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Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Salesforce Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (6th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 10.0%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 2.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Stephen  Hack - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, simple to sign-in, but lacking graphical interface
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is used as a cloud platform Pivotal Cloud Foundry has helped our organization by the way we've set it up, it's easy to sign in, bind services, push services, and create YAML files. The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line…
Yasser_Anter - PeerSpot reviewer
Has customization and integration capabilities which increase efficiency
Salesforce could improve by offering AI features or functionalities to help business decision-makers analyze business history, suggest forward strategies, and participate in events. The previous version had a complicated interface where multiple pages and data entries were required, which was not pleasant for sales teams or business users. Also, deploying Salesforce took a long time, about four to five months, which is not ideal for any business.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."
"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."
"The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line interface has the ability to push instances to the cloud easily."
"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies. It has a very good performance."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."
"I love the report building that is available."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the unit coordination between sales and marketing when it comes to lead management."
"he solution has improved over the years and the inputting of opportunity information is done a lot better and the GUI is good. The ability to customize dashboards and other elements was useful, we were able to move things around, for example, the forecasts. Most of the cells and input places were set, but we can customize the view and what we were looking at, such as on a daily, or weekly basis."
"Salesforce is a phenomenal application. It's very diverse."
"Features they are integrating to the other services."
"The most valuable aspect is that all data is stored in one place, making it easy to find what is needed and to report on it."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten...I rate Salesforce Platform's technical support a ten out of ten."
"The support is very good."
 

Cons

"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is not scalable, infinitely, because when you install it on a set of virtual machines it is very hard to scale. It's easy to scale on an application level, but not it is not similar to if you were using Amazon. Amazon you can scale thousands of applications."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology it is a bit complex."
"It should offer more security features."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"The user interface should be simpler to navigate because it t can take time for users to learn it."
"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."
"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features."
"One area that could use improvement is the approval mechanism in the authenticator, which is unstable."
"It would be better if they can add more from the pricing and functionality perspective. It is very expensive. I would be more than happy if they drop the prices. From the licensing perspective, if they can add more functionality, I would be more than happy."
"UI needs to be more intuitive and user friendly."
"The solution offers upgrades at a slower pace. The solution needs to keep up with competitors."
"Salesforce is a pretty cumbersome product. It's a product that you need to spend quite a bit of time customizing to your unique business model. Unless you have somebody in house that knows it really well, you're better off spending money with a consultant to get what you need."
"I would like Salesforce to recommend related opportunities within the organization that have been taken to closure, so we can fast track new opportunities based on past experiences."
"The biggest challenge we had was the cost and the licensing."
"Getting reports in Salesforce is sometimes a little bit difficult. You need to do a lot of things to get detailed reports. This feature can be improved. Its price can also be improved. It is currently expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"I haven't had to buy Salesforce, however, I have heard it's $1500 a user."
"It is quite expensive. Its developers come at a premium cost, which makes it expensive."
"I don't know anything about its cost, but I'm sure it has got a nice little price tag that goes along with it."
"I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI."
"The product's additional features can be expensive."
"The price varies depending on the cloud."
"The licensing is per user per month, which we took out a contract on a long time back. It's really an okay price for what solutions are available and for how many features and what kind of functionality you get."
"The licensing is on the expensive side, but most clients engage in negotiations to reach a more favorable agreement. For stand-alone or medium-sized clients, it can be relatively costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
37%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
What do you like most about Pivotal Cloud Foundry?
I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pivotal Cloud Foundry?
I would say it is around a nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. Just short of Oracle. It's sort of Oracle cloud.
How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
 

Also Known As

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank
ADP
Find out what your peers are saying about Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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