Now It’s Easy to Build Virtual Machines Like a Pro…
There was a time when you could Google “virtual machine software,” and only VMware and Java would come up.
But those days are long gone. Today, every server, network, security, and storage vendor has gotten into the virtualization technology business. Nowadays, VMs can run on smartphones and tablets and are even being used to mine cryptocurrency…
And though VMware is my favorite, I wanted to be fair to vBeginners readers and all the vendors who have virtual machine products.
So I’m recommending that anyone considering a career in virtualization or businesses review solutions for their new data center or private cloud to test and evaluate more than just VMware products before deciding which is the best virtual machine for your future.
Pick Your Favorite Color!
Listed below are 11 flavors of VM software.
Five will install on a desktop and can run various operating systems seamlessly within the same pane of glass.
And then there are 6 more choices that are better suited for installing on server hardware. They all have their pluses and minuses. Does and don’ts. Lovers and haters. Choose one software, or two, or three, or all 11 alternatives.
Before we get started with our list of virtual machine software products for you to review, I’d like to recommend reading my new guide to the best virtual software training. This guide covers salary ranges, job skills, and online training options for beginners to learn how to set up, configure, and support virtual servers and desktops. There is even free training for VirtualBox.
Best Virtual Machines That Run on a Desktop
1. VMware Player is a FREEWARE for personal use software that will allow you to mount and run VMs directly from a Windows or Linux desktop. Though it cannot create new VMs from an ISO, it is still a powerful virtual machine software.
There is also a VMware Player Plus version with enhanced features, but it will require purchasing a license. Click Here To Download VMware Player
2. Oracle VM VirtualBox is another cool FREE virtual machine software if you’re looking for an alternative to VMware Workstation. And it’s an excellent choice for beginners. Great for lab testing and running from the desktop, VirtualBox installs on Windows, OS X, Solaris, and Linux.
Unlike VM Player, this FREEWARE allows the creation of new virtual machines from ISO or import. And will run most 32 and 64-bit operating systems as a VM. Click Here To Learn More & Download VirtualBox (Oracle also has OVM, which is not listed in my top ten)
3. Training – Not sure how to manage VirtualBox, here’s my recommendation for VirtualBox training.
3. VMware Workstation is a full-featured virtual machine software that requires licensing. This software is for advanced users who require running multiple systems. For example, it works well for developers needing database, web, and application servers all in the same virtual space. It also allows for saving projects and cloning.
VMware Workstation also interfaces with vSphere via an API and is fully supported by VMware. And with too many features to list, I can say from experience it’s a robust solution for running virtual machines on a desktop.
4. Training – not sure how to administer Workstation? Here is my recommendation for the best VMware Workstation training.
Try VMware Workstation FREE for 30 days!
4. Parallels is a full-featured virtual machine software that began primarily to run a Windows virtual machine on Apple OS X. It was a great way to have both worlds and run Windows applications on a Mac.
Interestingly, you can run Windows on a Mac now a couple of different ways, but legally you are still not allowed to run OS X on anything except Mac hardware. Although some have proven, it is possible. Parallels require purchasing a license. Click Here to Seamlessly Run Windows from a Mac.
5. VMware Fusion requires obtaining a license, too, and is another way to run Windows on a Mac!
![Parallels Desktop 17 For Mac | Run Windows On Mac Virtual Machine Software | 1-Year Subscription [Mac Download] [Old Version]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41c6ZnxMfNL.jpg "11 Best VMware Alternatives & Free Virtual Machine Software Programs (VM Apps)")
![Parallels Desktop 17 For Mac Student Edition | Run Windows On Mac Virtual Machine Software | 1-Year Subscription [Mac Download] [Old Version]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ZDtxw1gkL.jpg "11 Best VMware Alternatives & Free Virtual Machine Software Programs (VM Apps)")
Best Virtual Machine Software Products that Run on Server Hardware
6. Parallels Virtuozzo Containers has been around for a while, and from what I can find, it is used most by hosting companies for providing Virtual Private Servers, aka VPS.
