IBM Turbonomic vs Zesty comparison

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IBM Turbonomic

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM Turbonomic and Zesty both compete in the cloud optimization space. IBM Turbonomic has an edge in feature offerings, while Zesty is more attractive in pricing.

Features: IBM Turbonomic provides advanced automation for cloud resources, optimizing costs using real-time analytics and performance monitoring. It offers a wide range of features appealing to businesses looking for comprehensive solutions. Zesty focuses on automatically adjusting cloud resources to reduce costs while maintaining performance, providing simplicity and automatic adjustments that are more suitable for those seeking a straightforward approach.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Turbonomic offers a robust deployment model with extensive customer support, ideal for complex environments. Zesty emphasizes quick integration and efficiency, offering a straightforward deployment process. IBM's tailored approach benefits larger enterprises, while Zesty suits businesses seeking fast implementation and minimal setup hassle.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Turbonomic requires higher initial setup costs but can provide significant ROI over time with its comprehensive solutions. Zesty's pricing is more flexible, offering immediate cost savings and quick returns, making it ideal for businesses needing immediate cloud cost optimization benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Turbonomic vs. Zesty Report (Updated: May 2025).

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IBM Turbonomic vs. Zesty

May 2025

Helped 860,632 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

IBM Turbonomic

Ranking in Cloud Management

4th

Ranking in Cloud Cost Management

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

205

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), IT Financial Management (1st), IT Operations Analytics (4th), Cloud Analytics (1st), AIOps (4th)

Zesty

Ranking in Cloud Management

23rd

Ranking in Cloud Cost Management

9th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 5.4%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zesty is 0.4%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

Dan Ambrose

Infrastructure Engineer 4 at Hyland

Helps visibility, bridges the data gap, and frees up time

We use IBM Turbonomic in a hybrid cloud environment. Although it supports multi-cloud capabilities, we currently operate in a single-cloud setting. Turbonomic offers visibility into our environment's performance, spanning across applications, underlying infrastructure, and protection resources. The visibility and analytics help to bridge the data gap between disparate IT teams such as applications and infrastructure. This is important for awareness collaboration, cost saving, and helping to design and improve our application. Enhanced visibility and data analytics have contributed to a significant reduction in our mean time to resolve. Tools like Turbonomic provide crucial visualization and insights, empowering us to make data-driven decisions instead of relying on assumptions as we did before. This newfound transparency translates to a massive improvement, going from complete darkness to having a clear 100 percent view of the situation. Although our applications are not optimized for the cloud we have seen some improvement in response time. IBM Turbonomic empowers us to achieve more with fewer people thanks to automation. Previously, customers frequently contacted us requesting resource increases to resolve issues. Now, we have a tool that allows us to objectively assess their needs, leading to a deeper understanding of our applications. This solution also generates significant cost savings in the cloud and optimizes hardware utilization within our data centers. Its AI algorithm intelligently allocates servers on hosts, maximizing efficiency without compromising performance. By fine-tuning resource allocation without causing performance bottlenecks, Turbonomic extends the lifespan of existing hardware, postponing the need for new purchases. This effectively stretches our capital expenditure budget. We started to see the benefits of IBM Turbonomic within the first 60 days. IBM is a fantastic partner. Their tech support has been outstanding, and the product itself is excellent - a very solid offering. By automating resource management with Turbonomic, our engineers are freed up to focus on more strategic initiatives like innovation and ongoing organizational projects. Previously, manually adding resources was a time-consuming process that interrupted workflows. Now, automation handles scaling efficiently, saving us thousands of man-hours and significant costs. It has illuminated the need for SetOps. It has highlighted areas of overspending, and the actions we've taken have demonstrated significant cost savings. IBM Turbonomic has positively impacted our overall application performance. IBM Turbonomic has helped reduce both CAPEX and OPEX. It has also significantly reduced cloud build times.

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Jeffery Smith

Vice President at Centro, Inc.

Effortless cost management with automated instance adjustment and helpful support

There are different resource types that we would like to leverage and get reserved instances for, such as RDS instances. Currently, no mechanism within Zesty allows this, but this may be due to AWS limitations. Another point is that Zesty needs to react to any changes AWS makes, but they have been proactive in their communication regarding material impacts.

