VirtualBox 3.1.2 vs VMware Player 3.0

Jan 8th, 201046 Comments

Do you want to run multiple operating systems without going through multi-booting? The most popular way to do this would be virtualization. I previously compared the free VirtualBox against the premium VMware Workstation. But VMware also offers a free version of their virtualization product, known as VMware Player. How would these two free products compare to each other?

VMware Player

VMware Player

Important Notes:
The results in this test are relative to my own Windows 7 Ultimate system with a 2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Processor with 3 GB of Physical RAM. Results for different system configurations may vary.

Guest OS System Specifications:
Windows XP Professional: 512 MB RAM and 20 GB Virtual Hard Disk
Windows Vista Ultimate: 2048 MB RAM and 40 GB Virtual Hard Disk

All time measurements (besides installation time) are made after the respective ‘Guest Additions’ which improve performance and add useful features are installed.

VMware and VirtualBox Download Sizes

Download Sizes of VMware Player and VirtualBox downloaded from virtualbox.org and vmware.com

Download Size

The main VirtualBox for Windows download weighs in around 71.5 MB compared to the VMware Player for Windows download which is around 89.9 MB.

It is also good to note that the VMware Player download does not include VMware Tools, which is separate download as an “update”. VirtualBox already has the guest additions/tools with the download.

If you’re downloading from the VMware site, registration is required which includes providing a lot of information, including a phone number. For those who do not wish to register, download if from sites like Softpedia instead.

VirtualBox: 4.5
VMware: 3

VMware Tools Download

VMware Tools is a separate download as an 'update'.

Installation Size

The final installation of VMware was 488 MB indicating very high compression was used for the download (89.9 MB). On the other hand, the VirtualBox installation is only 85.8 MB, which isn’t that much larger than the download (71.5 MB).

VirtualBox: 4 (8.5 total)
VMware: 4 (7 total)

Guest Installation Speed

VMware offers a special feature known as “Easy Install”, which handles all user interaction for the user so they can just click Start and sit back, grab a coffee, and watch everything be installed with absolutely no user interaction, including the product key, username, and password, which can be entered in during VM setup.

Easy Install Notice

VMware detects what operating system is being installed and offers to use Easy Install

For the purpose of this test, I selected “I will install the operating system later” to avoid using Easy Install.

Easy Install Vista

When Easy Install is being used, a notice shows at the bottom.

I started the stopwatch when everything that requires user interaction is done and automated installation starts.

XP VirtualBox

Windows XP Professional installing on VirtualBox

Vista VMware

Windows Vista Ultimate installing on VMware Player

So how long did each take to install? I expected VMware Player to be faster since its based on the VMware Workstation engine which I had tested last time to be faster. However, my results this time told a different story.

Guest Installation

Guest OS Installation Comparison

VirtualBox installed the operating systems about one minute faster than VMware Player did.

VirtualBox: 5 (13.5 total)
VMware: 4 (11 total)

Guest Startup Times

Startup speed is always very important. Nobody likes to wait very long for a computer to start. The stopwatch started once the BIOS splash screen fades away and stopped when the login screen came up on XP and the Vista Orb on Vista.

Guest Startup Comparison

Guest Startup Comparison

The average startup time for the two guest systems was 38.5 seconds on VirtualBox and 40.5 seconds on VMware Player.

VirtualBox: 5 (18.5 total)
VMware: 4.7 (15.7 total)

Guest Shutdown Times

Like startup times, who wants to wait forever to shutdown their computer? I certainly don’t. The stopwatch was started once it finished logging off and stopped once it fully shut down and the guest window closes or returns to the home screen.

Shutdown Time Comparison

Shutdown Time Comparison

VirtualBox was slightly faster for both operating systems with an average of 16.5 seconds compared to 19 seconds. Every second counts when it comes to startup and shutdown.

VirtualBox: 5 (23.5 total)
VMware: 4.7 (20.4 total)

700 MB Ubuntu ISO Transfer from Desktop to Flash Drive

Both programs support USB Devices. Simply click on the USB Device icon in the status bar of VirtualBox or VMware and select the respective device. It will then disconnect from the host and attach to the guest. Additional drivers will be installed as needed.

