How do MySQL 5.7 virtual columns differ from views?

Starting reading point: https://www.percona.com/blog/2015/04/29/generated-virtual-columns-in-mysql-5-7-labs/ Running some tests with the most recent percona 5.7 they seem to work well. Explain plans and wall time look pretty good but I'm not seeing any difference in show table status index_length or data_length. How do you find the true footprint or overhead for using these? Unlike views they do seem to be faster than bookmarked selects.