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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

"In our organization, optimizing application performance is a continuous process that is beyond human scale. We would not be able to do the number of actions that Turbonomic takes on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It is humanly impossible with the little micro adjustments that it can make. That is a huge differentiator. If you just figure each action could take anywhere very conservatively from five to 10 minutes to act upon, then you multiply that out by thousands of actions every month, it is easily something where you could say, "I am saving a couple of FTEs.""

"We have seen a 30% performance improvement overall."

"The proactive monitoring of all our open enrollment applications has improved our organization. We have used it to size applications that we are moving to the cloud. Therefore, when we move them out there, we have them appropriately sized. We use it for reporting to current application owners, showing them where they are wasting money. There are easy things to find for an application, e.g., they decommissioned the server, but they never took care of the storage. Without a tool like this, that storage would just sit there forever, with us getting billed for it."

"The ability to monitor and automate both the right-sizing of VMs as well as to automate the vMotion of VMs across ESXi hosts."

"The feature for optimizing VMs is the most valuable because a number of the agencies have workloads or VMs that are not really being used. Turbonomic enables us to say, 'If you combine these, or if you decide to go with a reserve instance, you will save this much.'"

"The biggest value I'm getting out of VMTurbo right now is the complete hands-off management of equalizing the usage in my data center."

"The most valuable features are the cluster utilization reports and the resource capacity planning. We can simulate how much capacity we can add to the current resources. The individual DM reports and VM-facing recommendations report are also helpful."

"The automation and orchestration components are definitely the best part, as you can tell it what it can do and when, and just let it be."

More IBM Turbonomic pros

"One of the reasons we decided to onboard Zesty was that it started supporting Windows instances."

"The turnkey aspect of Zesty is very valuable."

Cons

"The deployment process is a little tricky. It wasn't hard for me because I have pretty in-depth knowledge of Kubernetes, and their software runs on Kubernetes. To deploy it or upgrade it, you have to be able to follow steps and use the Kubernetes command line, or you'll need someone to come in and do it for you."

"The old interface was not the clearest UI in some areas, and could be quite intimidating when first using the tool."

"The automation area could be improved, and the generic reports are poor. We want more details in the analysis report from the application layer. The reports from the infrastructure layer are satisfactory, but Turbonomic won't provide much information if we dig down further than the application layer."

"The one point is the reporting. We do have reports out of it, but they're not the level of graphical detail I would like."

"While the product is fairly intuitive and easy to use once you learn it, it can be quite daunting until you have undergone a bit of training."

"It sometimes does get false positives. Sometimes, it'll move something when it really wasn't a performance metric. I've seen it do that, but it's pretty much an automated tool for performance. We've only got about 500 virtual machines, so lots of times, I'm able to manage it physically, but it's definitely a nice tool for a larger enterprise that might be managing 2,000 or 3,000 virtual machines."

"The planning and costing areas could be a little bit more detailed. When you have more than 2,000 machines, the reports don't work properly. They need to fix it so that the reports work when you use that many virtual machines."

"They have a long road map when we ask for certain things that will make the product better. It takes time, but that's understandable because there are other things that are higher on the priority list."

More IBM Turbonomic cons

"I would like to get RDS-reserved instances that I could buy and sell, but that's a limitation on AWS."

"There are different resource types that we would like to leverage and get reserved instances for, such as RDS instances."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is fairly priced right now. Given its capabilities, it is excellently priced. We think that the product will become self-funding because we will be able to maximize our resources, which will help us from a capacity perspective. That should save us money in the long run."

"I consider the pricing to be high."

"If you're a super-small business, it may be a little bit pricey for you... But in large, enterprise companies where money is, maybe, less of an issue, Turbonomic is not that expensive. I can't imagine why any big company would not buy it, for what it does."

"When we have expanded our licensing, it has always been easy to make an ROI-based decision. So, it's reasonably priced. We would like to have it cheaper, but we get more benefit from it than we pay for it. At the end of the day, that's all you can hope for."

"What I can advise is to trial the product, taking advantage of the Turbonomic pre-sales implemention support and kickstart training."

"It's worth the time and money investment if you can afford it."

"I have not seen Turbonomic's new pricing since IBM purchased it. When we were looking at it in my previous company before IBM's purchase, it was compatible with other tools."

"Price is a big one. VMTurbo was very competitively priced."

More IBM Turbonomic pricing and cost advice

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Turbonomic?

It offers different scenarios. It provides more capabilities than many other tools available. Typically, its price is set as a percentage of the consumption of some of our customers' services. The ...

What needs improvement with Turbonomic?

