When comparing SnapCraft vs Virtual Box, the Slant community recommends Virtual Box for most people. In the question“What are the best FLOSS Sandboxing Apps for Security/Privacy and Daily Usage, Linux?” Virtual Box is ranked 3rd while SnapCraft is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Virtual Box is:
It works for Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, and many others.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Built in sandboxing
Snapcraft is designed with isolation and security in mind. All system and library definitions are defined from the core snap package instead of the host's, adding a security layer. Snaps are also designed not to arbitrarily access the host FS unless the snap is a classic snap.
Pro Auto-updates periodically
Snaps are designed to auto-update. You can trigger the update, however, with snap refresh.
Pro SnapCraft is maintained regularly
the default marketplace - SnapCraft.io, is maintained regularly with fresh new software. You can find many development tools and software from SnapCrafters or from the publishers of the software themselves.
Pro Integration with Store applications
GNOME Software and Ubuntu Software has a tight integration to Snaps, just like Flatpak, making installing the apps easier.
Pro Compatible with Many Operating Systems
It works for Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, and many others.
Pro Beginner friendly
A virtual machine can be set up in minutes if a ISO file to load is already available.
Pro Works well and fast for Windows host and Linux guest
Pro Free and open source
Pro Many free images available
Though most are linux flavors at https://virtualboxes.org/
Oracle's virtualbox site has others.
Pro Can do snapshots
Pro A lot of customization
VirtualBox has multiple virtualization options. Each one may be tailored to the guest operating system’s needs. This makes it especially good on virtualizing older systems, such as DOS, obscure distros, etc.
Cons
Con Hard to use external "stores"
SnapCraft allows you to set up a "store" (repository) but it's very difficult to add.
Con Might have a mismatch with your GTK/KDE theming
As Snaps don't have access to your system preferences, they will use the default settings or whatever was on the core snap package. This can be rectified by installing the gtk-themes-common package.
Con Proprietary feature
Snap is not completely open source as a lot of people may think, the server-side is completely proprietary also is the audit part.
Con Security issue
Snapcraft cares more about the developer/publisher than the code and it can lead to malware and other security issues.
Con You need to have root access to install apps
As a non-root user you cannot install apps to have a try.
Con Some distributions has outdated version of snapd
Distributions like Fedora might have a outdated version of snapd. However, this is not a case to be worried as some distributions will update when notified of a new release.
Con Slow startup for first-time init
It may take time for the snaps to load when launched first-time, succeeding inits will be faster.
Con Requires a one-time installation of the core snap package
The Core snap package is the heart of Snaps. This is always a required installation for first time Snap installs as it is a price you pay for using Snaps and its security advantages. However, this snap package is very small (around 65MB) so it should not worry you.
Con Snap makes boot slow
Snap slows down boot process by adding more time to it to complete due to a lot of daemons and services created.
Con Built-in telemetry
Snaps have built-telemetry, this is how they know how many and what distros are using snap.
Con Bad if using limited/slow internet
Snaps need to download MB to GB of stuff.
Con Lacks video performance
Virtualbox has a hard cap of 256MB of video memory. This could make newer operating systems run slower.
Con Minimal CPU customization
You can only enable/disable certain features. You cannot cap the speed of the CPU, which is required to run systems such as Windows 95.
