VirtualBox
Oracle VirtualBox is a hosted hypervisor for x86 and ARM virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, which was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010.
VirtualBox may be installed on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris and OpenSolaris. There are also ports to FreeBSD and Genode. It supports the creation and management of guest virtual machines running Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, Haiku, and OSx86, as well as limited virtualization of guests on Apple hardware. For some guest operating systems, a "Guest Additions" package of device drivers and system applications is available, which typically improves performance, especially that of graphics, and allows changing the resolution of the guest OS automatically when the window of the virtual machine on the host OS is resized.
Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License and, optionally, the CDDL for most files of the source distribution, VirtualBox is free and open-source software, though the Extension Pack is proprietary software, free of charge only to personal users. The License to VirtualBox was relicensed to GPLv3 with linking exceptions to the CDDL and other GPL-incompatible licenses.
History
VirtualBox was first offered by InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH, a German company based in Weinstadt, under a proprietary software license, making one version of the product available at no cost for personal or evaluation use, subject to the VirtualBox Personal Use and Evaluation License. In January 2007, based on counsel by LiSoG, InnoTek released VirtualBox Open Source Edition as free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License, version 2.InnoTek also contributed to the development of OS/2 and Linux support in virtualization and OS/2 ports of products from Connectix which were later acquired by Microsoft. Specifically, InnoTek developed the "additions" code in both Windows Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server, which enables various host–guest OS interactions like shared clipboards or dynamic viewport resizing.
Sun Microsystems acquired InnoTek in February 2008.
Following the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation in January 2010, the product was re-branded as "Oracle VM VirtualBox".
In December 2019, VirtualBox removed support for software-based virtualization and exclusively performs [|hardware-assisted virtualization].
In August 2025, VirtualBox started fully supporting ARM virtualization.
Release history
| Version | Release date | Notable changes |
| 3.2 |
| |
| 4.0 | ||
| 4.1 | ||
| 4.2 | ||
| 4.3 | ||
| 5.0 | ||
| 6.0 | ||
| 6.1 | ||
| 7.0 | ||
| 7.1 | ||
| 7.2 | Aug 14, 2025 | |
| 7.2.6 | Jan 20, 2026 | The following previously proprietary features have been made open source: |
Licensing
The core package, since version 4 in December 2010, is free software under GNU General Public License version 2. A supplementary package, under a proprietary license, adds support for USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices, Remote Desktop Protocol, disk encryption, NVMe, and Preboot Execution Environment. This package is called "VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox extension pack". It includes closed-source components, so it is not source-available. The license is called Personal Use and Evaluation License . It allows gratis access for personal use, educational use, and evaluation. Since VirtualBox version 5.1.30, Oracle defines personal use as installation on a single computer for non-commercial purposes.Prior to version 4, there were two different packages of the VirtualBox software. The full package was offered gratis under the PUEL, with licenses for other commercial deployment purchasable from Oracle. A second package called the VirtualBox Open Source Edition was released under GPLv2. This removed the same proprietary components not available under GPLv2.
Since September 9, 2011, building the BIOS for VirtualBox requires the Open Watcom compiler, which is released under the Sybase Open Watcom Public License. The Open Source Initiative has approved this as "Open Source" but the Free Software Foundation and the Debian Free Software Guidelines do not consider it "free".
VirtualBox has experimental support for macOS guests. However, macOS's end user license agreement does not permit running on non-Apple hardware. The operating system enforces this by calling the Apple System Management Controller, to verify the hardware's authenticity. All Apple machines have an SMC.
Virtualization
Users of VirtualBox can load multiple guest OSes under a single host operating-system. Each guest can be started, paused and stopped independently within its own virtual machine. The user can independently configure each VM and run it under a choice of software-based virtualization or hardware assisted virtualization if the underlying host hardware supports this. The host OS and guest OSs and applications can communicate with each other through a number of mechanisms including a common clipboard and a virtualized network facility. Guest VMs can also directly communicate with each other if configured to do so.Hardware-assisted
VirtualBox supports both Intel's VT-x and AMD's AMD-V hardware-assisted virtualization. Making use of these facilities, VirtualBox can run each guest VM in its own separate address-space; the guest OS ring 0 code runs on the host at ring 0 in VMX non-root mode rather than in ring 1.Starting with version 6.1, VirtualBox only supports this method. Until then, VirtualBox specifically supported some guests only on hosts with hardware-assisted virtualization.