Products · Product
VirtualBox
Raised as a usability problem by 60 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2011–2025), in 50 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Linux GUI in a VirtualBox VM is very slow and laggyUnreviewed
20112026- 3D acceleration in VirtualBox is so sluggish it's hard to use2025-05-17
- Typing lags noticeably when developing in a Linux VM2023-09-28
- VirtualBox's own display scaling is very slow, so the VM feels laggy2023-07-28
3D acceleration is hard to get working, needing driver tinkeringUnreviewed
20112026- 3D hardware acceleration doesn't work even though the version says it should2024-12-03
- 3D acceleration completely unusable on nVidia cards and buggy elsewhere2022-10-11
- 3D acceleration is hard to get working; needed driver and glxinfo tinkering2016-07-31
VMs run with poor performance and graphics on macOSUnreviewed
20112026- Windows, Linux and macOS VMs run with terrible performance and poor graphics on macOS2020-08-01
- MacOS VMs in VirtualBox and VMware had graphics problems that made them unusable2018-09-24
- Running Linux in VirtualBox on macOS is a frustrating, poor experience2018-05-10
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Linux guests crash or hang, and desktop autoresize never works2025-07-30
- 3D acceleration in VirtualBox is so sluggish it's hard to use2025-05-17
- 3D hardware acceleration doesn't work even though the version says it should2024-12-03
- CPU core count greyed out, unclear how to adjust cores and RAM2024-02-08
- Window slide animations stutter, refreshing only about every tenth of a second2023-11-22
- Typing lags noticeably when developing in a Linux VM2023-09-28
- File sharing and container networking silently break unpredictably, with no logs to diagnose2023-08-05
- VirtualBox's own display scaling is very slow, so the VM feels laggy2023-07-28
- Scripting API is terrible, hard to use for automating CI VM spawning2023-07-27
- Windows VM crashes constantly and runs laggy with visual glitches2023-07-24
- Guest Ubuntu desktop still feels sluggish when dragging windows2022-10-11
- Windows 10 guest installs slowly and feels sluggish when running2022-10-11
- At 4K resolution the VM is so slow that simple actions take seconds2022-10-11
- 3D acceleration completely unusable on nVidia cards and buggy elsewhere2022-10-11
- Linux desktop in VirtualBox on macOS is very sluggish to interact with2022-10-09
- Linux desktop in VirtualBox on Mac re-renders very slowly, sluggish like a slow remote desktop2022-10-09
- Fusion 360 in VirtualBox renders incorrectly and performs poorly2022-08-24
- Conflicts with Hyper-V on Windows and runs very slowly2021-09-22
- Terminal lags in VM, making held-key scrolling through code unusable2021-08-11
- File access through shared folders is extremely slow2021-07-19
- VM launches but is too slow to actually use2021-01-03
- Terrible disk performance when accessing host-shared directories from the VM2020-11-27
- Windows, Linux and macOS VMs run with terrible performance and poor graphics on macOS2020-08-01
- Easy to accidentally download a paid extension pack thinking it's free2020-03-31
- VMs fail to start with hardening errors and no option exists to disable the feature2019-11-27
- Typed characters and mouse pointer lag badly, making login and GUI use maddening2019-03-21
- Controls don't look or work right on Mac, feel non-native2019-01-16
- OpenGL acceleration sometimes produces visual glitches that only a VM reboot fixes2018-12-20
- Window drawing leaves empty gaps and covers toolbar buttons, and scrolling the VM log is very slow2018-12-20
- Icons look nearly identical and indistinguishable, making the interface harder to navigate2018-12-20
- Basic key combinations get intercepted by macOS and trigger unwanted actions in the VM2018-12-20
- MacOS VMs in VirtualBox and VMware had graphics problems that made them unusable2018-09-24
- Fullscreen VM display problems made it hard to tell what was broken2018-07-31
- Running Linux in VirtualBox on macOS is a frustrating, poor experience2018-05-10
- Setting up Guest Additions is a pain to get working2018-02-08
- File sharing is slow and VMs get corrupted, with fixed RAM starving other VMs2017-10-27
- Using anything but the GUI is hard; VMs need hand-edited undocumented XML to start2017-04-09
- Linux GUI in a VirtualBox VM is very slow and laggy2017-02-23
- Server process on shared filesystem runs noticeably slow inside the VM2016-12-02
- Shared folder reports POSIX capabilities like permissions and symlinks that then fail when used2016-12-02
- Needs fiddly configuration to run fast, and file sharing with the host keeps having sync or lock problems2016-12-02
- Virtual machines feel so slow and laggy for interactive use they are unusable2016-11-09
- 3D acceleration is hard to get working; needed driver and glxinfo tinkering2016-07-31
- Prompted to upgrade every time it launches, which feels clunky2016-07-28
- Cannot run a VM inside a Linux VM, making the product unusable for some developers2016-07-14
- Ubuntu guest runs at 10fps by default, took long to find the fix2016-07-13
- Clang fails out of the box, needing obscure non-intuitive flags to compile2016-06-28
- Couldn't resize window; menus and settings had no effect after two hours2016-06-04
- Shared folders are terribly slow, making them unpleasant to use2016-01-27
- Running a VM detached requires calling APIs instead of a simple setting2015-08-28