But to be completely honest with you, I’ve never used it or worked anywhere Virtuozzo was deployed. I’m not even aware of any business use cases running Virtuozzo for the private cloud. Although, after reading about it for this post, I agree that it seems like a good choice for hosting companies. Click Here To Download a Free Trial
A couple of years ago, I remembered going to a demo and watching Hyper-V crash, but since then, a lot has changed. Hyper-V can now do many of the same things most enterprise virtualization software boasts about. Live migration, HA, templates, and importing VMs from VMware and EC2 using SystemCenter VMM. The only real hang-up is the lack of popularity within the Linux community.
Hyper-V works best with Windows operating systems, and it powers Microsoft’s Azure Cloud. Click Here To Download Hyper-V.
8. XenServer (XenSource) is a popular open-source virtual machine software that was acquired by Citrix. But then Citrix made the mistake of trying too hard to make a profit from XenSource and lost many of its key supporters in the process. Since then Citrix has seen their error and has reopened the source code.
XenServer is available for FREE, but you can also buy the fully supported version as well. It’s a robust solution used in many enterprise environments for hosting servers and desktop operating systems. And linked to XenCenter, it can do just about everything vSphere can, such as live migration, HA, and importing and exporting VMs to the cloud.
The critical need to know is Amazon’s EC2 Cloud uses a highly customized version of Xen. Click Here To Download XenServer.
9. KVM (Kernel-Based Virtual Machine) is another of my favorites. I guess you can say it’s the second-best choice. KVM is a full virtualization solution for Linux and is found already on most Linux Distros. It’s preferred by more Linux gurus than VMware or XenServer, and it fits perfectly into OpenStack.
There are FREE or fully supported versions from RedHat, and it does all the cool stuff too. But like Hyper-V with Linux, KVM has limits with virtualizing Windows.
KVM’s popularity has been moving up on the list of virtual machine software due to its success with OpenStack. Marrying the 2 products together gives similar functionality as VMware vSphere, although there are some limitations with hosting Windows VMs, which are now taken care of by OpenStack’s ability to also support Hyper-V and ESXi. Click Here To Download KVM.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive KVM management solution,check out Proxmox to see if it’s right for you.
10. VMware ESXi does it all and more. For large enterprise virtual server deployments of Windows or Linux, VMware ESXi is the best solution in my opinion.
I’ll tell you upfront it is not a cheap solution, but VMware does offer a FREE version of ESXi to get you hooked. And don’t expect too much from the FREE version because most of the valuable features rely on vCenter and shared storage integration, as well as licenses for HA, vMotion, DSR, and Storage DRS.
Since the 90s, VMware has been evolving. It started as a clumsy little software that used to be installed on a Windows desktop. From there, it was changed to GSX for Windows Servers. And then again, it morphed into ESX, which eliminated the need for Windows and booted to a Redhat kernel. Later, in version 4, it became ESXi, which now runs on a custom Linux kernel.
VMs on ESXi run Windows and Linux operating systems nearly flawlessly. It’s also a powerhouse for many sizeable virtual desktop deployments running on VMware View or Citrix XenDesktop. More recently, VMware was in the news because it will soon power Google’s Chrome virtual desktop cloud and provide access to Windows applications. How cool is that!
VMware Engineers are well paid and in some datacenters, they run the show. Designing and building software defined datacenters consisting of best-of-brands servers, network and storage hardware. With dedication and online VMware training, you could become a vSphere expert and join in the fun.
A final highlight of ESXi is that it is used in the majority of private clouds. And more recently, many public clouds have been offering services that allow flexing private vSphere infrastructure directly to public vSphere infrastructure. Click Here To Download ESXi.
11. Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure (New Product Update)
A while back, I met with Andy Ng to see a demo of Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure. Once upon a time, Andy was my top VMware Engineer, and he’s mentioned in my eBook VCP for Hire,
During the Nutanix demo, Andy did what he does better than anyone I know – he drew a full stack of Nutanix on the whiteboard and covered the hyper-converged technology from end to end. I was intrigued by Andy’s presentation of hyper-convergence. For more information, see the results of Gartner’s Peer Insights: Nutanix vs VMware Review. Some folks say Nutanix is the solution to the VMware tax.
To sum up my meeting in terms that someone who understands vSphere might understand, think of a 3-node ESXi cluster with VSAN and NSX all wrapped together. Basically, storage, network, and computing are all bundled together in a hyper-converged elastic cluster that runs virtual servers on an open-source hypervisor.
Nutanix is where I would start testing if I was building a new data center from scratch…
Nutanix has an enterprise software and hardware version that’s fully supported, and they also offer an open-source software-only version. Click Here Learn More and Download Nutanix Open Source.
