CloudStack vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) 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 #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Apache holds a 2.8% mindshare in CM, compared to Nutanix’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% 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 Manager (NCM)

Read 111 Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) reviews

6,731 Views
4,039 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 10, 2025

CloudStack and Nutanix Cloud Manager compete in cloud management. Nutanix Cloud Manager is perceived as having the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set and advanced capabilities, justifying its higher price for those needing robust functionality.

Features: CloudStack offers scalability, ease of integration with various cloud environments, and essential automation capabilities. Nutanix Cloud Manager provides powerful automation, efficient orchestration, and seamless multicloud integration, making it suitable for complex environments with an advanced toolkit.

Room for Improvement: CloudStack could benefit from enhancements in user interface and documentation, as well as more robust networking features. Nutanix Cloud Manager might improve by simplifying certain complex configurations, optimizing resource utilization, and streamlining pricing models to increase accessibility for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudStack is straightforward to deploy with accessible customer support, easing the initial setup. Nutanix Cloud Manager's deployment reflects its sophisticated capabilities, with customer service known for providing comprehensive guidance, supporting its feature-rich environment.

Pricing and ROI: CloudStack is noted for its low setup cost and favorable ROI for budget-conscious customers. Nutanix Cloud Manager requires a higher initial investment but offers significant ROI through enhanced operational capabilities and long-term strategic advantages, appealing to those seeking high-value solutions.

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

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

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 Manager (NCM)

Ranking in Cloud Management

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

111

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (3rd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th)

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 Manager (NCM) is 3.9%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)	3.9%
CloudStack	2.8%
Other	93.3%

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

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.

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."

"The API with CloudStack made integration into various external facing web applications simple enough."

"You can use a single API to get things done, rather than multiple APIs on multiple modules."

"We like the virtualization capabilities."

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

"CloudStack is simple to stand up and get off the ground in a hurry. Its centralized design allows for easier troubleshooting when compared to OpenStack. Out of the box, it’s very well suited for white labeling and IaaS."

"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."

"The APIs for automation in CloudStack are excellent; everything is API-driven, and while the API is very rich and hard to learn, you can do everything you would want to do, including everything in the user interface and more."

More CloudStack pros

"The most valuable feature is less or no implementation time. It should be up and running at any point in time so I don't spend time in transformation."

"Using NCM's built-in playbooks has helped free up time for my IT team to focus on other projects, saving approximately 20% of time."

"It is a stable solution."

"In NCM, we get operational automation along with cloud visibility, a part of a single VM, blueprints, playbooks, cost governance, network security planning, and all, which are the most things we are blessed to be a part of NCM."

"The solution's support for scripts... has reduced the man-hours it takes to deploy and support applications because we don't have to rewrite all the scripts."

"The visibility is very nice to monitor the servers, performance, data stores, and other things. Everything is visible, and you can get the reports very quickly."

"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."

"I like the analytics and the interface. Nutanix is easy to deploy and manage."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pros

Cons

"The main reason why we started looking for another solution: backups, replication, HA, and dependency on secondary storage. CS is quite sensitive for infrastructure, and any kind of network disruption between CS and secondary storage leads to VM hanging."

"CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product."

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

"It would be great to have a couple of “external” networks for VPC and have the possibility, for each domain, to choose they type of “external” network."

"The number of contributors to this solution is relatively small compared to other solutions. However, if more frequent users of CloudStack contribute to the open-source community, it will significantly enhance the overall community experience and make it more useful for everyone involved."

"The product does not have an easily implementable payment gateway."

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

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

More CloudStack cons

"Nutanix is one of two stacks where you can run everything you like. It would be nice if you could run it without the Nutanix appliance. Some clients don't use Nutanix engineering server hardware, so it would be helpful to run the Nutanix software for demos and tests."

"One suggestion is for the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Prism Pro element to have a built-in support feature that allows you to simply click a button to get support from Nutanix whenever a new alert comes in, rather than needing to call support to ask about the new alert you received."

"I still remember it was a struggle when we configured the initial network setup, that part was a little bit confusing about how exactly it works, we have two different Nutanix technicians who were on-site to help on the configuration. But both of them could not get right the first time, and we had to reset and start over again on both systems."

"In this solution, it is difficult to organize the VM folders and subfolders."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager could partner with more partners to bring technologies that align with the area's policies and business needs."

"We'd like the demos to be longer - maybe two to three months. Some clients need much more time for a POC."

"There could be slight improvements in support because sometimes they are not able to understand the issue."

"The product could be more flexible with plugins. Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"It is an expensive solution, but one has to make the trade-off between what you want to achieve and what you are willing to pay."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager's pricing is fair at the moment."

"The product is very cheap."

"The pricing was very good. We were very pleased with what we were offered by our account manager. Because of that, we expanded Nutanix Cloud Manager, and we hope to expand even more. Right now, we are in Azure, and as we build up more and more within the NCM platform, we hope to expand into AWS as well."

"While the product may seem to be more expensive at first, it ultimately pays for itself within a short time frame due to the hours saved on maintenance."

"The pricing model offered by Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is better than the ones offered by the other solutions in the market."

"The solution’s pricing is not outrageous like other products."

"Nutanix changes its licensing models frequently, and it is difficult to figure out how and what is included in which package."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) 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

18%

Marketing Services Firm

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing 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	25
Midsize Enterprise	23
Large Enterprise	65

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

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenNebula vs CloudStack

Compared 45% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs CloudStack

Compared 8% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

HPE OneSphere vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

More CloudStack Competitors

VMware Cloud Director vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 14% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 12% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 10% of the time

Morpheus vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 9% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 8% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

January 2026

Download CloudStack product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

January 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) product report

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com

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

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 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

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

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

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

December 2025

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