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CAST AI vs IBM Turbonomic comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

CAST AI
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.2
Number of Reviews
1
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 (6th), Cloud Management (5th), Virtualization Management Tools (4th), IT Financial Management (1st), IT Operations Analytics (5th), Cloud Analytics (1st), AIOps (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Cost Management category, the mindshare of CAST AI is 1.8%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 6.2%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Cost Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Turbonomic6.2%
CAST AI1.8%
Other92.0%
Cloud Cost Management
 

Featured Reviews

RA
Global Head - DevOps and AIOps Startegist at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Automation has optimized Kubernetes costs and right-sizing cuts manual cluster work
CAST AI helps us with automated node provisioning, workload right-sizing, intelligent auto-scaling, and overall cost visibility of the containerized systems that we have on the cloud. The best features CAST AI offers are the Kubernetes auto-scaling mechanism, continuous analysis of the pod-level CPU and memory usage, and ensuring that workload right-sizing is being done and our nodes are not over-provisioned. Identifying inaccuracies in the resource request is what we find quite useful with CAST AI. It definitely saves time and money as well, along with peace of mind because CAST AI continuously analyzes the pod-level CPU and memory usages. This helps us to optimize the request and the limits adjustments on our usage pattern, and overall, right-sizing improves the packing and reduces the wasted compute that we have in the cloud. In terms of overall impact on the organization, CAST AI has definitely helped us optimize our Kubernetes resources and given us automation capabilities. It is definitely helping us reduce the manpower and overall compute which is wasted. We can definitely save these using CAST AI. We will be notified upfront and proactively about any wastages that are happening, or any cost leakages that are happening in our system.
Dan Ambrose - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Engineer 4 at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Helps visibility, bridges the data gap, and frees up time
We use IBM Turbonomic in a hybrid cloud environment. Although it supports multi-cloud capabilities, we currently operate in a single-cloud setting. Turbonomic offers visibility into our environment's performance, spanning across applications, underlying infrastructure, and protection resources. The visibility and analytics help to bridge the data gap between disparate IT teams such as applications and infrastructure. This is important for awareness collaboration, cost saving, and helping to design and improve our application. Enhanced visibility and data analytics have contributed to a significant reduction in our mean time to resolve. Tools like Turbonomic provide crucial visualization and insights, empowering us to make data-driven decisions instead of relying on assumptions as we did before. This newfound transparency translates to a massive improvement, going from complete darkness to having a clear 100 percent view of the situation. Although our applications are not optimized for the cloud we have seen some improvement in response time. IBM Turbonomic empowers us to achieve more with fewer people thanks to automation. Previously, customers frequently contacted us requesting resource increases to resolve issues. Now, we have a tool that allows us to objectively assess their needs, leading to a deeper understanding of our applications. This solution also generates significant cost savings in the cloud and optimizes hardware utilization within our data centers. Its AI algorithm intelligently allocates servers on hosts, maximizing efficiency without compromising performance. By fine-tuning resource allocation without causing performance bottlenecks, Turbonomic extends the lifespan of existing hardware, postponing the need for new purchases. This effectively stretches our capital expenditure budget. We started to see the benefits of IBM Turbonomic within the first 60 days. IBM is a fantastic partner. Their tech support has been outstanding, and the product itself is excellent - a very solid offering. By automating resource management with Turbonomic, our engineers are freed up to focus on more strategic initiatives like innovation and ongoing organizational projects. Previously, manually adding resources was a time-consuming process that interrupted workflows. Now, automation handles scaling efficiently, saving us thousands of man-hours and significant costs. It has illuminated the need for SetOps. It has highlighted areas of overspending, and the actions we've taken have demonstrated significant cost savings. IBM Turbonomic has positively impacted our overall application performance. IBM Turbonomic has helped reduce both CAPEX and OPEX. It has also significantly reduced cloud build times.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We observed a 20 to 30% reduction in Kubernetes infrastructure cost, node utilization is improved, and we could see a 60 to 70% reduction in our manual cluster optimization efforts that we used to put initially."
"With over 2500 ESX VMs, including 1500+ XenDesktop VDI desktops, hosted over two datacentres and 80+ vSphere hosts, firefighting has become something of the past."
"With Turbonomic, we were able to reduce our ESX cluster size and save money on our maintenance and license renewals. It saved us around $75,000 per year but it's a one-time reduction in VMware licensing. We don't renew the support. The ongoing savings is probably $50,000 to $75,000 a year, but there was a one-time of $200,000 plus."
"We have seen a 30% performance improvement overall."
"On-premises, one advantage I find particularly appealing is the ability to create policies for automatic CPU and memory scaling based on demand."
"It has automated a lot of things. We have saved 30 to 35 percent in human resource time and cost, which is pretty substantial. We don't have a big workforce here, so we have to use all the automation we can get."
"It also brings up a list of machines and if something is under-provisioned and needs more compute power it will tell you, 'This server needs more compute power, and we suggest you raise it up to this level.' It will even automatically do it for you. In Azure, you don't have to actually go into the cloud provider to resize. You can just say, 'Apply these resizes,' and Turbonomic uses some back-end APIs to make the changes for you."
"The system automatically sizes and moves resources based on the needs of the applications."
"I like the analytics that help us optimize compatibility. Whereas Azure Advisor tells us what we have to do, Turbonomic has automation which actually does those things. That means we don't have to be present to get them done and simplifies our IT engineers' jobs."
 