I used an 8 GB Sandisk Cruzer Flash Drive and transferred ~700 MB Ubuntu 9.10 ISO file from the guest Desktop to the flash drive.

Flash Drive Transfer Comparison

Flash Drive Transfer Comparison

VirtualBox was slightly slower at transfer speed with an average of 343.5 seconds compared to 309.5 seconds.

VirtualBox: 4 (27.5 total)
VMware: 5 (25.4 total)

700 MB Ubuntu ISO Transfer From Desktop to C:\ Root

I transferred the same 700 MB ISO file used above from the desktop to the root of the hard disk.

Disk Transfer Comparison

Disk Transfer Comparison

VirtualBox had a faster average of 63 seconds compared to VMware’s average of 71.5 seconds.

VirtualBox: 5 (32.5 total)
VMware: 4.3 (29.7 total)

Special Feature: Unity/Seamless Mode

Both VirtualBox and VMware let you run the operating system without the program’s window so each of the guest windows are integrated into the host system. VirtualBox calls this Seamless Mode and VMware calls it Unity.

With VirtualBox, its basically hiding the desktop background and placing the guest taskbar on the host desktop.

In addition, there are strange issues with Seamless and Windows Desktop Gadgets, with part of the guest desktop background showing as a border to gadgets. In addition, there is often a lagging trail of the guest desktop background when moving seamless windows.

VirtualBox Seamless

VirtualBox Seamless Mode. Notice the guest windows are taken as one window by Windows 7

VMware takes it further and rather than just hide the desktop, it hides the taskbar too and attempts to integrate guest applications into the host taskbar, which is similar to what Windows XP Mode does.

XP Unity Mode

Windows XP in Unity Mode

Windows Vista in Unity Mode was a bit strange since I had Windows Aero enabled on it. Rather than having the Aero be translucent to my host desktop background, it used a plain dark blue background to place behind the Aero instead creating a strange effect.

Vista Unity Mode

Windows Vista in Unity Mode with Aero enabled

VMware takes the crown for this round providing a more seamless virtualized experience than VirtualBox offers.

VirtualBox: 4 (36.5 total)
VMware: 4.5 (34.2 total)

Shared Folders and Transferring Files Between Guest and Host

Both VMware and VirtualBox offer shared folders between the guest and host and both are quite confusing to implement without digging into the long user manuals. VirtualBox at least mentions it when users hover over the folders list in settings, though there isn’t a very detailed explanation. Replace “sharename” with the name you gave the folder during the shared folders setup.

VirtualBox:

Windows-Map Network Drive:

\\vboxsvr\sharename

Linux-Terminal Commands:

sudo mkdir sharename
sudo mount.vboxsf sharename ~/sharename

VMware:

Windows-Location:

My Network Places\VMware Shared Folders\.host\Shared Folders\sharename

Windows-Map Network Drive:

\\.host\Shared Folders\sharename

Linux-Location:

~/mnt/hgfs

But with VMware, if you just need to transfer files, its even easier. Just drag and drop! The files can be copied to and from the guest system. In addition, the virtual hard disk files (.vmdk) can be mapped on Windows and be used as an actual hard drive. This isn’t possible with VirtualBox disks.

VirtualBox: 4 (40.5 total)
VMware: 5 (39.2 total)

VMware disks (.vmdk) are compatible with VirtualBox, although VirtualBox disks (.vdi) are not compatible with VMware.

The score so far is 40.5 points for VirtualBox and 39.2 for VMware Player. It’s very close. So it looks like it’s time for…

Bonus Points!

Windows Aero Support

VMware fully supports Windows Display Driver Model and therefore supports the Windows Aero interface given that the guest is provided enough RAM and the host supports Aero.

