Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) comparison

Cisco and Nutanix are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Read 125 Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) reviews

10,690 Views
5,666 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) compete in cloud management solutions. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) seems to have an upper hand due to its comprehensive features, while Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] excels in pricing and support.

Features: Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] provides reliability in open-source environments, a stable platform for virtual infrastructure management, and cost-effective solutions. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) offers automation, self-service capabilities, and advanced analytics for a comprehensive cloud solution.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) supports seamless deployment and robust customer service for efficient implementation. Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] may present deployment challenges due to its end-of-life status, affecting integration and support.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] has a cost-effective initial setup, suitable for budget-conscious buyers. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides a superior ROI over time with its expansive features, offering long-term value despite higher initial investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Management Report (Updated: June 2026).

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Cloud Management

June 2026

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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

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (4th), Cloud Management (2nd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

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Phani Venkata Sai BKD

Technology Lead at Thomson Reuters

Manages hybrid infrastructure seamlessly with flexible cluster scaling and comprehensive oversight

The most important aspect of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it helps us manage the infrastructure as a hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. If I have different physical servers, I can map them into a cluster and manage the storage together. It provides flexibility to make use of storage in a clustered format instead of using it in an individual storage endpoint. We have the flexibility to have Nutanix-based licensing based on the core model, instead of having a specific cost on the cluster. The costing on a core model gives customers flexibility to add multiple cores to a single physical host and adjust the infrastructure accordingly, and we can scale up the cluster as needed. While other cloud providers, AWS or Azure, are mostly into cloud-based solutions, and Azure has introduced Azure Stack HCI for managing on-premises infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one. We can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens. It provides a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and highlights specific areas through alerts, giving us good visibility of infrastructure conditions.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"The capacity planning, forecasting, and Runways are worth their weight in gold and NCM has saved us time in IT, and that's money."

"Prism Pro has given us a central administration of our entire virtual environment. Everything can be managed and updated through Prism. Being able to turn features on and off with one slide of the mouse is such a great feature. It allows us to manage storage and containers as well as the actual machines through one pane of glass. No need for any additional software. Pulse is in my opinion is one of the best features. Having the cluster monitor itself and notify support of any issues is a plus plus."

"The stability and reliability of the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) platform have been excellent, as we have had zero outages."

"It made it a lot easier to spin up these tenant environments with little to no administrative overhead."

"Using the built-in playbooks in Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) has freed up a lot of time for my IT team and me, allowing us to focus on other tasks."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is an insightful and extremely good product for hybrid and on-premises environments, making it the best product for SaaS solutions as well."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one as we can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens."

"Nutanix gives us access to a single pane of glass by which we're able to see everything."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"We have clusters not only with HPE. We have some with VMware to use Cisco Call Manager for VoIP. That only runs on VMware. They upgrade the ESXi host but not vCenter, which manages the ESXi host. It would be great if there is a way to include vCenter on the VM because you run the updates, but you do not update vCenter."

"There is room for improvement in the initial setup. It is quite complex to setup and requires professional services."

"I do not see many opportunities in the market for Nutanix."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) can be improved by ensuring updates align with new circumstances."

"In terms of how Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) can be improved, there are some functionalities in the newer releases and upgrades that are not available in Prism Central, which lacks the newest versions."

"Nutanix, as of today, they do not have many of the features that VMware hypervisor provides, such as the memory layer."

"Nutanix's costs tend to be quite high...Indian customers don't like high-priced hyper clouds, so they invest in VMware, which offers the same features at a lower base price."

"The one thing I wish it had was that it worked more closely and more cleanly with custom data inputs, which I know is a lot to ask."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Licensing is always a hot topic. We haven't had any challenges around licensing and costs. Everything was within budget and our expectations. It's a hot topic because renewals and licensing costs are high. Managing costs is always a concern, as we're always being asked to do more with less."

"The product is expensive...When I have to sell the tool to a customer, I would say that it is not very expensive and can be termed priceless."

"In my opinion, the pricing is reasonable."

"At the end of the day, the product justifies the cost, and it leads to a conversation with management over whether we actually need this feature and if there are any use cases for why we would want to keep it."

"Some people say that Nutanix is a bit more expensive. However, when we were looking at Nutanix versus Cisco and NetApp before deploying this solution, the prices were very similar. Being a government entity, we got a bit more of a discount on Nutanix so it was a bit cheaper. The time savings after the fact has been really worth it."

"Its acquisition and support cost is nominal. It is not too high, and it is not too low. It is within the budget, and there are no issues on that part."

"We have the ultimate license, so I don't know what it would cost individually."

"The five-year term for NCM's license cost and support was around five million."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	75

Questions from the Community

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Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?

For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...

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Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?

When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...

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Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?

Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...

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Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

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VMware Aria Operations vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

Imperva Data Security Fabric vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

June 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

June 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central, Nutanix Software Subscription

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

Nutanix Cloud Manager streamlines hybrid cloud management by offering centralized control, automation, and workload optimization across platforms. It improves operational efficiency while reducing IT management complexity.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is designed for comprehensive hybrid cloud governance, providing tools for virtualization, resource allocation, and compliance. Its features include one-click upgrades, dynamic dashboards, and the seamless automation of tasks through X-Play. Users can efficiently manage virtual machines, ensure secure storage, and enhance productivity with predictive monitoring. Self-service capabilities allow users to reserve resources easily, while central management via Prism Pro and automated reports enhance oversight and decision-making. Challenges include UI simplicity, pricing transparency, and licensing efficiency, with users seeking improvements in VM organization, blueprint customization, and collaborative support for hybrid environments.

What important features define Nutanix Cloud Manager?

One-click Upgrades: Simplifies the process of updating and maintaining systems.
Intuitive Interface: Offers a user-friendly experience with a low learning curve.
Prism Pro: Central management for streamlined control over environments.
Dynamic Dashboards: Provides real-time insights and monitoring capabilities.
X-Play Automation: Facilitates seamless and efficient task automation.
Capacity Planning: Assists in optimal resource allocation and future growth planning.
Compliance Monitoring: Ensures adherence to industry standards and policies.
Efficient VM Management: Enhances control and monitoring of virtual machines.
Self-service Capabilities: Empowers users to manage and allocate resources independently.
Cost Governance: Allows organizations to maintain budgetary control and efficiency.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Nutanix Cloud Manager?

Enhanced Productivity: Streamlines tasks and improves efficiency through automation.
Predictive Monitoring: Proactively addresses potential issues before they impact operations.
Robust Disaster Recovery: Provides reliable solutions to recover data and maintain continuity.
Automated Reports: Generates timely insights for informed decision-making.
Unified Cloud Management: Offers comprehensive control across multiple environments.

Nutanix Cloud Manager finds utility in industries requiring robust hybrid cloud strategies like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. It excels in centralizing management for secure and compliant operations, optimizing workloads, and providing scalable solutions for resource allocation and compliance monitoring, thus enhancing cloud operations in diverse markets.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

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