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1. Best Free Virtual Machine Programs
2. Download Virtual Machine Mac
3. Virtual Machine For Mac
4. Best Free Virtual Machine For Windows
5. Best Free Virtual Machine For Windows
6. Best Free Virtual Machine Mac Os X
7. Virtual Machine Software For Mac

If you’ve never used one before, virtual machines can be overwhelming. Not that they’re difficult to use, but they’re unlike any other kind of app and that unfamiliarity is what scares most off. In practice, virtual machines are simple and extremely useful.

The toughest hurdle to getting started is deciding which virtual machine software to use. Several options exist, but if you don’t want to pay a cent, then only two are worth discussing: VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player.

Detailed profiles of the best virtual machine software available for Linux, macOS, Solaris, Windows, and other platforms.

In this post, we’ll compare both of them and help you decide which one you should use. For this comparison, we’ll be looking at VirtualBox 5.1.26 and VMware Workstation Player 12.5.7.

Price

While VirtualBox and VMware are both free, they aren’t equally free.

The core engine that drives VirtualBox is licensed under GPLv2 and open source in the truest senseOpen Source vs. Free Software: What's the Difference and Why Does It Matter?Open Source vs. Free Software: What's the Difference and Why Does It Matter?Many assume 'open source' and 'free software' mean the same thing but that's not true. It's in your best interest to know what the differences are.Read More, but the “extension pack” is under Oracle’s proprietary license and is only free for personal use, educational use, or evaluation purposes.

VMware Workstation Player is the free version of VMware Workstation Pro, meant strictly for students, non-profit organizations, and personal or home use. The catch is that you have to sign up for the occasional VMware promotional email. Commercial use requires the Pro version. (VMWare also offers the popular option for virtual machines with VMWare FusionVMware Fusion 11 Makes Make Virtual Machines Even BetterVMware Fusion 11 Makes Make Virtual Machines Even BetterVMWare Fusion version 11 is here. Here's why it's a great update for anyone who needs to run a virtual machine on their Mac.Read More.)

For casual home users who just want to run old and deprecated software or test new operating systems, they’re both free so you have nothing to worry about.

Ease of Use

To compare, I installed Elementary OS 0.4.1 in both virtual machines, then ran both of them (not at the same time) and used them as I would any normal machine.

VirtualBox has a wizard that walks you through the creation of a new virtual machine. It makes recommendations for how much RAM and hard drive space to set aside based on your system’s hardware. Launching a virtual machine is as easy as clicking Start, and again it walks you along every step of the way. I was up and running within minutes.

Best Free Virtual Machine Programs

Learn more in our guide to setting up VirtualBox.

VMware Workstation Player’s setup wizard is even easier, allowing you to tweak aspects that can only be done in VirtualBox after the fact (e.g. how many CPU cores to dedicate). Unlike VirtualBox, VMware doesn’t recommend values so first timers may feel unsure how to proceed. But overall? VMware’s interface is simpler and less intimidating.

Learn more in our guide to setting up VMware Workstation PlayerRun Multiple Operating Systems At Once With VMware PlayerRun Multiple Operating Systems At Once With VMware PlayerWe’ve lavished attention on VirtualBox here at MakeUseOf, and for good reason. However, VirtualBox isn’t your only option for creating and using free virtual machines. VMware Player, VMware’s free product, is every bit as good...Read More.

Performance

VirtualBox is among the slowest virtual machine solutions currently available. It was never very fast to begin with, but ever since it was acquired by Oracle in 2010, performance has slowly but surely degraded.

To be fair, if you’re going to run a virtual machine, you should be doing it on a powerful computer because virtualization is slowHow Does Emulation Work and Why Is It So Slow?How Does Emulation Work and Why Is It So Slow?You've probably heard of emulation before, but do you know what emulation actually means or how it works?Read More. And if your computer is powerful enough, you won’t notice the relative slowness of VirtualBox. It’s not terrible — it just isn’t as fast as it could be.

VMware Workstation Player, on the other hand, has excellent performance. When running the same guest operating system in both virtual machines with the same amount of resources allocated, I find that VMware is without question faster and more responsive.

