. However, it provides robust virtualization capabilities for personal, education, and evaluation purposes. Users can install and run the free VirtualBox on any major desktop platform like Windows, Mac, Linux, or Solaris hosts.
Overall, the free edition of VirtualBox delivers a full-featured hypervisor for virtual machine use cases like software evaluation, platform testing, education, and more. While it omits certain enterprise-focused capabilities, the free VirtualBox offers users complete virtualization on their desktop without any licensing costs.
Paid Editions
In addition to the free open source VirtualBox platform, Oracle offers paid enterprise editions with additional features like Oracle VM VirtualBox Enterprise. This includes capabilities like centralized management, reporting, and grouping of virtual machines.
The paid enterprise versions require an annual subscription fee but offer capabilities tailored toward business and enterprise use cases. According to the VirtualBox forums, the paid editions enable more robust virtualization features compared to the open source free version.
Key capabilities offered in VirtualBox Enterprise include:
- Centralized management of multiple VM hosts
- Monitoring and usage reporting
- Automated provisioning of VMs
- Role-based access control
- Backups and disaster recovery
While the free open source edition of VirtualBox delivers core virtualization capabilities, businesses and larger organizations may benefit from premium features available in the paid enterprise versions.
Comparing Free vs. Paid
The free version of VirtualBox offers basic virtualization capabilities for personal use, while the paid versions provide additional enterprise-level features. According to the VirtualBox licensing FAQ, the key differences are:
The free VirtualBox base package allows users to create and run virtual machines for non-commercial purposes. It includes features like USB device support, remote desktop, snapshots and cloning. However, the free version has limited virtual networking and does not include the extension pack with support for USB 2.0/3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption and NVMe storage.
The PUEL (Personal Use and Evaluation) license allows free use of the extension pack, but only for personal or evaluation purposes. Commercial and production use requires purchasing a commercial license. Oracle’s paid editions like VirtualBox Enterprise provide additional capabilities for live migration, clustering, enhanced networking and user management.
For personal use, the free VirtualBox package is typically sufficient, as the paid features focus more on scalability and enterprise management capabilities. Unless advanced networking, clustered infrastructure or extensive device support is required, the free version has all the basic virtualization features an individual user would need.
Use Cases
VirtualBox is commonly used for the following use cases:
Personal software testing and development – Many developers use VirtualBox to test software on different operating systems and hardware configurations without having to set up multiple physical machines. It provides an isolated environment to test apps across platforms.
Running older operating systems – VirtualBox lets users access older operating systems like Windows XP or Windows 98 within a virtual machine on modern hardware. This is useful for running older software or games designed for previous operating systems.
Testing cross-platform apps – App developers can leverage VirtualBox to test their software on Windows, Linux, macOS and more from a single host computer. This simplifies cross-platform testing.
According to Enterprise Storage Forum Oracle: VM VirtualBox Review, VirtualBox is designed for use cases ranging from personal testing to enterprise deployments due to its wide platform support and scalability.
Performance and Resources
VirtualBox has modest hardware requirements, allowing it to run well even on older computers. The minimum requirements are a CPU with Virtualization support and at least 2 GB of RAM. For the best performance, quad-core CPUs and 8GB+ of RAM are recommended. Compared to other virtualization programs like VMware Workstation and Hyper-V, VirtualBox performance is generally seen as adequate but not exceptional.
Some users have claimed that they find VMware to be faster compared to VirtualBox. Actually, both VirtualBox and VMware consume a lot of resources when running virtual machines, so having enough RAM and CPU cores is key for good performance with either platform. On Windows 10, VirtualBox may achieve 60-70% of native performance for CPU benchmarks, while VMware can get around 75-90% of native performance [1].
When comparing VirtualBox vs VMware on Mac, the performance differences are less pronounced. Both platforms leverage the native hypervisor in macOS for efficiency. However, VMware tools for macOS allow for more convenient features like shared folders and drag-and-drop between host and guest [2]. So while raw performance is similar, the overall experience can favor VMware on Mac.
In summary, VirtualBox delivers capable virtualization for free, but users with demanding workloads may benefit from exploring paid solutions like VMware Workstation or Parallels Desktop for potentially better performance and a smoother user experience.
[1] https://www.testgorilla.com/blog/vmware-vs-virtualbox/
[2] https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/virtualbox-vs-vmware/
Conclusion
VirtualBox offers users a choice between utilizing the free, open source edition or purchasing one of the paid, proprietary editions for additional features. The free edition allows personal users to run virtual machines on their desktop or laptop without paying anything. This meets the needs of the average individual looking to access different operating systems or test software.
While the paid editions provide added functionality around remote access, encryption, and support, these are mainly targeted at enterprise use cases. For someone using VirtualBox for personal learning and experiments, the free edition should be more than sufficient. The free edition’s solid performance and extensive feature set for virtualization make it a compelling choice over paid solutions for personal use.