Is it okay to use VirtualBox on the “personal license” in a small company on a small number of computers?

Does this excerpt from the official VirtualBox FAQ mean it is totally okay to use VirtualBox at my company on a small number of computers?

It doesn't matter whether you just use it for fun or run your multi-million euro business with it. Also, if you install it on your work PC at some large company, this is still personal use. However, if you are an administrator and want to deploy it to the 500 desktops in your company, this would no longer qualify as personal use. ()

3 Answers

I think it's summarized pretty succinctly in "§ 2 Grant of license':

“Personal Use” requires that you use the Product on the same Host Computer where you installed it yourself and that no more than one client connect to that Host Computer at a time for the purpose of displaying Guest Computers remotely.

As I read it, no you need a license. It is not the numbers, it is that you are using it for corporate use. The 500 is just an example; the key is that you are using it for non-evaluation purposes in a business.

See the full license. The summary is:

In summary, the VirtualBox PUEL allows you to use VirtualBox free of charge

* for personal use or, alternatively, * for product evaluation. 

In addition, academic use of VirtualBox is also permitted free of charge by the PUEL.

If you do not belong to either category, you will have to purchase a commercial license. Do not hesitate to contact Sun Microsystems, Inc. in this matter.

This only covers the full package. If you only need the features in the VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) edition that is under the GPL and does not require a license for corporate use.

If you are really looking for something free you do have a number of other options: VMWare Server, VMWare ESXi, Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Windows Virtual Machine.

As of October 2018, the situation is the following:

• Standard VB builds downloaded from virtualbox.org are now GPL2 (i.e. completely free to use in any way)

• The Extension Pack ("Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack") is available under the PUEL (i.e. non-commercial and single-user, or 30 day evaluation).

• The Extension Pack is also available for commercial use from the Oracle Store, licensed either per-socket ($$$) or per-user with a minimum of 100 users ($,$$$).

The Extension pack includes the following features - if you don't need them, there is no point in paying:

• Virtual USB 2.0 (EHCI) and 3.0 (xHCI) devices
• VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP) support (to connect to the VB control panel via RDP)
• Host webcam passthrough
• Intel PXE boot ROM.
• Experimental support for PCI passthrough on Linux hosts.
• Disk image encryption with AES