VMware Aero

The latest version of VMware Player fully supports Windows Aero

VMware: 2 bonus points (41.2 total)

Snapshot Support and Management

The free VMware Player does not support Snapshots beyond the state saving and suspension. VirtualBox however provides full snapshot support. While it is not as powerful as VMware Workstation, it is still a very useful feature similar to Windows Restore Points, only better and quicker.

VirtualBox: 4 bonus points (44.5 total)

Easy Install

As mentioned earlier, Easy Install lets user sit back and watch all the work be done for them during OS installation. A feature that many will definitely love.

VMware: 3 bonus points (44.2 total)

So what’s the final scores?

VirtualBox: 44.5 points
VMware: 44.2 points

Extremely close, but the winner is… Sun VirtualBox!

Sun VirtualBox
Supports Windows, Mac, and Linux

VMware Player (No Registration Required Download from Softpedia)
Supports Windows and Linux

And… that completes this first edition of First Class Flyer. Join us next Friday for our next First Class Flyer!

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By
Brian is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of TechAirlines. He is also a developer and manages most of the site’s operations. He enjoys web development in his free time and is currently trying to learn Python. He is currently a high school senior in New York City.

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  • http://www.creastery.com Creastery

    Wow! First class flyer, eh?
    Nice comparism by the way. Impressed =D

  • Master Gobada

    “First class flyer”. Interesting. It’s ironic how First Class is more expensive than normal though. }:)

    I find it hilarious how in nearly every category, XP is faster than Vista. Meh.

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian

      Hi Master Gobada. Compare the sizes of XP and Vista. The installation disk of XP is around 600 MB compared to Vista/7 which is almost 3 GB.

      Vista has a lot more eye candy than XP which significantly slows down the operating system. The system requirements of Vista was significantly higher than XP, which triggered lots of negative criticism because many were not ready for the big change.

      Also, keep in mind that I only have 3 GB of RAM on the computer I used to test VMware and VirtualBox, and Vista requires 2 GB or more to run smoothly. Compare that to XP which runs perfectly with 512 MB.

  • Paul

    I have tried both Virtualbox and VMWare Player and ended up a little frustrated with both. But I intend to persevere and I found your article very useful. Thanks.

    I would prefer to use VMWare Player but its one vital shortfall is that it will not keep snapshots. Having created a VM and installed an OS, eg. Win XP, SP2, SP3 and latest updates, the last thing you need is to reinstall the whole lot because you cannot restore from a snapshot. VMs are great for experimenting when you can just wipe a failure and restore to an earlier state, but not with VMWare Player.

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian

      Paul,

      Yep, snapshots are the primary thing that is preventing me from using VMware Player. I do a lot of experimenting inside virtual machines and I need to be able to easily backup and restore everything.

      Thanks for visiting,
      Brian

  • Daniele

    What about USB-Bluetooth dongle?
    I’m trying under Virtualbox with no result :(
    Everything OK with VMware Player 3…

    • http://worldomo.blogspot.com prajnith

      Hi Daniele,
      If you are running VirtualBox in Linux ,then try running virtual box as root(sudo), this should fix the problem.

  • Jim

    I run Virtual PC2007 with an XP Pro VM, virtualbox with Kubunto 9.04 VM, and VMplayer running an XBUNTU 9.1. PC2007 hosts Microsft products very reliably, and nothing else well. For hosting XP on Vista, it was easily best. When comparing Virtualbox to VMware using Vista as host and UBUNTU flavors as VM, its not even a competition… And creating a good working image with VMplayer is sooooo turn-key. Def not the case with Virtualbox with the 5 suselinux and ubuntu linux distros I tried. VMware just seems to do everything better. As far as not being able to Export Images you made with VMplayer, its actually really easy… Maybe theye didn’t intend for it to be simple, but it really is. Anyway for me, using a LINUX VM on a Microsoft host, VMplayer wins. (Jim)

    Also, virtual pc2007 and VMware coexist very well. No conflicts at all when both are running…. For me….

  • http://enmacado.lynze.net Lynze Mac

    Good comparision. Thanks!!
    .-= Lynze Mac´s last blog ..enMACado Podcast 01×04 =-.

