VirtualBox
Ranked 3 of 19 virtual machine tools by recommenders
Free, cross-platform virtual machine app that runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac and is easy to set up. Common caveat: graphics, clipboard and guest-integration bugs.
Free, cross-platform virtual machine app that runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac and is easy to set up. Common caveat: graphics, clipboard and guest-integration bugs.
67 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 34
- criticize it
- 33
- approval share
- 51%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 18 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 34 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac
“My default hypervisor is VirtualBox, because it runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Diskless Linux boot using ZFS, iSCSI and PXE” “worked faster in a linux VM on Windows (through VirtualBox) than on Windows”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo” Easy to set up
“Use VirtualBox. Seriously, it won't look cool, but it will 100% work after maybe 5 mins mucking around with installing guest additions.”
Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2” “virtualbox is free for non-commercial use and pretty simple to set up”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Is Linux Safe to Daily drive in 2026?” “It literally walks you through a VM creation.”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “System76 on Age Verification Laws” Sandboxing untrusted code and AI agents
“letting Claude run in a Virtualbox VM. It's easy to use, no issues with observability”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Slightly safer vibecoding by adopting old hacker habits” “I like running Claude in a VirtualBox VM managed by a Vagrantfile.”
Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “Claude Fable is relentlessly proactive” “I run Claude in a full VirtualBox VM managed by Vagrant.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Codex just found a "workaround" of not having sudo on my PC” - Comment from 27 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: How to deal with security implications of running/installing projects?”
Guest operating systems run well
“which works perfectly fine running as a guest under Xubuntu on a 4790k”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building” “Linux via their VirtualBox port works, usable with 32GB Ram”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Genode OS is a tool kit for building highly secure special-purpose OS” “running KDE in VirtualBox in full-screen mode must be fine”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe” - Comment from 22 Dec 2025 in “I can't upgrade to Windows 11, now leave me alone”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Frequent bugs and regressions
“It's so useful but so buggy.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Running Claude Code dangerously (safely)” “I couldn't get virtio working, because VirtualBox 7 had a regression with it”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Replace the Retiring Windows XP with Linux” “a bug in VirtualBox is making one core run at 100% the entire time”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Hacking Moltbook: The AI Social Network Any Human Can Control” - Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “RIP Virtual Box”
- Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999)”
Keyboard layout and alt-tab conflicts
“The only major issues I see there are precisely with alt-tab”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS” “this forced US-layout setup created a conflict with VirtualBox that I was unable to solve”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure” “telling it to use the layout with any keyboard conflicted with VirtualBox”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure” Software-only graphics and clipboard limits
“VirtualBox has really broken graphics support, you can only run software rendering Linux DEs that way.”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “WSL Manager” “VirtualBox has a broken clipboard (supposedly they plan to fix it), and it's only software rendering.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Isn't WSL2 just a VM?” “struggling to play some DX3-7 games because of VirtualBox and VMware limitations”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Triton: DirectX 11 Driver for QEMU” Oracle licensing fees for commercial use
“Oracle fining us for every VirtualBox install and the company sent The IT Spanish Inquisition around to make sure we all deleted it”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Google Is Shattering Under Its Own Weight (The IBM-Ification of Google?)” “Ah, the Oracle and Broadcom model - Java, Virtualbox, VMware, etc.”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
Other virtual machine tools people recommend
The four most recommended other virtual machine tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QEMU | 114 | 42 | 73% | 12 | 16 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| UTM | 49 | 11 | 82% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| VirtualBoxThis page | 34 | 33 | 51% | 12 | 18 yrs3 owners | — |
| Lima | 31 | 3 | 91% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Parallels Desktop | 26 | 13 | 67% | 10 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 71 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I actually go so far as having virtualbox VMs for some of those within the same computer”
“Latest version has stupid bugs and the program just disappears.”
“decent VM automation on VirtualBox (for the first ~5 years had MUCH better API/RPC and frankly still does than anything else)”
“Oh, so has the server, which is a VirtualBox VM.”
“Realistically you want virtualbox, which is closed source and proprietary.”
“struggling to play some DX3-7 games because of VirtualBox and VMware limitations”
“That’s my go-to for running un-trusted code.”
“Vbox has the desktop experience. The "guest integration" stuff and whatnot.”
“I like running Claude in a VirtualBox VM managed by a Vagrantfile.”
“all the cool options that makes vmware and virtualbox good products”
“which works perfectly fine running as a guest under Xubuntu on a 4790k”
“I run Claude in a full VirtualBox VM managed by Vagrant.”
“Oracle fining us for every VirtualBox install and the company sent The IT Spanish Inquisition around to make sure we all deleted it”
“My default hypervisor is VirtualBox, because it runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac”
“The right way to do it is to open source it and let the installer compile the software against the kernel headers. Sysdig and VirtualBox do that.”
“letting Claude run in a Virtualbox VM. It's easy to use, no issues with observability”
“VirtualBox has really broken graphics support, you can only run software rendering Linux DEs that way.”
“It literally walks you through a VM creation.”
“worked faster in a linux VM on Windows (through VirtualBox) than on Windows”
“a bug in VirtualBox is making one core run at 100% the entire time”
“Linux via their VirtualBox port works, usable with 32GB Ram”
“virtualbox is free for non-commercial use and pretty simple to set up”
“It's so useful but so buggy.”
“you can set a Virtualbox VM running a headless linux of your choice”
“running KDE in VirtualBox in full-screen mode must be fine”
“I couldn't get virtio working, because VirtualBox 7 had a regression with it”
“Been using VB twenty years and mostly happy”
“The webcam can be accessed as if were installed on the guest OS”
“Use VirtualBox. Seriously, it won't look cool, but it will 100% work after maybe 5 mins mucking around with installing guest additions.”
“It works really well (running mainly Visual Studio)”
“virtualbox has a bug which makes haiku slow with multiple CPUs”
“VirtualBox has a broken clipboard (supposedly they plan to fix it), and it's only software rendering.”
“Yep, VirtualBox had it too with guest additions.”
“The only major issues I see there are precisely with alt-tab”
“VirtualBox in contrast integrates at the driver level, and allows you to share the underlying GPU buffers”
“Seamless Mode didn't work for anything newer than... XP, I think, as a guest?”
“It was a bit janky, and I think they removed it recently.”
“this forced US-layout setup created a conflict with VirtualBox that I was unable to solve”
“telling it to use the layout with any keyboard conflicted with VirtualBox”
“Ah, the Oracle and Broadcom model - Java, Virtualbox, VMware, etc.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.