Oracle VirtualBox - FREESnapshotsThe following guest operating systems can be installed on VMs running on VirtualBox: Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, macOS.
VMware Player (VMware Workstation Player) - FREENo snapshotssupport the installation of the following guest operating systems: Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD,
VMware Workstation (VMware Workstation Pro) - PAIDSnapshots support the installation of the following guest operating systems: Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD,
VMware Fusion (For Mac) - PAIDEasiest option for having a Mac guest - This imports in from your own OS.Snapshotssupport the installation of the following guest operating systems: Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, macOS*. Be aware that macOS can only be officially installed as a guest OS on VMware Fusion/Fusion Pro.
If you want to have MacOS VM guest with Windows host with virtual box.
ConclusionVirtualBox and VMware are the top two virtualization platforms on market, which makes it difficult to choose between the products. The most important VirtualBox and VMware features have been explained and compared in this blog post to help you make a choice that is right, and that suits you best. There are some recommendations you can refer to:
If you need a free virtualization solution for a desktop, you can select VirtualBox.
If you need to have a free virtualization solution for running VMs on a server, select VirtualBox or VMware ESXi Free Edition.
If you need an ultimate solution for desktop with extended 3D graphics support and a wide list of settings, select VMware Workstation (or VMware Fusion for Mac computers).
If you need a free virtualization solution that only needs to run VMware VMs on desktop with basic options, you can select VMware Player.
If you need maximum integration between a VMware desktop solution and a VMware vSphere (vCenter server, ESXi hosts), select VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion Pro. You can use VMware Workstation or Fusion Pro for connecting to vCenter Server or ESXi host remotely, and can manage virtual machines residing on these resources. VMware provides a free VMware vCenter Converter for converting VMs of the Workstation format to VMs of the ESXi format (and vice versa).
If you have an old computer with a processor that does not support hardware virtualization technologies, select VirtualBox, which provides software virtualization.
If you need the ultimate enterprise-grade solution for deploying multiple servers, running a high number of VMs, using clustering features, etc., select VMware vSphere based on ESXi servers with vCenter.
Both VirtualBox and VMware provide performance and high reliability. The final decision is up to you. Evaluate which features and advantages are vital for your infrastructure, and select the most suitable product. If you want to learn more about virtualization solutions, you can also compare VirtualBox with Hyper-V.
