This is perhaps the most notable difference combined with the fact that sandboxes do not require much in terms of additional RAM or disk space, and they are rather easy to implement and use. On the contrary, the sandbox can be restored immediately without any additional configurations, giving you a system that doesn’t include the latest changes made to the filesystem, but that works immediately. In the case of the virtual machine, it is necessary to start from scratch installing again the operating system, the applications to be used and configuring the system settings again. In both cases, you can do any tests without compromising the basic host system: in the event that the virtual machine or the sandbox is corrupted due to a failed test or a malware downloaded by mistake, it will be possible to restore the system or re-install it again. In a sandbox, a protected environment is created on the host operating system, that shares a part of the file system around a single application, from the most sophisticated software performing complex operations to individual and standard one, such as web browsers or e-mail clients. What are the differences between virtual machines and sandboxes?Ĭreating a virtual machine means reproducing a complete environment, including the operating system, drivers, file managers, and applications, within a physical host machine. In this article, we will talk about virtual machines and sandboxes.Īlthough these two technologies share some features, they are basically different.

Virtual machine player