Benchmark: comparing Vagrant VirtualBox vs VMWare Provider

virtualbox-vs-vmware-benchmark.md

Environment

• vagrant 1.7.4
• vagrant-vmware-workstation 4.0.5

Minimal with Synced Folders Disabled

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|

  config.vm.box = "hashicorp/precise64"

  config.vm.provider "vmware_workstation" do |v|
    v.vmx["memsize"] = "1024"
    v.vmx["numvcpus"] = "4"
  end
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |v|
    v.memory = 1024
    v.cpus = 4
  end

  # disable synced_folder
  config.cache.disable!
  config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", disabled: true
end

• vmware: 30s
• vbox: 40s

=> mostly because vagrant-vmware-workstation plugin uses linked clones already

Variations

Using insecure key

  # don't generate new keypair
  config.ssh.insert_key = false

=> saves 2-3s

More CPU and Memory

  config.vm.provider "vmware_workstation" do |v|
    v.vmx["memsize"] = "4096"
    v.vmx["numvcpus"] = "8"
  end

=> woah, this unexpectedly slows things down by ~10s

=> and it seems to be definitely memory bound, CPU setting does not seem to have an impact at all

=> 512mb vs 1024mb does not make a difference

With Default Shared Folders

  # disable synced_folder
  #config.ssh.insert_key = false
  config.cache.disable!
  #config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", disabled: true

• vmware: 43s
• vbox: 42s

=> woah, plus 12-14s with vmware, vbox nearly the same...

With Default + Cachier Shared Folders

  # disable synced_folder
  #config.ssh.insert_key = false
  config.cache.disable!
  #config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", disabled: true

• vmware: 43s
• vbox: 47s

=> woah, plus 5-6s with vbox ...