  • http://twitter.com/joe_alvarez Joe Alvarez

    Thanks for the thorough comparison! VMWare provides a free utility to convert physical machines or virtual machines to the VMWare format. VMware vCenter Converter painlessly moved my VirtalBox Win XP Pro to VMWare format that works with free VMWare Player. VirtualBox has been really great, but VMWare is definitely the main player in the VMWare world and I imagine will be around longer.

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian

      Joe,

      I currently have both installed but tend to use VMware Player more often because I love the drag and drop file transfers between the host and the guest. It’s just much easier than going through shared folders. The Easy Install feature is nice to have too.

      I use VirtualBox for testing of large things as the snapshots feature is very useful and VMware Player doesn’t seem to offer that.

      Thanks for visiting and commenting!

  • Kongkon

    A very good comparison. Nice work.

  • http://kgosafomaafo.net Gyamfi

    Good work. In the future, I think it will be nice to look at networking (e.g. connecting to guest from host or external and even port forwarding). As people use more VMs, they will start to want to have the VM guest available on networks like a regular physical installation.

    I also found that virtualbox can boot a physical harddisk partition, so you can both dual-boot and use VM to get in.

    Finally, it will be nice to consider how easy the GUI is to use. VBox has a lot of featurees (like booting harddisk/partition) but most are in command prompt and not the GUI. It is not too bad but having it in the GUI can make things easier to use so I would want to know what features they have under the hood in comparison.

    Good job awayway :-)

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

      Hi there. Thanks for your comment and suggestions. I am planning to perform an updated comparison soon and will definitely add the additional command line features VBox has.

  • Jonny Bravo

    Hi Brian,

    I’ve used both VMWare (Workstation and Player) and VirtualBox on a number of different hosts. Since the article was about the free virtualization products, we can leave Workstation out of the discussion.

    There is one point I would like to clarify about your review. You mention VirtualBox supports Windows, Mac and Linux flavors, whereas VMWare Player only supports Windows and Linux. I assume that you mean that VMWare Player only has versions for Windows and Linux, while VirtualBox has versions for Mac as well. This is true and if you’re an Apple owner and need free virtualization, then VirtualBox is the product for you. The only way you’ll get a VMWare product running on Mac OSX host is by purchasing Fusion.

    In your comparison, you benchmark installation times, startup and shutdown times, and file transfer times. You don’t make any mention, however, of actual application performance within the virtual machines. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I honestly don’t care if the OS took a few extra minutes to install on one virtual machine, or that my startup might take me a few extra seconds. What I really do care about is how things actually run within the virtual machine itself. In this regard, I find VMWare’s offering far outshines VirtualBox.

    In terms of pure application performance, I have found that the VMWare offerings beat out VirtualBox. Installation of Oracle database 11g seemed to be a tad faster on VMWare. Data fetching and overall execution time from external applications was also faster on the VMWare product (timer statements within the code proved it out).

    I’ve found that with VirtualBox the guest OS randomly freezes (Windows 7 Pro x64 host). This has been posted a number of times on the VB forums as well as across the internet. The freezing is random. I’ve personally had the guest running anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 days. To date, there is no known solution, and that right there eliminates VirtualBox as a contender for any kind of serious work. No such limitations on the VMWare Player.

    Overall, I have to recommend the VMWare product over VirtualBox by far. Besides, as you mentioned, dragging and dropping files from host to guest and back is just too cool :)

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

      Hi there,

      Thanks for your comment. I will definitely take your suggestions about actual application performance into account for an updated comparison that I will be creating soon.

      Enjoy your week,
      Brian

      • Jonny Bravo

        Hi Brian,

        My pleasure. I figure people that are using and/or contemplating virtualization through either of the reviewed products are going to be interested in how the applications will run within the virtual environment. I think such comparisons would add some very beneficial information to future articles.

        Best of luck with your upcoming reviews!

        JB

  • Sina Momken

    Thank you for your comparison.

