What are the best virtual machines for Ubuntu?

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4

Options
Considered

422

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Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 4 OptionsWhy?

Best virtual machines for Ubuntu	Price	Platforms	Last Updated
93 Gnome Boxes	Free	Linux	Sep 15, 2023
85 Oracle VirtualBox	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	Sep 22, 2023
78 QEMU	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac	Aug 30, 2023
-- VMWare Workstation	-	-	Sep 10, 2023

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3 Other Options Considered

Oracle VirtualBox

Top Pro

Free, mostly open source and cross-platform

VirtualBox is available for free with source code available here. A "VirtualBox Extension Pack" that includes virtual USB 2.0, VirtualBox RDP & PXE boot support is available only under a commercial license. VirtualBox is available on Windows, Linux, OSX and Solaris. See More

Top Con

Confusing interface and lacking usability features

VirtualBox might be a bit confusing for beginners - it requires an understanding of a lot more technical details than other VMs. See More

LikableEnkimdu's Experience

Tried running on Parrot OS... followed ALL the what to dos, and installed Win7Pro.iso, and it would "START' but 1. Wouldn't see the utilities, NOR 2. handle Guest / Host shared files, nor usb. AND for the final "straw that broke the vm's back" it got stuck in "SCALE" mode and wouldn't get OUT of "Scale mode" until I deleted virtualbox OFF of my laptop! Oh yea... I had 240 Hz with 16 GIG Ram, still lagging! See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Can do snapshots

VirtualBox is capable of taking whole-system snapshots and writing them to a backing file. See More

Top Con

Inferior performance

Apart from second-class performance in virtualization, there are some visual glitches with Windows 8.1 on Mavericks. See More

Top Pro

Works with Vagrant

Works with Vagrant, an awesome tool for managing and deploying virtual machine images. See More

See All

VMWare Workstation

Top Con

Some Linuxes don't recognize VMWare components

Top Pro

Windows / Linux host

Can be installed on Windows and Linux systems. See More

MeticulousArgusPanoptes's Experience

Some Linux distros(Debian 11!) don't recognize VMware components(not VirtIO) See More

Top Con

VMWare Workstation 16 adds nothing since version 14, breaks display settings

Upgraded to VMWare Workstation 16 only to find that it adds no new features, no performance or resource usage improvements, and it no longer respects the display configuration settings. You are better off finding a different solution. See More

Top Pro

Works with Vagrant

Works with Vagrant, an awesome tool for managing and deploying virtual machine images. See More

SensibleCitBolonTum's Experience

Stable, easy and simple. It uses low machine resources. It is great! See More

Top Con

Pro version is overpriced

The pro version which has snapshot support is ridiculously overpriced. What's worse, major releases require a brand new license, but generally don't add much more functionality. See More

Top Pro

Can do snapshots

Workstation is capable of taking whole-system snapshots and writing them to a backing file. See More

Top Con

Horrible user interface

Too often you get "vm is used by another user" or "can't revert to snapshot" for whatever reasons without simple solutions. In most cases, it just throws knowledge base links to you. Not even clickable. Way overpriced. See More

Top Con

No snapshotting support in the free version

See All

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score 222 · Accepted Answer

Gnome Boxes

Top Pro

Free and open source

Top Con

Only Linux

DecisiveParicia's Experience

Easy to set up, great support for Windows 11 See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux

Top Pro

Easy to use

Top Con

Lacks some features

NeighborlyPyvsyansa's Experience

Does what it promises and delivers good performance. I prefer it to Virtualbox now, and as a longtime Virtualbox user, that is saying something. See More

Top Pro

Clean, simple interface that is in keeping with the Gnome philosophy

What are the best virtual machines for Ubuntu?

The Best 1 of 4 OptionsWhy?

Gnome Boxes

My Recommendation for Gnome Boxes

My Recommendation for Gnome Boxes

Free and open source

Only Linux

Easy to use

Lacks some features

Clean, simple interface that is in keeping with the Gnome philosophy

Faster than VirtualBox

Well integrated with GNOME

3 Other Options Considered

Oracle VirtualBox

My Recommendation for Oracle VirtualBox

My Recommendation for Oracle VirtualBox

Free, mostly open source and cross-platform

Confusing interface and lacking usability features

Can do snapshots

Inferior performance

Works with Vagrant

QEMU

My Recommendation for QEMU

My Recommendation for QEMU

Free and open source

No official GUI

Near-native performance

Can do snapshots

Versatile

VMWare Workstation

My Recommendation for VMWare Workstation

My Recommendation for VMWare Workstation

Some Linuxes don't recognize VMWare components

Windows / Linux host

VMWare Workstation 16 adds nothing since version 14, breaks display settings

Works with Vagrant

Pro version is overpriced

Can do snapshots

Horrible user interface

No snapshotting support in the free version

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