Built-In USB Support: While VirtualBox requires additional extension packs to provide USB support, VMWare platforms provide built-in USB 2.0 and 3.0 support.

(VMWare also offers the popular option for virtual machines with VMWare Fusion.)įor casual home users who just want to run old and deprecated software or test new operating systems, they're both free, so you have nothing to worry about. The catch is that you have to sign up for the occasional VMware promotional email.

VMware Workstation Player is the free version of VMware Workstation Pro, meant strictly for students, non-profit organizations, and personal or home use. The core engine that drives VirtualBox is licensed under GPLv2 and open source in the truest sense, but the 'extension pack' is under Oracle's proprietary license and is only free for personal use, educational use, or evaluation purposes. While VirtualBox and VMware are both free, they aren't equally free. For this comparison, we'll be looking at Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.1 and VMware Workstation Player 16.

In this post, we'll compare both of them and help you decide which one you should use.

Vmware workstation free for mac