GNOME Boxes vs Oracle VirtualBox

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.

Oracle VirtualBox has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.