Cons

"The documentation of CAST AI can definitely be improved for first-time users."
"The GUI and policy creation have room for improvement. There should be a better view of some of the numbers that are provided and easier to access. And policy creation should have it easier to identify groups."
"After running this solution in production for a year, we may want a more granular approach to how we utilize the product because we are planning to use some of its metrics to feed into our financial system."
"The one point is the reporting. We do have reports out of it, but they're not the level of graphical detail I would like."
"We don't use Turbonomic for FinOps and part of the reason is its cost reporting. The reporting could be much more robust and, if that were the case, I could pitch it for FinOps."
"They could add a few more reports. They could also be a bit more granular. While they have reports, sometimes it is hard to figure out what you are looking for just by looking at the date."
"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."
"They have a long road map when we ask for certain things that will make the product better. It takes time, but that's understandable because there are other things that are higher on the priority list."
"Some features are only available via changes to the deployment YAML, and it would be better to have them in the UI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I don't know the current prices, but I like how the licensing is based on the number of instances instead of sockets, clusters, or cores. We have some VMs that are so heavy I can only fit four on one server. It's not cost-effective if we have to pay more for those. When I move around a VM SQL box with 30 cores and a half-terabyte of RAM, I'm not paying for an entire socket and cores where people assume you have at least 10 or 20 VMs on that socket for that pricing."
"I'm not involved in any of the billing, but my understanding is that is fairly expensive."
"Contact the Turbonomic sales team, explain your needs and what you're looking to monitor. They will get a pre-sales SE on the phone and together work up a very accurate quote."
"The product is fairly priced right now. Given its capabilities, it is excellently priced. We think that the product will become self-funding because we will be able to maximize our resources, which will help us from a capacity perspective. That should save us money in the long run."
"What I can advise is to trial the product, taking advantage of the Turbonomic pre-sales implemention support and kickstart training."
"In the last year, Turbonomic has reduced our cloud costs by $94,000."
"IBM Turbonomic is an investment that we believe will deliver positive returns."
"I have not seen Turbonomic's new pricing since IBM purchased it. When we were looking at it in my previous company before IBM's purchase, it was compatible with other tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise147
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST AI?
In terms of setup cost, licensing, and pricing, I find the experience good. It's enterprise-grade, and the pricing is usage-based with no heavy upfront setup cost, which makes the onboarding straig...
What needs improvement with CAST AI?
The documentation of CAST AI can definitely be improved for first-time users. When we are onboarding a new user, the team needs some time to tune the policies and build confidence in automation bec...
What is your primary use case for CAST AI?
Our main use case for CAST AI is that we use it as a cloud provider and for Kubernetes clusters. We are using secure access roles and all those requirements for right-sizing the containers' workloa...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Nutanix, Apptio and others in Cloud Cost Management. Updated: December 2025.
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