If you have to run virtualization on a mediocre system, or if you plan on spending a lot of time in a virtual machine every day, then VMware is clearly superior. But if your system is top-of-the-line, you can go with either one.

Compatibility and Reliability

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One of the more interesting uses for a virtual machine is the ability to clone an existing operating systemCreate a Virtual Machine Clone of Your Existing Windows Hard DriveCreate a Virtual Machine Clone of Your Existing Windows Hard DriveVirtualization allows one operating system (OS) to run on another OS. We'll show you how to create a virtual machine clone of your system and how to use it.Read More and virtualize it on another computer. Programmers, for example, can clone their Linux development environment, virtualize it on a Windows computer, and keep working. In order to do that, the virtual machines need to be compatible with both systems.

This is one area where VirtualBox surpasses VMware. You can set up a virtual machine, save a snapshot, move the virtual data as is, and immediately launch it on another computer as is. It will be exactly as you expect. Snapshots and clones aren’t available in VMware’s free version.

However, when it comes to reliability, things flip around. When using VirtualBox, you’re likely to run into bugs and glitches. I’ve used VirtualBox every so often throughout the years, on several different computers, and it has never been a 100 percent smooth ride. On the other hand, VMware’s stability and dependability are its main selling points.

Other Points of Interest

Virtual Machine For Mac

If you’ve gotten this far and still aren’t leaning in one way or the other, then the deciding factor comes down to which software’s features and quirks you prefer. Here are some notable points that may push you off the fence in either direction.

VirtualBox

• Snapshots
  When you take a snapshot, you save the entire state of the virtual machine at that moment. Think of it like a save state in a video game: at any time later, you can “load” the snapshot and return to how it was when you took it.
• Extension pack
  Incorporates even more features, like support for USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices, encryption of virtual disks, remote desktop protocol, and more.

VMware Workstation Player

• Encrypted virtual machines
  In other words, password-protected virtual machines that can’t be powered on unless you have the right credentials. You can also enable restrictions that prevent users from editing a virtual machine’s configuration.

Features in Both

• Shared folders
  Though it requires a bit of setup, this feature lets you mount a folder in the host as a network share in the guest, allowing the two to share data between them.
• Shared data transfer
  In addition to shared folders, you can drag and drop files between host and guest. You can also copy to clipboard in one, then paste in the other.
• Seamless mode (VirtualBox) and Unity mode (VMware)
  Pull windows out of the guest and onto the host, allowing you to seamlessly interact with both operating systems at the same time. In VMware, such windows even appear in the host’s taskbar.

VirtualBox vs. VMware: The Winner Is…

Best Free Virtual Machine For Windows

You didn’t really think one would be strictly better than the other, did you? They’ve both been around for quite a while, and there’s a reason why both still exist: they’re both excellent.

However, a quick summary of which one you might prefer:

Best Free Virtual Machine For Windows

• VirtualBox if the price is your main concern (because you get full access to all features), if you intend to move virtual machines between hosts (because it has the best platform compatibility), or if you’re a moral crusader who only supports open source software.
• VMware if stability is your main concern (because VMware rarely crashes and doesn’t have many bugs), if you’re on an older machine where every bit of performance optimization matters, or if you’re willing to pay for the Pro version.

Wondering whether you need virtualization software after all? Consider these practical reasons to use a virtual machine7 Practical Reasons to Start Using a Virtual Machine7 Practical Reasons to Start Using a Virtual MachineThe term 'virtual' has been co-opted in so many ways. Virtual reality. Virtual RAM. Virtual schools. But Virtualization in the context of PCs can be confusing. We're here to clear it up.Read More. For starters, a virtual machine can help you run Mac apps on WindowsHow to Run Mac Apps on Windows 10How to Run Mac Apps on Windows 10Have you found amazing software that's Mac-only? Here's how you can run Mac apps on your Windows 10 machine.Read More!

Best Free Virtual Machine Mac Os X

Explore more about: Operating Systems, Virtual Machine, VirtualBox, Virtualization.

