CloudStack vs Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) comparison

Apache and Nutanix are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2, while Nutanix is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.7. Apache holds a 2.8% mindshare in CM, compared to Nutanix’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

CloudStack

Read 34 CloudStack reviews

2,000 Views
1,820 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

Read 28 Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) reviews

3,092 Views
402 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

CloudStack and Nutanix Cloud Clusters compete in the cloud management space. CloudStack holds an edge in simplicity and cost-effectiveness, while Nutanix Cloud Clusters stands out with advanced features and scalability.

Features: CloudStack offers resource allocation, efficient network management, and hypervisor flexibility. Nutanix Cloud Clusters provides seamless multi-cloud operations, built-in data protection, and advanced automation.

Room for Improvement: CloudStack could enhance multi-cloud integration, improve automation options, and increase support for hybrid environments. Nutanix Cloud Clusters could offer more straightforward setup processes, reduce initial investment costs, and provide enhanced API functionalities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudStack is known for its straightforward deployment and basic customer support. Nutanix Cloud Clusters combines robust deployment with proactive support, ensuring comprehensive assistance and rapid response times.

Pricing and ROI: CloudStack's setup costs are low, promoting quick ROI, especially for smaller investments. Nutanix Cloud Clusters demands a higher initial investment but offers significant long-term benefits and scalability, potentially leading to higher ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

December 2025

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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

CloudStack

Ranking in Cloud Management

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

Ranking in Cloud Management

9th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (8th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 2.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
CloudStack	2.8%
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)	0.9%
Other	96.3%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

Tharun Kumar Reddy Thamatam

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.

Read full review

Jose Ybarra

Manager, Information Technology Engineers at IBC Bank

Enables us to grow at the speed of business and be ready for whatever is coming

What I admire most about Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is its scalability; that option that everybody seems to eventually go to is cloud, and we're ready for that when we decide. This scalability feature has improved my company because we can grow at the speed of business, and that's very important. We're not limited by the hardware that we have. We allow ourselves room for growth, and we can literally grow from today to tomorrow to ensure that we're handling our growth. The scalability is critical for us, especially in the banking industry, where we just get bigger every year.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."

"It is very easy to install and manage. It has the all modules in one node, unlike other software (OpenStack). The product allows a customized look and feel, and the ability to add custom workflows."

"Killer features for me were: support for many hypervisors, ability to match business logic, "everything in one box," available APIs."

"We had a relevant reduction of bureaucracy tasks."

"The initial implementation process was quite good."

"It has become easy to deploy new devices with no or minimal hardware changes. Now, a user can be ready to use a firewall within a few minutes, as compared to the traditional physical model which involved purchase, shipping, hardware configuration, cabling, power, etc."

"You can manage infrastructure with a few people, since product is monolithic. We had three engineers (storage, virtual, Linux admins) only. Also, CS supports different flavours of hypervisors."

"It works, and pretty much always has. Reliability and support for enterprise features, with a multi-tenant interface, makes CloudStack a very compelling solution."

More CloudStack pros

"The feature I probably appreciate the most about Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is its scalability—how quickly I can deploy more nodes on a cluster and remove nodes."

"The solution can scale well."

"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) benefits my company as it reduces administration work, allowing me to spend more time away from hardware issues."

"The most valuable features of Nutanix Clusters are Prism Central, Micro-segmentation, and cluster scaling automation."

"I've been very pleased with their support overall."

"The feature I find most valuable about Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is the portability."

"The features I appreciate most about Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) are that we don't need to manage the hardware to start up with, and it is being managed by Microsoft currently, so that is hands-off."

"Its performance and speed are valuable. Its performance has helped me reduce costs."

More Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) pros

Cons

"I encountered some stability issues. When I tried to remove high-capacity virtual machines it took a long time to update, and sometimes the VM status failed to update properly in the cloud database. This occurred multiple times, even though I had sufficient resources."

"The numerous, multi-layered drill-down menus make it difficult to find one simple knob to turn."

"The installation of CloudStack can be quite challenging because you need a good understanding of the product before starting."

"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. It was quite painful for them. CloudStack could add some cost management tools to give me some control over the costs associated with the number of users of my services."

"We did encounter issues with stability, and the main issue was secondary storage. When it is not available, XenServers and hypervisors are affected. And CS doesn’t do anything to reboot, or fix. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn’t, considering their approach – CS just orchestrates everything else on the hypervisor and storage level."

