Virtualbox better than VMWare?

I have been running VMWare desktop for several years now, my main workstation runs Linux (SuSE initially, now Ubuntu) and running Windows under VMware when I needed to. I think I started at Workstation 3.

I have now dumped it for Virtualbox, and wow is it so much better!

Don't get me wrong, VMware is good, it is stable, simple to use and effective. But Virtualbox is (for me) better.

It installs well, with no issues at all, unlike VMware that required custom modules to be compiled. Not such a problem, except that this had to be done everytime the kernel updated.

Virtualbox installed "out of the box" and just works. It includes full paravirtualisation (Intel Vanderpool and AMD Pacifica technology for hardware virtualisation on multi core CPUs)as standard, which can be switched on and off per VM. The device support is good and I happily run a Linux Host a guest XP and a test Linux VM on an Intel quad core with 2 gb without a hiccough.

It is significantly faster to boot and shutdown a guest than VMWare (faster than native it seems) and really stable. It has really good screen support, including a fantastic seamless mode where (in my configuration) it sits taking up one monitor in a multi-screen setup.

We are testing it in a server environment at the moment, with good results. It is not a full "bare metal" solution with the kind of management and control that VMWare/XEN Source can offer, but for flexibility Virtualbox is great. We are looking to have warm standby's of common servers, and spare servers to cope with demand e.g. running up another volume mail server, rather than a full failover system, as we don't need that level of resilience. So it fits the bill perfectly.

And did I say they have a range of licencing options from fully supported to open source.

Virtaulbox is a product that exceeds expectations and is one of those bits of software that constantly surprises you with how good it is (no offence guys) www.virtualbox.org