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CloudStack vs Cloudify comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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

Cloudify
Ranking in Cloud Management
40th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CloudStack
Ranking in Cloud Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cloudify is 1.6%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudStack is 2.3%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CloudStack2.3%
Cloudify1.6%
Other96.1%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Wittling - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at Cox communications
Works very well for advanced service chaining requirements and has extremely advanced engineers for support
We had a manager who thought that Cloudify could be used as a replacement for Horizon in OpenStack, but we found that Cloudify lacked the user interface or GUI for doing multitenancy and basic platform management tasks. Cloudify was really good at launching, for example, firewalls and configuring them and doing service chaining and rather advanced things like that, but it didn't meet the requirements for a basic platform management solution. It is something that seems to work better as a bolt-on or an augmented solution. It is a bit mis-marketed as a Cloud Management solution. It is not that. It is more of a service orchestration and automation tool. It is very good at doing that, but it fails to meet basic platform management requirements. Once you have it running, you can't really do anything with it without writing code and scripts. It requires a full-time DevOps person to use it. We deployed a Palo Alto firewall with it. That's basically what the project was for us, and it worked flawlessly once we got it finished, but it took another 12 weeks to get all of the automation and everything else coded, tested, and working. There is certainly a place for this technology, but when we got rid of OpenStack and moved to VMware, we either had to go with the vRealize Automation Suite to do this kind of automation, or we had to find an alternative solution to manage the private cloud. So, we put Cloudify in, but we really couldn't find it useful for basic platform administration tasks.
Tharun Kumar Reddy Thamatam - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Consultant at Infosys
Achieving seamless infrastructure management with optimized network and user access controls
I believe enhancements could be made in CloudStack, particularly in the management servers. I had the opportunity to collaborate with one of the Apache CloudStack developers, leading to the installation of additional agents for better information retrieval from hypervisors. We implemented configurations, ensuring consistency across hosts and VMs. We also utilized Ansible or YAML files to automate password upgrades during patching activities and database management, showcasing our customization efforts for improvement. For future releases, it would be beneficial if Apache enhanced CloudStack by integrating alerting systems directly. We've had instances where hypervisors experienced overloads without prior alerts, so proactive alerts within the tool would better prepare us for addressing issues swiftly, preventing disruption in business operations. A portal summarizing system metrics alongside alert capabilities would greatly enhance our operational efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Product has given us the ability to catch early scaling issues that many companies hit on with private clouds."
"It has enabled us to create the DICE Deployment Service and simplified deployment of any other services (monitoring, continuous integration, etc.)."
"Cloudify works in cases where you have very advanced service chaining requirements; it really works well there, and it fits the best."
"You can use only what you need. You can remove certain Cloudify functions from the framework to create a "minified" version of what you need. This might only consist of the messaging delivery system, and the orchestration functions."
"We have been able to realize ROI for our customers in the form of reduced cost, higher top line and increased valuation through improved profitability."
"Extensible internal functions and plugins. Can implement custom plugins to fit your scenario. Python based plugins."
"The TOSCA model allows modeling the application rather than the automation, providing a machine-readable representation of the application and its infrastructure that can also be used for the enterprise architecture big picture, showing who connects to whom."
"Cloudify works in cases where you have very advanced service chaining requirements. It really works well there, and it fits the best. They have a standardized markup that's based on TOSCA, which is a standard. I like the fact that they're standards-based. Their solution works extremely well if you have the talent and the manpower to write TOSCA descriptors to deploy and interchange services or to automate the configuration and turn up of services."
"We acquired some good clients for our billing and control portal solutions with CloudStack and it improved our business greatly."
"Multiple types of hypervisor support, multi-zone support, and VPC are great valuable features."
"Key features include stability, centralized management design that scales well, and transparent interoperability with different hypervisors and manufacturers.."
"We like the virtualization capabilities."
"Over the years, we have valued CloudStack for its stability."
"I have also explored setting up with OpenStack and I found it harder to use than CloudStack."
"This is one of the major products that help to handle all of the NFV Infrastructure management services (IaaS), and it has helped us to quickly gain understanding and feel more powerful with respect to virtualization."
"CloudStack manages infrastructure with 2-4 thousands of hosts easily."
 

Cons

"Install of the product itself could be improved and I would like to see better event monitoring."
"I did encounter any issues with scalability."
"Unlike the Docker environment, Cloudify takes time for configuration and its learning curve."
"The solution is a bit of a headache because mistakes happen in the blueprint every time we deploy and they require modifications."
"Install of the product itself could be improved and I would like to see better event monitoring."
"It lacked the user interface for multitenancy and basic platform management tasks."
"There were some issues with deploying the solution on OpenStack Mitaka."
"The upgrading process could be simplified."
"The area of improvement could be the regionalization aspect. For example, managing multiple regions or HubStack deployments together was not thought out thoroughly in the versions I used. We faced issues around managing the global infrastructure and had to develop around it."
"CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product."
"VPN P2S is cutting all connections except the CloudStack environment for the user when he is connected. I would like to have VPN like Cisco's AnyConnect."
"The product does not have an easily implementable payment gateway."
"The product has evolved a lot since the first versions in which it was very complicated to do version updates, and had various problems."
"It would be a good to have more specific error messages within administration processes (e.g. problem with creating new instance)."
"My teammates have complained about the upgrade. The source code had massive files that had to be merged with our own development to upgrade to the latest version of CloudStack."
"We recognize that CloudStack is an easy-to-use cloud management platform and, in my opinion, there has been a large number of improvements in the past few years, particular when it comes to the modern UI and overall ease of management. However, I believe that CloudStack needs to grow their marketing in the commercial side. They don't have a great piece of market share right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I wasn't involved in the pricing of it because we were just doing prototype work with it, but I was told by the upper management team that it was quite expensive. That was another reason we switched to Morpheus."
"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."
"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
"The solution is open-source and free."
"As far as I know, CS is still free of charge. If you want to pay some money, Citrix Cloud Platform is based on CS, I think. As for hypervisors – everything as usual, you need to pay for VMware and vCenter. As for XenServer, recently they changed the free feature list, so you may need to pay some money to get useful features like XenMotion."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"CloudStack is an open source solution, so you don't need to pay anything for it. When our company develops something specially for CloudStack, it is donated to the Apache Software Foundation and provided to anyone that wants to use it."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Performing Arts
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudStack?
CloudStack is open-source, so there is no cost apart from learning. Billing solutions, if outsourced, come at a moderate cost.
What needs improvement with CloudStack?
Enhancements for CloudStack can focus on integrating more hypervisors, as mentioned regarding current features. We're working on a new feature that will allow for certain limited functions, but ove...
What is your primary use case for CloudStack?
My usual use cases for CloudStack involve an AWS style private cloud or public cloud. I can deploy an AWS style cloud using the open source tool that is CloudStack. The use case depends on the cust...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Vmops, Cloud.com
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Proximus Partner Communications (Israel) VMware NTT Data Metaswitch Spirent Communications Lumina Networks Atos Fortinet
GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. Cloudify and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.