    Currently I’m a windows user now. But because I’m a software engineer & programmer, I love Linux more!
    At the other hand the market wants more windows programming & I have more programming experience for windows too!
    So I want to migrate to linux (mint distro), but also have a copy of windows run on my linux to can work with both environments at the same time. Windows because I have to & Linux for my own!
    So what the virtualization solution do you offer to me? Virtualbox or vmware player?
    Consider I need to sometimes go to windows natively to do full works with win.

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

      I have seen very similar performance with both products. I found VirtualBox’s main advantage is faster updates (especially compatibility with newer operating systems) and snapshot support. Snapshots are great when testing things out in the virtualized environment. VMware Player’s main advantage would probably be the Easy Install, drag and drop file support, and better graphics support.

      I like both products and I recommend giving both a try and choosing whichever one you like more. Both have their own advantages and performance is very similar.

      I’ll be creating an updated comparison with the latest version of each sometime this month.

      • NewLion

        Hi Brian and hi Sina,

        I recommend Virtualbox for Sina as the host in this case is a Linux distro which run Virtualbox better. Also, Virtualbox can load guests from physical partitions which means you can dual boot (go in natively) or load as a VM as well – Sina’s requirement.

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  • http://www.iwebsnacks.com iwebsnacks

    I still believe that VMWARE is more advanced and I would love to use it whenever I get a chance..

  • drdrogo

    I have been using both VirtualBox and VMWare on my Ubuntu server at home for quite a while, and I found VMWare Player to be far less reliable than VirtualBox. This is pretty surprising, considering VMWare pretty much invented virtualization on the PC platform. My VMWare virtual machines running Windows guest OS’s (particularly Windows XP) now crash randomly, usually at the most inopportune times. I have to say that my two VMs running Linux guest images (my Wiki and MySQL RBMS servers) are rock solid, though.

    One aspect of the two platforms that I could not see in this comparison was command-line management tools. VMWare Player does not provide command-line tools for tasks like suspending a VM, displaying a list of currently running VMs, connecting a drive to a VM and so on out of the box. You have to download the VMWare VIX API in order to do all these. Even scripting a basic task like starting VMs automatically when the host boots, and stopping running VMs upon shutdown is not a very straightforward task without programming using the VIX API.

    On the other hand, the “VBoxManage” tool that comes with VirtualBox provides a very rich platform to start/stop/suspend VMs, and manipulate the VMs in many different ways. If you’re using VirtualBox, it is extremely easy to write basic scripts that suspend all running VMs, connect drives, share files etc. without requiring any downloads or programming, I think this is a very important feature for serious VM work in a production and programming environment, and deserves some mention.

    In my view, VirtualBox provides the superior free offering. I would probably stick with VMWare in a work setting, my all of my new VMs on my home system are being created as Virtual Box images.

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

      Hello. Thanks for your comment.

      I am creating an updated version of this comparison very soon and will be sure to incorporate all those features you mentioned into it. I agree, the VBoxManage tool is important for serious VM work.

      VMware Player isn’t as reliable as the paid version of their product, Workstation.

      Enjoy your week,
      Brian

  • http://www.searchingforgreen.ca Vasile

    Thanks for the comparison. I’m using VMware player right now, but the lack of snapshots is pushing me towards VirtualBox. Please post here a note whenever you’ll have the updated article.

  • http://virtuworld.blogspot.com anirudha

    You seems tobe VirtualBox fan. I have been using vmware products from last 5 years, and all I can say is its awesome, from vmplayer to ESX.

    The comparison should be more realistic. You have given the points in a way that virtual box wins.

    Not GOOD comparison at all.

    • ads

      your dumb

      • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

        Please be nice.

      • Gunther

        “your dumb”

        …says the guy that doesn’t know it’s you’re and not your.

        • Botond

          Gunther, please consider that intelligence and the knowledge of English language has no connection at all.

    • http://www.creastery.com Creastery

      Even if Brian is a VirtualBox fan, why should he make sure VirtualBox wins?
      This is a FAIR comparison and it is realistic.

      This results of the comparison isn’t made by personal views, instead, it is obtained through several tests and proves.

