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AWS Savings Plans vs IBM Turbonomic comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Savings Plans
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
7th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Turbonomic
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
205
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (5th), Cloud Management (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (4th), IT Financial Management (1st), IT Operations Analytics (4th), Cloud Analytics (1st), AIOps (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Cost Management category, the mindshare of AWS Savings Plans is 1.3%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 13.6%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Cost Management
 

Featured Reviews

Raul G. Cortina - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible and a good solution for user with different environments
The setup was generally easy. The most complex aspect was configuring the VPN. While not overly difficult, it was more challenging compared to setting up other VPNs. However, once we resolved the initial VPN configuration issue, everything has been smooth sailing. It's a matter of familiarity. Initially, the technology is unfamiliar, but with experience, configuration becomes easier. Deployment time: We didn't have any problems. We determined the implementation date, considered the transition for ourselves and our users, and it went smoothly. Maintenance: There isn't much required. If the stability, resolution, and capacity planning are correct for our needs, or if we need to expand storage, then maintenance is mostly handled by our banking team.
Alex Darby - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves time during workload migration, facilitates sizing of virtual servers, and the support team is helpful
The right-sizing feature is the most captivating one for us. It helped in taking the emotions out of what people think they need, basing it off of real data, and providing them what they actually need. It's not really a special feature, but the support that we received from that team really helped us in our success. There were definitely some customizations that needed to take place to make it successful. This is the most aware of our products, in terms of understanding all of the components from the top down. It is integrated with all of the different modules, all the way down to the core infrastructure. All of it is tied together and there are not many tools that can do that.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The initial setup is very easy."
"AWS is consistently innovating and releasing new products and features."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Savings Plans is we can discuss budgets briefly during our confirmation process since we are aware of our usual consumption patterns. Creating budgets in this regard would be beneficial, as it would allow us to consume only what we need, without including reserve instances that do not serve our purpose."
"In our organization, optimizing application performance is a continuous process that is beyond human scale. We would not be able to do the number of actions that Turbonomic takes on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It is humanly impossible with the little micro adjustments that it can make. That is a huge differentiator. If you just figure each action could take anywhere very conservatively from five to 10 minutes to act upon, then you multiply that out by thousands of actions every month, it is easily something where you could say, "I am saving a couple of FTEs.""
"The automated memory balancing, where it looks at whether it's being used in the most efficient way and adds or takes away memory, is the best part. If it didn't do that, it would be something that I would have to do. We have too many machines for one person to do that. The automation helps me in that it is done in a really efficient way and a balanced way because of the policies. It really helps."
"Turbonomic has helped optimize cloud operations and reduced our cloud costs significantly. Overall, we are at about 40 percent savings, and we spend about three million a year just in Azure. It reduces the size of the VMs, putting them into the right template for usage. People don't realize that you don't have to future-proof a virtual machine in Azure. You just need to build it for today. As the business or service grows, you can scale up or out. About 90 percent of all the costs that we've reduced has been from sizing machines appropriately."
"It became obvious to us that there was a lot more being offered in the product that we could leverage to ensure our VMware environment was running efficiently."
"The recommendation of the family types is a huge help because it has saved us a lot of money. We use it primarily for that. Another thing that Turbonomic provides us with is a single platform that manages the full application stack and that's something I really like."
"Using this product helps us to reduce performance risk because it shows us where resources are needed but not yet allocated."
"We can manage multiple environments using a single pane of glass, which is something that I really like."
"I only deal with the infrastructure side, so I really couldn't speak to more than load balancing as the most valuable feature for me. It provides specific actions that prevent resource starvation. It always keeps things in perfect balance."
 

Cons

"The visibility of AWS Savings Plans could improve."
"In the future, it would be interesting if there could be a combination of Savings Plans and some Reserved Servers."
"The most complex aspect was configuring the VPN."
"The deployment process is a little tricky. It wasn't hard for me because I have pretty in-depth knowledge of Kubernetes, and their software runs on Kubernetes. To deploy it or upgrade it, you have to be able to follow steps and use the Kubernetes command line, or you'll need someone to come in and do it for you."
"The old interface was not the clearest UI in some areas, and could be quite intimidating when first using the tool."
"Before IBM bought it, the support was fantastic. After IBM bought it, the support became very disappointing."
"The planning and costing areas could be a little bit more detailed. When you have more than 2,000 machines, the reports don't work properly. They need to fix it so that the reports work when you use that many virtual machines."
"Additional interfaces would be helpful."
"While the product is fairly intuitive and easy to use once you learn it, it can be quite daunting until you have undergone a bit of training."
"There is room for improvement [with] upgrades. We have deployed the newer version, version 8 of Turbonomic. The problem is that there is no way to upgrade between major Turbonomic versions. You can upgrade minor versions without a problem, but when you go from version 6 to version 7, or version 7 to version 8, you basically have to deploy it new and let it start gathering data again. That is a problem because all of the data, all of the savings calculations that had been done on the old version, are gone. There's no way to keep track of your lifetime savings across versions."
"The management interface seems to be designed for high-resolution screens. Somebody with a smaller-resolution screen might not like the web interface. I run a 4K monitor on it, so everything fits on the screen. With a lower resolution like 1080, you need to scroll a lot. Everything is in smaller windows. It doesn't seem to be designed for smaller screens."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to Azure or Google, the solution is much cheaper."
"What I can advise is to trial the product, taking advantage of the Turbonomic pre-sales implemention support and kickstart training."
"It was an annual buy-in. You basically purchase it based on your host type stuff. The buy-in was about 20K, and the annual maintenance is about $3,000 a year."
"I consider the pricing to be high."
"In the last year, Turbonomic has reduced our cloud costs by $94,000."
"You should understand the cost of your physical servers and how much time and money you are spending year over year on expanding your virtual farm."
"The pricing and licensing are fair. We purchase based on benchmark pricing, which we have been able to get. There are no surprise charges nor hidden fees."
"It is an endpoint type license, which is fine. It is not overly expensive."
"We see ROI in extended support agreements (ESA) for old software. Migration activities seem to be where Turbonomic has really benefited us the most. It's one click and done. We have new machines ready to go with Turbonomic, which are properly sized instead of somebody sitting there with a spreadsheet and guessing. So, my return on investment would certainly be on currency, from a software and hardware perspective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Savings Plans?
The most valuable feature of AWS Savings Plans is we can discuss budgets briefly during our confirmation process since we are aware of our usual consumption patterns. Creating budgets in this regar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Savings Plans?
We have a fixed cost of five thousand, plus an additional six thousand per month. So, it is about seventy-two thousand annually. Compared to Azure or Google, the solution is much cheaper. Moreover,...
What needs improvement with AWS Savings Plans?
AWS make it easier to configure the VPN,
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Turbonomic?
It offers different scenarios. It provides more capabilities than many other tools available. Typically, its price is set as a percentage of the consumption of some of our customers' services. The ...
What needs improvement with Turbonomic?
The implementation could be enhanced.
What is your primary use case for Turbonomic?
We use IBM Turbonomic to automate our cloud operations, including monitoring, consolidating dashboards, and reporting. This helps us get a consolidated view of all customer spending into a single d...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Savings Plans vs. IBM Turbonomic and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.