Cloud Hypervisor vs GNOME Boxes

Cloud Hypervisor is a free, open-source virtual machine monitor written in Rust for modern cloud workloads. It runs modern Linux and Windows guests on Linux hosts with x86-64 or AArch64 architectures, using minimal hardware emulation. Operators can manage VM lifecycles through a REST API or command-line interface, with an optional D-Bus API. It supports snapshots, nested virtualization, paravirtualized devices, physical device passthrough, and live migration between hosts without interrupting VMs. Migration data can be encrypted using mutual TLS. The maker says direct kernel boot reaches userspace in less than 100 ms. The project is supported by Kata Containers for running secure containerized workloads and is governed openly as part of the Linux Foundation. It has no commercial plan or usage limits stated. Linux hosts need kernel 4.11 or later for required KVM functionality; kernel 5.6 is recommended for adequate performance. Packages for some popular Linux distributions are available through the Open Build Service. For help, the project points users to GitHub discussions or Slack, with GitHub issues for bug reports and a mailing list for broader discussion.

GNOME Boxes is a free Linux desktop app for creating and managing local virtual machines, then installing an operating system in them. Its automatic installation list includes CentOS Stream, Debian, Fedora, Microsoft Windows, OpenSUSE, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Ubuntu. Users can set memory and storage limits, save a VM state as a snapshot, and restore it later. Host integration includes shared clipboard, file drop, and shared folders; USB redirection makes devices plugged into the computer available inside a VM. Guest tools can improve input performance, screen resizing, clipboard sharing, and file transfer. Windows guests use spice-guest-tools, while Linux guests commonly use spice-vdagent. Boxes uses qemu-kvm, libvirt-glib, and spice-gtk to manage virtual machines. Three-dimensional acceleration is available for some supported systems. GNOME recommends processor virtualization extensions, at least 8 GB RAM, and 20 GB free disk space for efficient use. Boxes is for local VMs; GNOME points to Connections for remote machines and displays. The app is free and desktop-only.