  • GOKU

    Clearly… winner is VMware… as XP is outdated and most people will install Vista/7 and other 64bit oses….

  • http://artswrap.co.uk Sam

    Hi, I was using VirtualBox before working with some people who were using VMware instead. I was forced to use VMware player to use the same virtual disk and I must admit that I found it very intuitive and straight.

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  • http://jesin.tk/ A.Jesin

    You could’ve use a more grueling benchmarks (PCMark or game benchmarks) inside the guest OS to better assess the performance of which virtual machine is better

  • assaf

    I have not had the chance to try out vmware player 3.0 yet (I was looking at this comparison because of that) but I have in the past created a virtual machine with vmware workstation (a trial version) and then ran it with vmware player 2.5.

    I have noticed that vmware player seem to be a much better option when it comes to actual working performance:
    1. memory management: virtualbox simply took all the virtual machine memory from the start while vmware managed to allocate the memory slower. That meant that even though my machine had only 2GB memory, I was able to use 1.5GB for the guest and still have stuff open for the host (of course when I actually used the memory in the guest, returning to the host meant a long wait for the virtual memory)
    2. programs with graphics: While I have been able to play some games (such as back to the future) using virtualbox, the performance was limited and other programs requiring 3D acceleration (such as unity3d game engine) simply didn’t work. vmware on the other hand managed to work reasonably well (and workstation even better). I hope vmware player 3.0 will give the same performance I saw for the workstation product but even the original one was better than virtualbox.

    just my 2 cents…

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  • http://www.colo-x.com Colocation Docklands

    VMware Player 3.0 works like a charm! Thanks a lot!

  • StinkyCat

    I just wanted to leave a comment about my experience while attempting to run VM integration on a recent upgrade I did to Windows 7. Albeit this is slightly off topic, I ran across Brian’s article while trying to compare VMware Player and Windows XP mode feature. Because our office still has older Novell servers out in deployment, I’ve been accustomed to using ConsoleOne, which is java dependent and after several failed attempts to get ConsoleOne to run natively in Win7, I figured I would give the Win7 XP mode a crack. I knew this was really MS VirtualPC using a virtual XP to host my legacy applications, but after two days to trying to get the integration tools to operate correctly, I gave it up knowing VMware put out their own line of product. I’ve used VirtualBox in the past before on my iMac, but didn’t’ consider this when attempting to resolve my legacy application issue. However, when I installed VMware Player, got the OS installed and my legacy applications in, I was quite impressed with the ease and functionality of the Unity option in VMware Player. For my purpose, I was disappointed to learn of the inability of snap shot not being supported, but for my overall use, VMware Player fits the bill fine and operates much more smoothly than the MS XP Mode hands down.

  • MANISH

    I have installed vmware player to Winsows7 home basic 64 bit system 4gb ram core I3 processor,

    then installed Windows XP on VMWare player as virtual machine into It,
    then I installed SQL EXpress 2005 to XP,
    everytime system restarts after 5 minutes, what shoud I do??

    Please help me .

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

      That is very unusual. Was this an unmodified Windows XP installation?

      Try reinstalling the XP. Does it restart even without SQL Express installed?

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  • http://sportskevesti.org sportske vesti

    One aspect of the two platforms that I could not see in this comparison was command-line management tools. VMWare Player does not provide command-line tools for tasks like suspending a VM, displaying a list of currently running VMs, connecting a drive to a VM and so on out of the box. You have to download the VMWare VIX API in order to do all these. Even scripting a basic task like starting VMs automatically when the host boots, and stopping running VMs upon shutdown is not a very straightforward task without programming using the VIX API.

  • Anonymous

    In my experience, VirtualBox is usually faster than VMware Player in most tests, so surprised to see the results. I wonder if it is because you used 2 vCPUs. Would be interesting to see single vCPU in a vm results.

    • http://www.techairlines.com Brian Yang

      Thanks. I’ll be sure to try that next time.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/YB7SSOAWOD5DJRTDASSLG3J5CA Alessandro O

    says the german who must correct everyone else

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