Amazon EC2 vs VirtualBox

Google Cloud

Microsoft Azure

VMware Workstation Pro

VMware Fusion

x360Recover

Google Cloud Compute Engine

Compare Amazon EC2 and VirtualBox based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

Google Cloud Platform is a modular-based platform providing multiple build and scale services to businesses of any size within any industry. It offers tools for document storage, data warehousing, security key enforcement, app creation, API management, AI and machine learning, live chat, and more.

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform designed to help organizations run virtual desktops and applications in the cloud. It offers businesses with built-in migration tools, which enables administrators to migrate remote desktop services (RDS) and Windows server desktops to various devices.

Google Cloud Compute Engine delivers configurable virtual machines running in Google’s data centers with access to high-performance hardware, fast networking, and simple management of resources such as persistent disks, memory, and load balancing.

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to facilitate web-scale computing for developers.

Access Controls/Permissions

Activity Dashboard

Activity Management

Application Management

Backup and Recovery

Cloud Application Security

Cloud Computing

Collaboration Tools

Compliance Management

Configurable Workflow

Configuration Management

Customizable Reports

Dashboard Creation

Data Dictionary Management

Data Import/Export

Data Mapping

Data Migration

Data Security

Data Storage Management

Data Visualization

Data Warehousing

Database Support

Forecasting

Load Balancing

Log Access

Monitoring

Multiple Data Sources

Network Monitoring

Performance Metrics

Performance Monitoring

Predictive Analytics

Real-Time Analytics

Real-Time Data

Real-Time Monitoring

Reporting & Statistics

Reporting/Analytics

Role-Based Permissions

Search/Filter

Secure Data Storage

Server Monitoring

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management

Templates

Third-Party Integrations

Threat Intelligence

Trend Analysis

User Management

Virtual Server

Workflow Management

Amazon EC2

Web-based

Assistant Professor

I really like their customer service, they are great and very very helpful.

AI engineer

I love how we can easily customize the virtual machine and how good amazon's customer service is. Our company uses it as a VM and we also run our products on it.

Senir Developer

The cloud platform is worth the money and the ease of use need to be appreciated.

I've been extremely impressed with Amazon's open source integration into virtually all other services especially e-commerce which is why I recommend this app.

communications

Overall a positive experience with Amazon's software, the storage is one of the best options about it.

Software developer senior associate

Amazing app to go with for startups, provides 30GB free space, fast,reliable ,cost saving service and easy to use on any OS. Its EBS(elastic book store) feature is adds on.

DevOps Engineer

EC2's billing flexibility is a downside in that it's very difficult to give "off the cuff" estimates for how much a given EC2 setup might cost.

SE Director

I love how simple and quick it is to get instances up and running. With our AMIs I can spin up a new instance in a matter of seconds.

Consultant

Sometimes it gets into deadlock state from which itself restarts it and we have seen the erasing of the data.

Backend Developer

The very first thing which is best is the Pay-as-you-go billing system for EC2 such that even if the instance is made dormant for sometime it will not charge for its existence.

Software Intern

I like the way EC2 offere multiple instance types and full control of infrstructure. The free tier instances have decent features which solves most of the use cases.

Software Developer

It's simple setup and easy to deploy OS on server. EC2 is popular cloud service and reduce the infrastructure costs.

On top of it it provides smooth scalability and easy integration with other AWS services.

Construction Manager

It's been a good start, and I foresee things continuing to go well.

Educator

Security provided by Amazon is also very good.

Really it's difficult to remember a time before EC2, getting a new hardware instance was typically weeks or months of effort, now it can be done in seconds.

Student

It is very much easy to use and you can adjust it security, space, etc. as per your needs. You can choose from a various number of images from which you can create your instance.

Big Data Engineer

It provides many options which could be confusing if users are not sure what they need.

Amazon EC2 screenshot: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Amazon EC2 screenshot: Amazon EC2 Amazon Instance Launched

Amazon EC2 screenshot: Amazon EC2 Console dashboard

Amazon EC2 screenshot: Amazon EC2 Instances description

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Small Business

VMware Workstation is an on-premise platform designed to help businesses run various operating systems as virtual machines (VMs) on devices, which use Linux and Microsoft Windows. Information Technology (IT) professionals can deploy multiple Open Container Initiative (OCI) containers, Kubernetes clusters, and VMs on a single device. 


VMware Fusion transforms the user's Mac into a full virtualization workstation, allowing them to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same Mac.

x360Recover is a business continuity and disaster recovery solution for MSPs. It provides support for VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, and Nutanix technologies, as well as virtual machine replication between servers in a data center. 


Oracle VM VirtualBox is an open-source cross-platform virtualization software, which helps organizations create, manage, and run multiple virtual machines (VMs) simultaneously. Features include guest multiprocessing, USB device support, remote machine display, RDP authentication & soft keyboard.

Authentication

DaaS

Data Synchronization

Desktop Virtualization

Desktop/Application Virtualization

Graphical User Interface

Multi-Device Support

Remote Access/Control

Remote Monitoring & Management

Remote Update/Installation

VirtualBox

Linux

Windows

Senior Cloud Engineer 

I like the fact that Oracle has given some time to create this free version of a Hypervisor platform and it pretty good for something free.

Economics

The problem is that the software is not recognized from a small group of users. Not every pouch is needed, but sometimes it's bad to not be able to use it when you need it.

Nutricionist

VirtualBox is probably the best tool for using virtual machines. The ease of being able to install and test various operating systems on virtual machines is excellent for many users.

Its ease of use, fantastic features and the possibility of different configurations for using operating systems on the same machine without the need to install them.

Java Developer

Its performance is low especially if you are running in windows machines. Sometimes it gets stuck or doesn't respond which makes it frustrating to use.

Associate Technical Lead

Great product with more customizations. Compared to it's main competitor, can say that VirtualBox is leading in the market.

Technical Support

I am satisfied with VirtualBox, as it has proven itself more than reliable, especially during the long sessions of troubleshooting on my Virtual Machine.

Owner

VirtualBox is a superb, easy to install, and highly versatile piece of software.

The only problem I ever have is mst of the display resoltions other than recomended always seem to cut off part of the screen.

Systems Administrator

Great for a low-cost test lab. Supports USB pass-thru so you can use webcams, storage devices and security keys in your virtual environment.

It supports all type of OS like Windows, Linux, Ubuntu and more. It provides file sharing capabilities between host OS and guest OS.

Drilling Fluids Engineer

Really easy to use and straightforward, the VirtualBox Guest Additions are and easy way of installing necessary drivers for better integration between the host and guest systems.

Applied Data Scientist

Its many features and it robustness as well as its ease of use, its not that hard to learn at first but gets easy with time. I use the app on windows to use my favorite linux distributions.

Needed to be modern interface design. Some settings needed to be automatic, sometimes you cant find what is the problem but its only a setting.

General Manager

VirtualBox can up handy in multiple situations. It has great community and support built around it.

Web Developer

First and most of all, I like the fact that it's free because in our line of business we buy many apps and programs to support our customers and many programs are hard to own because of the cost.

Senior Technical Support Engineer

The ease to create a new virtual environment, together with the hundreds of already available environments from the community.

Furthermore, it supports a wide variety of operating systems and also provides various integration options for a number of them, making your experience as integrated and hassle-free as possible.

Amazon EC2 vs VirtualBox Comparison (2026)

Amazon EC2

VirtualBox

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives