Ubuntu 15.10: KVM vs. Xen vs. VirtualBox Virtualization Performance

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 15.10: KVM vs. Xen vs. VirtualBox Virtualization Performance

Our latest benchmarks of Ubuntu 15.10 are looking at the performance of this latest Linux distribution release when comparing the performance of guests using KVM, Xen, and VirtualBox virtualization from the same system.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=22287

[zx2c4]

If you have time, I'd like to see a similar comparison with VMWare Workstation, comparing it with VirtualBox.

[tessio]

KVM tended to have the most wins while Xen generally came in right behind.

What? Did you read your own article? Xen won 15 times and lost 6 when compared only with KVM, since VirtualBox was cheating in the disk benchmarks and must be disconsidered.

[Michael]

If you have time, I'd like to see a similar comparison with VMWare Workstation, comparing it with VirtualBox.

I don't have a VMware Workstation license, which is why it wasn't tested.

[gQuigs]

LXD/LXC might be interesting here too.

[Jeroen]

Was Virtualbox using KVM as a paravirtualization interface?

[NomadDemon]

vmWare player is for free

[Dick Palmer]

Thanks for the interesting comparison Michael.

I agree with tessio, that it turned out exactly as one might expect: A good showing ("win" if you like) for Xen, with KVM also doing well (close second, I suppose) and VBox disgracing itself. It was still interesting to see how the two competent VMs compare on specific workloads.

However, what I found most interesting is that the "Worrisome Regression" ( http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...-15-Benchmarks ) seems to have vanished. Any idea what it might have been?

[AnonymousCoward]

If you have time, I'd like to see a similar comparison with VMWare Workstation, comparing it with VirtualBox.

Doesn't vmWare ban a benchmarks of their virtualization?

[Michael_S]

I sometimes wore a sysadmin hat at my last job, and for KVM disk I/O, using the "VirtIO" emulated disk format made performance awesome versus using the emulated IDE disks - very close to native. I don't know if VirtIO is the default for KVM on 15.10 or not.

Doesn't vmWare ban a benchmarks of their virtualization?

That used to be in their EULA, I don't know if it still is because I haven't used VMware in years.