Free VirtualBox Alternatives
The best free alternative to VirtualBox is QEMU, which is also Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to VirtualBox and many of them is free so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free alternatives to VirtualBox are VMware Workstation Player, KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), Portable Virtualbox and virt-manager.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
QEMU (short for "Quick EMUlator") is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor that performs hardware virtualization.
QEMU vs VirtualBox opinions
It runs faster than virtualbox using KVM. Also is better suited for production level.
It also performs hardware visualization
arpetersIt is supported by various frontends such as Virt Manager and AQEMU.
It doesn't have a GUI to manage like Virtualbox or VMware. That's problematic.
VMware Workstation Player builds on the industry leading foundation of Workstation Pro, and delivers a streamlined user interface for creating and running operating systems and applications in a virtual machine.
VMware Workstation Player vs VirtualBox opinions
Free and slightly more advanced. Less user friendly than virtualbox but also much more feature rich.
- Free • Open Source
- Linux
- Android
KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.
Portable-VirtualBox is a free and open source software tool that lets you run any operating system from a usb stick without separate installation. It unpacks and adjusts the paths and configuration of VirtualBox so it will run portably.
Discontinued
It has not been updated since 2017 and does not work with any version of Virtualbox beyond v5.1.22.
Portable Virtualbox vs VirtualBox opinions
garnishgamerIt is basically VirtualBox for mobile.
The virt-manager application is a desktop user interface for managing virtual machines through libvirt. It primarily targets KVM VMs, but also manages Xen and LXC (linux containers).
virt-manager vs VirtualBox opinions
virt-manager with kvm/libvirtd is as powerfull as virtualbox, but much much more faster.
arpetersFully open source alternative to VirtualBox available in Debian repository. I don't trust VirtualBox anymore since it was excluded from Debian main.
zinzthis is not vm but a vm manager.
- Freemium • Open Source
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- Android Tablet
Proxmox Virtual Environment is a complete and easy to use Open Source virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines.
Parallels Desktop gives Mac users the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their critical applications at the same time as macOS. Parallels Desktop is optimized for Intel and Apple M1 chip.
A simple GNOME application to access virtual systems. It is based on a design from Jon McCann and Jakub Steiner.
Boxes vs VirtualBox opinions
This is a virtual machine manager, not virtualization software
Seamlessly run your favorite Windows applications and devices, on any Intel-based Mac.
Xen.org, home of the Xen hypervisor, the powerful open source industry standard for virtualization. It is a native (bare-metal) hypervisor providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently.
Xen vs VirtualBox opinions
Hypervisor != Virtualization Desktop
Xen is hypervisor that isn't emulate but isolate.
This is a hypervisor, not a virtual machine.
This is a bare-metal hypervisor, not a software virtualization platform.
xen appears to be a hypervisor, which is quite different than basic virtualization software...