Virtual Machine Software For Mac

1. I've long since been using Linux as the host, and Windows as the guest systems. Just got a new Dell Precision Workstation 3630 at work. 6 core i7, 32 GB of RAM, 6 TB of storage, so enough for a couple of VM's, y'know. :)

   Well I put on VirtualBox to host an even older Linux environment that had been running on my old PC. Works fine. Then tried Windows 10. Installed okay, but couldn't get the screen display resolution to work worth a darn. So tried the latest incarnation of VMWare Player, now up to version 15. Worked great for the display, saw it right out of the box. But no network. Turns out the motherboard of this beast uses an Intel i219 network adapter - which VMware player doesn't like. So back to VirtualBox after finding some instructions on how to tweak the display settings to allow for a larger range, now that's working fine and all is good.

   Point being one may or may not be technically better than the other, they both have strengths and weaknesses. Bottom line is you need to find one that gives the best performance for what you want to do. After that it really doesn't matter too much.

2. VirtualBox doesn't install a shitload of services like VMware does on Windows which negatively affect the host's performance. Affecting host PC's performance is absolutely unacceptable, so VirtualBox for me. Plus its implementation of UEFI is faster, VMs are up and running instantly.

   • What kind?

3. You're assuming the host PC is Windows, right? VMware Player isn't available for MacOS - My understanding the VMware player for MacOS (Fushion) is a paid only product, so VirtualBox is a better option there.

   Also, as mentioned Windows 8 (64-bit) and up has Hyper-V built in.

   Yours

   Roy

4. 'Snapshots and clones aren’t available in VMware’s free version.' That's a deal breaker for me.

5. I should also point out that VirtualBox can open and use files from Hyper-V and VMware hosts and has command-line software to shift file formats from one to the other. This makes it very useful for data migrations and file recovery, even if it's not used as an actual Hypervisor.

6. Hyper-V is already built in to Windows if you have a Professional license . It's not perfect either, but since it works natively with Windows backup tools, it's worth discussing. Of particular note, Hyper-V supports PCIe routing, so guest OSes can have access to things like GPUs if they are available.

7. I tried both VMware and VirtualBox on my Win 10 Home machine and neither worked well, unfortunately. Specifically, I tried to run Windows XP under each and each had a different problem. VMware suffered from a nasty bug where XP's sound would crackle uncontrollably. My mouse pointer would also have a habit of slowing down to the point where trying to use WinXP under VMware was just not possible. Apparently, from discussions I found on the user forums that I visited looking for a solution, the sound bug has been in VMware for years now. As for VirtualBox, it wouldn't even recognize my source DVD drive. So, I couldn't even get Windows XP to load into VirtualBox's setup at all. That said, I've given up on VMware as far as running Windows XP goes. I'll give VirtualBox another try, though, some day as, maybe the drive recognition problem may have had something to do with another app interfering with Virtual Box. Maybe.

   • I can't say I've encountered the VirtualBox bug that you're describing, but it's incredibly simple to copy a readable CD into a .ISO file. Most CD/DVD burning applications (e.g. ImgBurn, CDBurnerXP) will do that in about three minutes.

     It's also very easy to obtain the .MSU files containing the Windows 7 XP Mode virtual machine and convert that in to whatever VM format you'd like. There are google-able instructions for doing that all over the internet.

   • Try using an ISO for the XP install - Virtualbox can load virtual CDs.

     I'm using Linux Mint with a virtual XP (and Windows 7 64 bit) running in Virtualbox - no issues at all. Software including Visual Studio run without any issues.

   • Make an .iso of your Windows dvd This will reside on your hard drive in a folder of your choice . Next setup a new virtual drive click on 'storage' click on disk icon (empty) in the windowed box center of your monitor. Next select 'live ' far right windowed box if this a Live Linux disk (.iso) if Windows only click the disk icon that is after this line : 'Optical Drive IDE Secondary Master ' (icon) of a optical drive. The drop down menu Will allow you to search for the folder that the iso resides in. Last click 'ok'. and you should be able to start your machine. Noobs lab has pre made Vm's. Nice .iso's maybe found at distrowatch linux mint is a XP similar distro also my favorite I quit using windows so long ago it is foggy memory.

8. I'll give VMware a try since I've been having problems with USB passthrough in VirtualBox