Free Virtual Machine Tutorial To Get You Started
It’s just that if you’re running a live environment, you have to be careful that it actually will stop all machines to make sure you have access to the Internet. So it’s really only for production purposes. So when I’m basically finished installing it it was a very, very simple process.
The next thing I want to show here is actually how to install a Windows 7 inside this one. To create a new computer here, I just called this one Windows 7. It’s based on my text on Mac, and I figured out that it was actually going to be Windows 7 down here, so that’s fine, but that’s important because selecting the right type down here is going to have the supporting software installed as a driver inside of ratings so if you’re installing 2008 or Windows 8 or something like that one. Remember to pick the right version down here of Windows.
It also supports Linux and all kinds of other things, yeah, but I’ll just say next, and I want a little more memory than this one, so I’ll use it for the gate you create a virtual drive, and it actually shares the VHD format that is the same as Virtual PC users and also hyper-v. But I’ll just use the internal format. I don’t think there’s much difference in speed, but I guess interim format is best supported, so I had a 25 gig default down here since I go into the install nav and all kinds of things in here.
I actually going to bump this up to a little more than 40 gigabytes in here, as is my hard drive, and it’s will create this one, my e-drivers, actually, in this case. It’s a solid-state drive, and that’s why I already configured it earlier to use it as my default. Go in and say yes, and create this one. Before I start the installations, one thing I’m going to do here is actually change the number of processes because Windows will install a lot faster if I actually give it more CPUs here.
This one is a pretty powerful computer. It’s a core i7 and is actually running at a higher speed than moderate nominalist, so it’s running gigahertz, and it has eight threads and four cores. I am just going to give this computer for I’m now ready to start my installation. The next thing I have to do is select my image, and I have Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 in here.
That’s a download from TechNet from Microsoft that I have this ISO file from, so go ahead and open that one, and then I’ll just start the installation here. And there are only a few things I will need to do to actually get this fully installed. Oh during this install process and it’s fine I want to install it now. Until you install the VirtualBox additions in here, the mouse can be a little sluggish, especially if you’re on a remote desktop environment, but I just want to see my 40 gigs on the hard drive. Just click Next, and now it’s expanding the Windows files. The first percent here takes a little longer. The total process of installing windows in here is probably going to be six-seven minutes in total but I going to remove some of this recording here.
If I look at one of the reasons this computer is so fast as it is, it’s running a Core I7 on the new version and is actually has been slightly overclocked, so it’s currently on gigahertz down here, so that’s a process. This one works fine. Also, on a laptop, it just won’t get this tremendously fast speed that this one is. This computer has two solid-state drives in it also, so it has a solid-state C drive on 64 gigabytes as a second solid-state drive on 64 gigabytes. And if I go take a look at it here, I’ll have my C Drive, and my E drive is solid States. And then I have a two-terabyte drive in here. It’s a motherboard that already comes with graphics cards and 16 gigs of RAM. So, this computer costs less than a thousand dollars, so you should be sure to buy an example from parts. It’s extremely powerful for running a virtual box or any testing with 2009 and 2013. Now that we’ve finished the first part, we’re actually covering all the files. It’s now completing the installation here of Windows 7 and I will be able to soon type in the computer name and then install the VirtualBox additions that will make the drivers and Windows work.
The really good thing about VirtualBox is that it is completely free. It even works on multiple versions. So, if you had a Linux server, you could actually also run VirtualBox in the same environment as this here, where it’s now booting Windows for the first time after installing it, so put in the username. I’ll just call this one Windows 7. I have to type in a password and a hint so same password cause I don’t need to put in a Windows key and since it’s so faster to install I would just blow away this one when windows actually half-hour months won’t work any longer it’s all for testing anyway.
I use the recommended setting, and I’ll go select the Eastern time zone. Yeah and my network is a working Network and it’s now finished and it’s inside Windows 7 and it’s installed now of course you need to run the Windows Update also but before I do anything else are going to install the VirtualBox Edition that makes the Mouse better and seamless resizing of the screen and think that one so install what is called guest additions down here and take a few seconds before it shows up but it basically put in a CD in the CD ROM Drive for this VirtualBox and then it will run the software from the CD so the old PC essence is just finished installing Windows I guess so I want to run the VirtualBox Windows additions and that’s fine and I’ll just check this one that I want to trust it all the time so in future updates of VirtualBox I don’t have to check that I want to run it here and that was installing the VirtualBox additions in here so go ahead and reboot so now in Windows and of course I could choose another Drive in here I just going to remove that one because I don’t need the VirtualBox one.
