VirtualBox
The free desktop hypervisor most people start with: run Windows, Linux or BSD in a window on the machine you already have.
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5 more ways to get VirtualBox
Other download sites
Run by third parties, not by Oracle. Prefer the official page above when it works.
Package managers
- winget
winget install --id Oracle.VirtualBox - Chocolatey
choco install virtualbox - Homebrew
brew install --cask virtualbox
About VirtualBox
VirtualBox is a full virtualisation product for x86-64 hardware, with version 7.1 adding macOS on Arm and 7.2 adding Windows on Arm. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux hosts and will boot more or less any x86 guest operating system, with snapshots, shared folders and a host-guest clipboard.
The base package is open source under the GPL. The Extension Pack, which adds USB 2.0 and 3.0 support, disk encryption and RDP, is distributed under Oracle’s own licence and is only free for personal, educational or evaluation use, so check before installing it at work.
Strengths
- Runs on Windows, macOS and Linux hosts with the same interface on each
- Snapshots, shared folders and clipboard sharing between host and guest
- Base package is GPL open source, backed by Oracle but developed in the open
- Very wide guest operating system support, including old and obscure systems
Limitations
- The Extension Pack is not open source and is free only for personal and educational use
- 3D acceleration is weak compared with a native machine or a paid hypervisor
- Kernel modules on Linux and driver signing on Windows can break after system updates
Details
- Pricing
- Free · The base package is free and open source. The separate Extension Pack is free only for personal and educational use; commercial use is paid.
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Developer
- Oracle
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Trying another operating system without touching your partitions
- Categories
- Virtual machines
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Selected from the TechWalrus downloads catalog (Virtualization); facts checked against the developer's own pages, 5 sources on file.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
QEMU
The machine emulator and virtualiser that most of the Linux virtualisation stack is built on.
Proxmox VE
A bare-metal server platform that runs KVM virtual machines and LXC containers from one web interface.