The implementation could be enhanced.

What is your primary use case for Turbonomic?

We use IBM Turbonomic to automate our cloud operations, including monitoring, consolidating dashboards, and reporting. This helps us get a consolidated view of all customer spending into a single d...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zesty?

Their pricing is brilliant. It is a percentage of what they save us by using reserved instances. If they save us $25,000, they might charge five percent of that, which is work we wouldn't do on our...

What needs improvement with Zesty?

What is your primary use case for Zesty?

We predominantly use Zesty to manage our spend in AWS, specifically around reserving instances for our compute workload. Our workload is dynamic, and it would be cumbersome and difficult for us to ...

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Product Reports

Download IBM Turbonomic product report

IBM Turbonomic

June 2025

Download Zesty product report

Cloud Management

June 2025

Also Known As

Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager

No data available

Interactive Demo

IBM

Demo not available

Overview

IBM Turbonomic offers automation, planning, and right-sizing recommendations to streamline resource management, improve efficiencies, and optimize costs across virtualized environments and cloud platforms.

IBM Turbonomic is valued for its capability to optimize resource allocation and monitor virtual environments efficiently. It facilitates automated decision-making in VM sizing, load balancing, and cost optimization for both on-premises and cloud deployments. Users can leverage insights for workload placement, ensure peak performance assurance, and effectively right-size across VMware and Azure. The ongoing transition to HTML5 aims to improve visual and navigational ease, while expanded reporting features are anticipated. Opportunities for improved training, documentation, and integrations enhance platform usability and functionality.

What Are the Key Features?

Automation: Streamlines resource allocation and VM management.
Planning Tools: Supports capacity management and growth projections.
Right-Sizing: Optimizes VM configurations for efficient resource use.
Customizable Dashboards: Provides quick insights into environment health.
Reporting Capabilities: Offers valuable data for informed decision-making.
Cloud Integration: Ensures cost-effective resource utilization.

What Benefits Should Be Looked For?

Performance Enhancement: Improves application performance efficiency.
Cost Reduction: Minimizes operational expenses through optimizations.
Infrastructure Efficiency: Maximizes use of IT infrastructure resources.

In finance, IBM Turbonomic aids in maintaining platform efficiency during market fluctuations. Healthcare organizations leverage its capability for resource optimization during high-demand periods to enhance patient care support. Retailers use it for planning in peak seasons, ensuring resources align with fluctuating demand to maintain performance continuity.

IBM

Zesty is used for optimizing cloud infrastructure costs, automating resource scaling, providing real-time visibility into spending, and managing unused resources efficiently. It helps maintain budget control while scaling operations, making cloud deployment cost-effective.

Zesty offers a comprehensive approach to cloud cost management, focusing on real-time optimization, resource scaling automation, and spending visibility. Designed to reduce wastage and ensure efficient cloud operations, it integrates seamlessly with existing systems, providing detailed analytics and actionable insights. Users find Zesty's intuitive dashboard and effective cost-saving tools instrumental in maintaining budget control. However, improvements are needed in performance speed, functionality, and support responsiveness. Limited customization options and insufficient onboarding resources also present challenges for new users.

What are Zesty's key features?

Real-time optimization: Continuously adjusts resources to minimize costs.
Automated resource management: Scales resources automatically based on demand.
Intuitive dashboard: Offers user-friendly interface for easy monitoring and management.
Detailed analytics: Provides insights into spending and resource usage.
Seamless integration: Fits smoothly with existing systems without disruption.
Scalability: Supports efficient resource allocation as operations expand.
Customer support: Available for assistance, although sometimes noted as unresponsive.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Cost reduction: Significant savings by minimizing unnecessary cloud expenses.
Efficiency: Automation reduces manual intervention and improves resource management.
Budget control: Enhanced visibility into spending helps maintain financial oversight.
Time savings: Streamlined operations free up time for other strategic tasks.
Improved scalability: Supports growth without compromising performance or costs.

Zesty is implemented across industries that demand efficient cloud cost management and resource optimization. For tech companies, it streamlines scalability and supports rapid growth without ballooning costs. Financial services use it for budget control and to maintain operational efficiency. Educational institutions benefit from its ability to manage large-scale deployments economically. Each industry finds Zesty's automation and analytics crucial for staying competitive and maintaining lean operations.

Sample Customers

IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.

Walkme, Wiz, Gong, Grubhub, Singular