# What is a Vagrant provider ?

The underlying virtualization solutions are called providers. To work with Vagrant, you have to install at least one provider (Virtualbox, VMWare, etc).

While Vagrant ships out of the box with support for VirtualBox, Hyper-V, and Docker, Vagrant has the ability to manage other types of machines as well. This is done by using other providers with Vagrant.

Alternate providers can offer different features that make more sense in your use case. For example, if you are using Vagrant for any real work, VMware providers are recommended since they're well-supported and generally more stable and performant than VirtualBox.