The really nice things in here are that it’s completely seamless to switch between fullscreen and windowed mode, and like you used to with a remote desktop, you actually have an option down here to attach devices and all kinds of things, so it’s, but it completely disappears during the demo. So you can’t see that you’re actually running a virtual environment here. All the issues that existed with VirtualBox being able to resize or virtual PC being able to resize properly absolutely don’t exist.
With VirtualBox, you can just drag the window. It is going to look nice. You can always go fullscreen, and it will just completely cover your screen, so even if you connect to an object, it works perfectly fine here, so you can always get back, of course, to the windowed mode. And it’s running very, very fast in this VirtualBox. Here, it can also be shared. So, if we look at my drive here, I have in my VirtualBox folder, I have a couple of files in here, and this one is really the virtual drive, and that’s why everything is in so you can share that with others people they can set up their own hardware around it matching maybe their laptop and so on.
But it’s a very, very powerful system in here, the VirtualBox and it’s completely free. You don’t require anything else. Then you have a decent laptop that runs 64-bit OS and then a 64-bit operating system and gets very good performance.
Top 11 VM Software Alternatives (Try Them Out!)
As you can see, there are many options and features to choose from when considering the best virtual machine software that performs hardware virtualization. And aside from my obvious bias for VMware, here’s what you need to ask yourself:
- Will it be for running on a desktop?
- Will it be for running Windows on a Linux OS or OS X?
- Will it be for testing and learning or production?
- Will it be for hosting VPS or building a cloud?
- Will it need to support HA, live migrations, and transition to the public cloud?
- Will it be virtual machine software for a desktop or a server?
- Will it be for Windows or Linux, or Windows and Linux?
- Will it be free VM software?
- Will it be a VMware alternative?
So whether you’re running one instance of Windows on a Mac or hosting hundreds of Windows or Linux VMs on Whitebox Servers in a data center, there’s an alternative for the best virtual machines for you.
Update! Done For You Virtual Machine
Over the last year, I’ve spent days testing and reviewing multiple virtual private server platforms for the best VPS option. If you don’t want to deal with installing software on a desktop or server, and you just want a VM to run your application now, then these 3 done for your virtual machine software solutions are guaranteed to work. Spin up a VM in the cloud on SSD storage for as little as $5 per month…
More Related VM Topics:
- 3 Open Source Storage Software Alternatives For Beginners
- Why Virtualization Fails: 3 Reasons We Don’t Talk About
- VMware for Beginners: Collection of 16 Virtualization Basics
- Best Virtualization Software for Home Lab
- Virtual Machines for Beginners
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I have 1,000s of WTV files my parents watch and re-watch. There is no support for this on Win8 (not unless you upgrade to Pro then buy the WMC add-on), and it won’t be supported in Win10. The trouble is these files are off free-to-air stations created using a Win7 HTPC with a USB tuner capturing DVB-T TV stations over several years.
I’ve tried down-converting them to DVRMS format (the earlier Windows PVR format) then into MP4s but they then loose their Closed Caption subtitles that are essential for anyone hard of hearing. And the clever way Series Recording was done in WMC is second to none (I’ve tried several FreeView PVRs from well known manufacturers, and all had to be returned to the store).
How might I run Win7 Home Premium with Window Media Centre in virtual mode on a new Win10 laptop?
Thanks!
Hi Sam,
Check this out: https://msdn.microsoft.com/virtualization/hyperv_on_windows/about/supported_guest_os
And let us know if it works, otherwise virtualbox should do the trick.
Joe
Nice thing about Virtualbox is in combination with other virtual solutions. For example I can install and tweak an OS to the way it’s needed to run properly (patches and everything). Then export it to a different hypervisor for day to day use.
I am using a software which deducts that I am running on virtual environments and stops. It asks me to run on actual windows environment not virtual. Please guide and looking for your support.
Thanks i installed esxi onto my machine and found windows vm’s are running flawlessly, and it solved my problem of buying vps for diffrent purpose..
