Advice Request Which VM are you guys using?

[Kongo]

I always thought Virtual Box is totally fine, but lately it's unbelievably slow and unresponsive no matter what settings I try. Now I wanted to check out VMware Workstation 16 Player as it's free for home use and is quite easy to set up. So what are you guys using - VMware, VirtualBox, Hyper-V or another one? If you don't use one of the first three options I'd be interested in the names of the ones you are using.

 

[forgottenuser79643]

I use Hyper-V, since I only create VM's for home use to either test or break stuff. Since it's built-in into Windows 10, it only takes a quick restart to complete. Granted it does not have most of the fancy-, advanced- or "quality of life"-features nor the most appealing UI. For Basic uses and if you aren't afraid of the UI, then I can recommend it for you.

Do you need more advanced features, or simply quality of life features (ie. convience)... than VMware might be worth a look. I always found VirtualBox abit sluggish. And for those wanting something different and get their hands dirty in command line, there is also QEMU.

 

[bayasdev]

QEMU/KVM through Virt-Manager on Linux and VMWare Workstation when I'm on Windows, KVM's performance is the best (even on 3D) amongst all virtualization solutions I've tried.

 

[Kongo]

QEMU/KVM through Virt-Manager on Linux and VMWare Workstation when I'm on Windows, KVM's performance is the best (even on 3D) amongst all virtualization solutions I've tried.

VMware Workstation Pro or Player?

 

[bayasdev]

VMware Workstation Pro or Player?

Pro

 

[Kongo]

Pro

Jealous...

 

[shmu26]

If you want to close the VM and save its state, VMware will do it much faster than VirtualBox does, and will start it up faster. But once the VM is up and running, I don't feel a difference.
I noticed that VB has less issues with moving the mouse between host and guest. With VMware, I often had to hit the keyboard key combo to capture or uncapture the mouse. That annoys me, so I prefer VB.

 

[Kongo]

If you want to close the VM and save its state, VMware will do it much faster than VirtualBox does, and will start it up faster. But once the VM is up and running, I don't feel a difference.
I noticed that VB has less issues with moving the mouse between host and guest. With VMware, I often had to hit the keyboard key combo to capture or uncapture the mouse. That annoys me, so I prefer VB.

Damn, then I don't know what I did wrong when using Virtual Box. I literally gave it 5Gb of RAM and enough CPU power for sure but whenever trying to start/ install the VM it either froze or crashed. Once I made it, it wasn't usable at all as the mouse was lagging through the screen. Pretty much the same settings with VMware and no problems at all...

 

[shmu26]

Damn, then I don't know what I did wrong when using Virtual Box. I literally gave it 5Gb of RAM and enough CPU power for sure but whenever trying to start/ install the VM it either froze or crashed. Once I made it, it wasn't usable at all as the mouse was lagging through the screen. Pretty much the same settings with VMware and no problems at all...

Give it as few CPU cores as possible. For instance, if you are running Windows 10 in a VM, it needs 2 cores. But if you give it more, it becomes sluggish. This is because of overhead, because it constantly needs to calculate which cores to use. More cores will make it feel more sluggish.

If you are running apps that benefit from multi-core, then once they are up and running, they will complete their tasks faster with more cores.

 

[Kongo]

Give it as few CPU cores as possible. For instance, if you are running Windows 10 in a VM, it needs 2 cores. But if you give it more, it becomes sluggish. This is because of overhead, because it constantly needs to calculate which cores to use. More cores will make it feel more sluggish.

If you are running apps that benefit from multi-core, then once they are up and running, they will complete their tasks faster with more cores.

I gave it 2 to 3 on both, Virtual Box and VMware...

 

[shmu26]

I gave it 2 to 3 on both, Virtual Box and VMware...

Beats me, then. VMs are very quirky. Sometimes they work well and sometimes they don't.

It also depends on what the VM is doing. For instance, sometimes a Windows VM will be downloading an update or performing some hidden maintenance task that makes it slow and sluggish. But it will come back to life when it finishes the task.

In any case, if VMware works well for you, why not keep using it?

 

[Kongo]

Beats me, then. VMs are very quirky. Sometimes they work well and sometimes they don't.

It also depends on what the VM is doing. For instance, sometimes a Windows VM will be downloading an update or performing some hidden maintenance task that makes it slow and sluggish. But it will come back to life when it finishes the task.

In any case, if VMware works well for you, why not keep using it?

Well, I might check it out in the future and see if it get's better after reinstalling. For now I'm totally satisfied with VMware. VMware also makes it much easier installing the tools for improved mice and graphics performance. Anyway thank you for your tips, much appreciated.

 

[HarborFront]

VirtualBox on my Windows laptop and VMOS Pro on my android phone

 

[MDTechVideos]

If price isn't an issue, VMWare Workstation any day of the week.

 

[ZeePriest]

Oracle virtualbox

 

[Ink]

Previous user of the most common VirtualBox and the more advanced Hyper-V.

As of recent, I use no dedicated VM software.

 

[Wasar]

I use Virtualbox on another PC, for testing and fun. One day I had the bad idea to enable Hyper-V and... from that moment Virtualbox stopped working, generating an error (ConsoleWrap or something similar). Even uninstalling Hyper-V the situation didn't change.
The problem seemed to be caused by fast boot, so disabling it and restarting Windows, Virtualbox started to work like a charm.

 

[Psycho_Chicken]

VirtualBox

I like that I can run it on both Linux and Windows.

Being able to take snapshots, for free, is the best feature in my opinion.