Goodbye, VirtualBox – I found a better, more reliable VM manager for Linux
Goodbye, VirtualBox – I found a better, more reliable VM manager for Linux
https://www.zdnet.com/article/virt-manager-better-vm-manager-than-virtualbox/
Publish Date: 2026-02-22 21:21:00
Source Domain: www.zdnet.com
Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- If you need to use virtual machines on Linux, try Virt-Manager.
- Virt-Manager is more reliable than VirtualBox.
- Virt-Manager is completely free and open-source.
I’m a long-time supporter of VirtualBox. Over the years, I’ve written probably hundreds of articles about it for various publications and spun up thousands of virtual machines. VirtualBox has been integral to my ability to cover Linux.
But recently, I had to wave off the virtual machine manager because I’d had enough.
Why I dumped VirtualBox
Last month, out of nowhere and just when I needed VirtualBox most, I found I couldn’t create virtual machines. When this very same thing happened a week earlier, I had to perform a purge uninstall, and reinstall the software to get it to work.
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This time around, that purge didn’t work. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get VirtualBox to behave. This same issue has surfaced for me repeatedly over the years. The number of times I’ve had to uninstall and reinstall VirtualBox is mind-blowing. Sometimes, uninstalling and reinstalling isn’t enough to solve the problem. Even worse, the errors I get are no help.
Years ago, I’d written another piece of VM software that I had mixed feelings about. In some respects, it was better than VirtualBox, but in other respects… not so much.
That software is a combination of KVM and Virt-Manager.
What is KVM?
KVM, which stands for Kernel-based Virtual Machine, is an open-source technology built into the Linux kernel. KVM leverages hardware virtualization, such as Intel VT and AMD-V, which promises near-native performance for virtual machines.
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In other words, there’s no need to install KVM on Linux because it’s already there. And because KVM is a part of the kernel, I…
