What’s best for running virtual machines for free?

VirtualBox is packed with tweakable features to help boost your VM’s capabilities

© VIRTUALBOX

WHETHER YOU’RE LOOKING to recreate an older version of Windows to play classic games or try different flavors of Linux without having to set up a dual-boot system, virtualization is the answer to your prayers. The good news is that it costs nothing to emulate OSes on your PC thanks to these two options, both of which are free for personal use. But which one is better? We put both to the test to find out.

Superficially, both VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player do the same thing, but there’s plenty of differences to mark them distinct from each other. If we start with VirtualBox, it’s free to use, and mostly open-source, so there are no restrictions in play unless you need access to fast USB peripherals, in which case a non-commercial restriction applies. In contrast, the free version of VMware is restricted to personal use only, while it also strips out some key functionality for those who don’t want to pay for a commercial license. More on those shortly.