CloudStack vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

The compared Apache and Nutanix solutions aren't in the same category. Apache is ranked #10 in CM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 4.8% mindshare in the category. Nutanix is ranked #3 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.6, and holds a 9.1% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

CloudStack

Read 31 CloudStack reviews

1,888 Views
1,385 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Read 198 Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) reviews

9,553 Views
4,342 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between CloudStack and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report (Updated: May 2023).

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

May 2023

Download the complete report

Helped 860,168 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (10th)

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

198

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Cloud Infrastructure and Tools solutions, they serve different purposes. CloudStack is designed for Cloud Management and holds a mindshare of 4.8%, down 6.0% compared to last year.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 9.1% mindshare, up 8.3% since last year.

Cloud Management

HCI

Featured Reviews

Wido Den Hollander

Community Ambassador at 42on

A solution that strikes a balance between user-friendliness, scalability, and stability

The market keeps changing, and so does technology. I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved. Regarding container technology, Kubernetes is something many people want to use and something which, as of now, many are using currently. However, there is still room for improvement in Kubernetes, particularly with networking functionality and network virtualization. When it comes to what needs to be improved in CloudStack, I would say that it should stay the way it is currently. It should continue being a stable product that people can rely on since many may be inclined to follow the latest trends and hype, which is not always good for a solution's stability. It is crucial to prioritize stability, which is a key factor that companies seek. In my view, the platform could benefit from adding more metrics. More metrics would offer more insights and data on the platform's performance, utilization, and usage. Overall, I believe that having more metrics available would be highly desirable.

Read full review

Andrea Beccia

IT Systems Architect at Cividale S.p.A.

Offers satisfying data protection and workload movement features with exceptional stability

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure can be used up to 100% of its capacity, but our company is presently using 80% of the solution's resources. Our company manufactures iron casting products in the metal industry, and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is also used. For virtualization purposes, Nutanix Acropolis is used as a full-stack solution. For the Windows virtual machines in our company's server, Nutanix Acropolis is utilized instead of solutions like VMware Hypervisor. One of the main reasons our company adopted Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure was its data protection features. The solution is also used in disaster recovery through the automatic snapshots feature on the local site. Next year, our organization will try to join clusters in the network using the solution. Network clustering will help our organization's team move workloads into the geographical cluster automatically. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is considered an ideal solution for disaster recovery where data protection remains embedded. The solution is capable of even capturing auto snapshots for remote sites. Next year, our company plans to test new features of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure that will assist in automated workload movements on two sides at a distance of 60 kilometers. I would recommend others use the solution for its exceptional stability, performance, hardware compatibility, and overall flexibility. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure allows the use of varying hardware for the same cluster. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten overall.

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

"When compared to OpenStack, CloudStack is also an open-source platform that is continuously improving its features and capabilities with each new version release. Having worked with CloudStack 4.7, 4.14, and most recently, 4.17, I have noticed significant enhancements in the platform's features and customer experience, such as the introduction of a new user interface in the latest release. Notably, the latest versions have made major improvements to VM live migrations, making them more efficient and effective."

"I liked the separation of the isolated network versus the shared network."

"CloudStack, by default, gives us a zone-based setup which makes it easier to manage datacenters located in different geographical areas."

"We had a relevant reduction of bureaucracy tasks."

"CloudStack’s private gateway networking feature is what enables us to offer utmost security and confidentially to our customers and partners, by enabling them to connect to their virtual data centers via dedicated, encrypted, private fiber lines that never touch the public internet space. Ease of setup and management are certainly important additional benefits for us on the engineering team."

"Key features include stability, centralized management design that scales well, and transparent interoperability with different hypervisors and manufacturers.."

"It gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs."

"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."

More CloudStack pros

"One of the most valuable features is that it can be applied at any scale."

"This is a complete, very user-friendly product."

"The most valuable feature is the solution's ease of upgrading."

"Nutanix has several unique capabilities to ensure linear scalability."

"The maintenance software is straightforward because you do not need to do any configuration."

