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LXD

103
190
+ 1
68
VirtualBox

29.3K
24K
+ 1
1.1K
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LXD vs VirtualBox: What are the differences?

Developers describe LXD as "Daemon based on liblxc offering a REST API to manage containers". LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network. On the other hand, VirtualBox is detailed as "Run nearly any operating system on a single machine and to freely switch between OS instances running simultaneously". VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

LXD and VirtualBox are primarily classified as "Virtual Machine Platforms & Containers" and "Virtualization Platform" tools respectively.

"More simple" is the top reason why over 4 developers like LXD, while over 357 developers mention "Free" as the leading cause for choosing VirtualBox.

LXD is an open source tool with 2.28K GitHub stars and 531 GitHub forks. Here's a link to LXD's open source repository on GitHub.

Decisions about LXD and VirtualBox
Florian Sager
IT DevOp at Agitos GmbH · | 2 upvotes · 372.6K views
Chose
LXDLXD
over
DockerDocker

lxd/lxc and Docker aren't congruent so this comparison needs a more detailed look; but in short I can say: the lxd-integrated administration of storage including zfs with its snapshot capabilities as well as the system container (multi-process) approach of lxc vs. the limited single-process container approach of Docker is the main reason I chose lxd over Docker.

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Pros of LXD
Pros of VirtualBox
  • 10
    More simple
  • 8
    Open Source
  • 8
    API
  • 8
    Best
  • 7
    Cluster
  • 5
    Multiprocess isolation (not single)
  • 5
    Fast
  • 5
    I like the goal of the LXD and found it to work great
  • 4
    Full OS isolation
  • 3
    Container
  • 3
    More stateful than docker
  • 2
    Systemctl compatibility
  • 358
    Free
  • 231
    Easy
  • 169
    Default for vagrant
  • 110
    Fast
  • 73
    Starts quickly
  • 45
    Open-source
  • 42
    Running in background
  • 41
    Simple, yet comprehensive
  • 27
    Default for boot2docker
  • 22
    Extensive customization
  • 3
    Free to use
  • 2
    Mouse integration
  • 2
    Easy tool
  • 2
    Cross-platform

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What is LXD?

LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.

What is VirtualBox?

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

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What companies use LXD?
What companies use VirtualBox?
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What tools integrate with LXD?
What tools integrate with VirtualBox?

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What are some alternatives to LXD and VirtualBox?
Docker
The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere
LXC
LXC is a userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features. Through a powerful API and simple tools, it lets Linux users easily create and manage system or application containers.
KVM
KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.
containerd
An industry-standard container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness, and portability
See all alternatives