Comparison Dimension

VirtualBox

KVM (based on QEMU)

Performance

– High resource usage, suitable for lightweight virtualization
– Does not support hardware acceleration (requires third-party extensions)

– High performance, supports Intel VT-x/AMD-V hardware virtualization
– Low resource usage, suitable for high-density virtualization

Use Cases

– Personal development and testing
– Teaching demonstrations
– Small-scale deployments

– Enterprise-level virtualization
– High-performance computing
– Large-scale cloud environments

Installation and Deployment

– Simple installation, provides a graphical interface

– Requires manual configuration, community version is free, enterprise version may require payment

Virtual Machine Management

– Built-in graphical interface (VirtualBox GUI)
– Supports command-line management

– Command-line tool: virsh
– Graphical tool: virt-manager
– Third-party tools like Proxmox

Clustering Solutions

– Does not support native cluster management, requires third-party tools

– Supports clustering and resource pool management through OpenStack, Proxmox VE, etc.

Supported Number of Virtual Machines

– Limited single-machine performance, suitable for a small number of virtual machines

– Supports large-scale deployments, high resource utilization

Network Support

– Supports bridged, NAT, and other virtual network modes

– Powerful network management features, supports VLAN, VXLAN, and other advanced network configurations

Storage Support

– Supports various virtual disk formats (e.g., VDI, VMDK)

– Supports a wide range of storage backends, including local disks, SAN, NAS, etc.

Cost

– Completely free, suitable for individuals and small businesses

– Community version is free, enterprise solutions may require payment (e.g., RHEV)

Community and Support

– Active open-source community, rich documentation

– Strong community support and enterprise support

Scalability

– Rich plugin system, mainly used for enhancing functionality

– Extremely high scalability, supports containerization technologies like Docker, Kubernetes

User Interface

– Provides an intuitive graphical interface, suitable for beginners

– Default command-line tool, but various third-party GUI management tools are available

Tool Name

Supported Virtualization Platforms

Features

VirtualBox GUI

VirtualBox

Simple and intuitive, rich built-in features

Virt-manager

KVM

Powerful, supports advanced virtual machine management

Proxmox VE

KVM

Web-based interface, supports clustering and high availability

OpenStack Dashboard

KVM

Enterprise-level interface, supports large-scale cloud environments

Clustering Solution

Applicable Platform

Features

Proxmox Cluster

KVM

Based on Corosync/Pacemaker, supports high availability

OpenStack

KVM

Cloud computing platform, supports elastic computing and resource scheduling

VMware vSphere

VMware

Enterprise-level solution, but with higher costs