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's most valuable features are all the cloud facilities or benefits it provides for my data center."

"It is easy to use. One of the things they have as a design goal is to reduce complexity and simplify things."

"It gives us a single dashboard to control multiple sites and multiple zones. It helps to do things on a single platform and data sharing is quite easy. The network and the security are easy to manage."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros

Cons

"It would be a good to have more specific error messages within administration processes (e.g. problem with creating new instance)."

"I would like to see support for native VLAN, and fault-tolerance."

"The user can't upload SSH keys from the UI. We have to use the API for this, and it is not always convenient."

"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."

"This product needs a lot improvement on the development side. Every new version introduces new bugs. It lacks many features needed for NFV like DPDK, SR-IOV support, etc."

"CS has very descriptive logging, and every time I faced issues and asked for help, I didn’t get any reply from the community. Reason? Its quite obvious. CS runs on specific environments, unique to each case. So, unless it is a functional issue of CS, nobody can help you. All issues were resolved by myself going through logs. This is another reason why you need smart enough people to manage it. Engineers must have knowledge of hypervisors and understand how CS interacts with them."

"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."

"From time to time there is a bug in calculating limits of resources for customer domain/account. Maybe it’s a problem with 4.9.2."

More CloudStack cons

"In terms of the IT different categories, I would like for the governing sections to be able to use it in the IT department. If they can have something like a one view management portal or software similar to VMware that would be an added value."

"We would like to see a cloud version of Acropolis AOS. Currently, we're trying to implement an AWS environment for some solutions, but we would like to use another technology also to enhance our organization, so we are looking for another technology for this, especially a cloud solution."

"Lacks sufficient integration with other vendors and public clouds."

"The productivity and work efficiency of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve."

"Pricing and varieties of options could be better."

"As far as what could be improved, they have some built-in backup functions already, but any built-in isolation features like vision security features and free LAN features become a security concern."

"The look and feel of the web GUI of this system needs improvement, when compared to other systems. Its hardware integration also needs improvement."

"We had a few problems with the foundation machine that you can use to build your systems out. We've got it working now, but it should be improved."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 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."

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

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

"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."

"The solution is open-source and free."

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

"CloudStack is an open-source product."

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

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's pricing is higher now."

"The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."

"Reconsidering the licensing packages could reduce the price, especially for companies that may not need all the bells and whistles. Many of the features are based on open-source software, so there's potential to offer more flexible pricing options. Additionally, with the right expertise, companies could potentially create similar environments themselves, reducing the need for extensive support and licensing costs. I rate its pricing a six out of ten. The tool costs around 300,000 dollars per year."

"We are aware of the pricing since we renew every year, at almost $100,000 per year."

"Nutanix is cheaper than Cisco HyperFlex, although it depends on the configuration because Nutanix can also be expensive."

"Pricing for Nutanix Acropolis AOS is higher. This is one of the reasons why we were looking into other options."

"We got the renewal done recently, and there was no cost involved."

"If a customer has been using VMware, the difference in pricing is lower. However, if they are looking to use the VMware, the price can be much higher depending on the license."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Educational Organization

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CloudStack?

The initial implementation process was quite good.

See all answers

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?

CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product. Additionally, more themes and drag-and-drop interfaces could enhance the user experience. Improved document...

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

See all answers

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?

Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenNebula vs CloudStack

Compared 72% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs CloudStack

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiPortal vs CloudStack

Compared 2% of the time

More CloudStack Competitors

VxRail vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 8% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 5% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

June 2025

Download CloudStack product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

June 2025

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report

Download Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis

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 Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure.

NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

AOS storage
Flexible and open compute
Automated and secure networking

Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

Integrated disaster recovery
Full-stack lifecycle management
VMware with Nutanix
Intelligent operations

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.
Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.
Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.
Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.
Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.
Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.
Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).
Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.
Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.
The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.
The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.
Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

Reviews from Real Users

According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

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

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

May 2023

Free Report: CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.

DOWNLOAD NOW

860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report.

We monitor all Cloud Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.