"There are some minor things that can be improved even more such as, perhaps, a bit more polishing on the GUI side to catch up with the API possibilities (which are really extensive) but otherwise nothing critical."

"The Windows hosts do not get their hostnames from cloud-init."

"It's really hard to delete zones, clusters, datacenters. You need to follow strict rules, which were not properly documented at the time."

More CloudStack cons

"Having compatible feature sets between Azure and AWS would go a long way to improving the overall NC2 experience."

"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is a very costly solution compared to on-prem. Customers are not moving to Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) because of the price, the license cost, and everything."

"I'd like more flexible options to get in and out of migration modes."

"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) could be improved with some more tools that could help synchronize on-prem and cloud stuff better."

"In the current version, we've noticed many false positives when we check the alerts in the morning. For example, it told us that services stopped working, but there was nothing wrong when we checked it out. We've already raised the issue with support. They told us it's a bug in the version we use. We're about to upgrade to the recommended version, so it should be fine."

"I don't have the expertise to build a hybrid cloud. We are starting to build one and haven't tried that part yet. I want to try because that is the most critical part for us. I want to see what, if anything, could be improved. The product is fantastic locally. Now, I want to try it in the cloud. My problem is not in the infrastructure; it is in the application, a different thing."

"From an operational and cost perspective, for me, it is really expensive."

"My suggestion would be getting up to speed on ransomware and evolving, as attackers are always one step ahead of what's out there."

More Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is open-source and free."

"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."

"Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer."

"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."

"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."

"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."

"CloudStack is an open-source product."

"The price is high."

"The licensing portability can be very interesting. At the moment, I am working with Nutanix Appliances with the AHV as a hypervisor. I did not have a chance to ask for portability between platforms, but it will be good if you can have portability between multiple types of platforms."

"The solution has been more costly at this point. We do not see any cost savings."

"There are positives and negatives to licensing. It all makes sense now, but it took a while. When the licenses first changed, it was a bit confusing."

"I'm not familiar with the contracts, but I thought the process was pretty seamless. Licensing for the Nutanix part was the same as licensing something on-prem, and since it runs on bare metal EC2, there was no new process we had to go through—it fits into our existing procurement processes nicely. I appreciate Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)'s license portability."

"The transition from the perpetual license to what they have now is, from a business perspective, understandable, but from an operational and cost perspective, for me, it is really expensive. However, our partners at Nutanix did work with us recently and reduced a huge licensing cost for us."

"I am working on one configuration that is priced at $50,000 USD, whereas another one that I'm working on is estimated to cost $250,000 USD."

"The solution's licensing can be very pricey."

More Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

I'm not familiar with the contracts, but I thought the process was pretty seamless. Licensing for the Nutanix part was the same as licensing something on-prem, and since it runs on bare metal EC2, ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

From an improvement perspective, I cannot see anything at this point because I used those Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) at that moment, but I am currently not using it. The pricing could be lower.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

I use the workload migration feature between clouds, such as migrating from VMware to Nutanix. I use Nutanix Move to migrate workloads from Nutanix Move. However, in some cases with our failover cl...

See all answers

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

January 2026

Download CloudStack product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

January 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) product report

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com

Nutanix Clusters

Overview

Apache CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.

Apache

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) provide scalable and cost-efficient infrastructure management across cloud and on-premises environments. With features like data portability and ease of setup, NC2 enables seamless migration without application refactoring.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) supports businesses in managing hybrid IT environments, enhancing disaster recovery, and optimizing workloads. Users value NC2 for its unified management platform and redundancy features, facilitating cloud migration and integration with major cloud providers. Challenges include pricing and initial setup complexity, as well as feature parity between different cloud services.

What are the key features of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

Scalability: Easily scales resources to meet business demands.
Cost Management: Controls and reduces cloud-related expenses.
Data Portability: Ensures seamless migration between environments.
Unified Management: Manages both cloud and on-premises platforms from one place.
Integration: Connects efficiently with multiple cloud providers.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Redundancy: Enhances disaster recovery capabilities and operational resilience.
License Portability: Simplifies license management across different environments.
Optimized Workloads: Maintains performance and reduces unnecessary costs.
Efficient Setup: Simplifies initial adjustments, ensuring quick deployment.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) find application in industries requiring reliable infrastructure management, like finance and healthcare, to safeguard critical systems. Organizations leverage NC2 for virtual desktops, application modernization, and smooth transition to cloud operations, improving data security and replication processes.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000

The Home Depot, JetBlue, Hyundai, ShiftLeft

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

December 2025

Free Report: CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

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