Hi Joe,
I’ve just scrape installed Windows (8.1 Pro x64) on my old Latitude E6520 (from Win 7 Pro x64, after Check Point stopped it from booting).
My IT support guys decided it would be best to update because they couldn’t supply a Win 7 Product Key!)
So as I have a nice clean build, I thought I’d go the VM route as well.
However I was advised to use either Parallels or Fusion, even after remarking they both appear to be purely for Macs to run Windows! 0.o (correct me if I’m wrong)
I’m thinking all I really need is Hyper-V? (for free 🙂 as all I really want is to have disposable VM(s) I can install the weird & wonderful onto, then replace it if it breaks.
However, it sounds like I need another OS licence for the VM, even though it’s the exact same one as the host OS, on the same hardware! True?
Cheers, DD
Hi David,
Thanks for the comment.
It sounds like you have an OEM license that came with a computer. In this case you can use the same license as long as it runs in a VM on the same hardware.
Joe
Sorry about the late timing!!!! I just bought a Panasonic cf-52 laptop with Win 10 PRO running on a Windows Vista COA. Well, I’d like to think your last statement STILL holds true for my efforts. …Can you confirm this? I’m primarily interested in running old OS’s such as WIN XP. or older windows OS’s…who knows maybe some DR-DOS files and .apps. I’m thinking I can stay away from migration and dedicated server machines and all that goes along with security issues. Thanks for any feed back.
ron_of_orange dec 15 2017
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the question.
Yes – if the installed OS is Win10 and you are running Vista as a VM, which is the original OS and using the license key that is from the sticker on the laptop, then the OEM license can be run on the same hardware as a VM. But note – XP, and Vista are both no longer supported by Microsoft with security patches.
Also, note, if your laptop hardware is 64 bit then you can go 64, 32 or 16 bit OS. Whereas, if you are installing VirtualBox on a 32 bit CPU and plan to go to 64 bit OS then VB will grey out the option for using these VM configs. But you can use 32 bit and lower.
And for DOS, I found this YouTube video for you for running DOS on VirtualBox.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eXFbT01TYo
Sounds like you have plans for a lot of fun. Good Luck!
Joe
Hello Joe,
Great article, I have an old dos app that I need to run in a network environment for my business what VM and Operating System would you recommend for this? I have a Windows 7 desktop running Windows XPMode and a Windows 2000 server.
Hi Marvin,
Thanks for asking. I would say you have 2 options:
1. If it’s for a business and you want support, VMware workstation would be the 1st option but it will cost you. And there are plenty of Youtubes on it to help.
2. The other option is virtualbox. which is free. You can also find a bunch of Youtube videos on it to help but there will not be any support.
The links for both options are in the post.
Good luck and let us know how it goes for you?
Thanks,
Joe
Hello Joe,
Great article. However, it would be useful if your article was dated so that readers would know how current it is.
There’re far too many articles that a Google (or other) search throw up with no indication of the date that they were written.
Meanwhile, can you let me know when you wrote this particular article, please?
Thanks,
Joe.
Hi Joe,
Sure, I published the post in 2/2014 and all 10 virtual server software products are still around. However, the most recent game changer in the virtualization space is Nutanix. If you’re just starting out check out Nutanix first. They also have a community version you can download and a free online training. Hope this helps!
I gotta favorite this website it seems extremely helpful.
Hello Joe, I don’t do much techie work for myself – my husband it the geek and runs the office. But this is very interesting. So based on what I can tell, I’m able to install a hypervisor software on my Windows or Mac computer and then install another operating system. This is amazing and I’m not sure we offer this pc service for our customers. I will need to try this with virtualbox on my new Dell laptop.
Thank you – Kim
Nice article Joe,
Thanks.
My question is : I’ve been given task by my company to create a entire VDI and virtual Server Infrastructure (means virtualization environment for desktop and server ) on Linux (centos, Ubuntu) , what is best solutions which is open source and license free for commercial use.
Regards,
A Hassan
Thank you for the article. I’ve never heard about Nutanix.
I prefer Virtual Box! I think this is one of the easiest virtualization solutions. With the help of Virtual Box, my mom cannot install viruses on her computer. This makes me very happy (and makes life easier).
Also, sometimes I use BoxedApp to create a virtual registry and applications testing.
i haven’t seen oracle vm server for x86