VMware Cloud Director, also known as vCloud Director, is a cloud management tool that offers secure, flexible, and efficient cloud resources to thousands of enterprises and IT teams across the world. The solution serves as one of the leading cloud service-delivery platforms for businesses that want to manage and operate their services effectively. By deploying this solution, companies can benefit from virtualized networking, computing, security, and storage. These benefits can be received in a timely manner, as the infrastructure of the product is operationally ready within minutes and clients do not need to install and configure physical infrastructure.
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VMware Cloud Director is the #5 ranked solution in top Cloud Management solutions. PeerSpot users give VMware Cloud Director an average rating of 8.0 out of 10. VMware Cloud Director is most commonly compared to VMware Aria Automation:
VMware Cloud Director vs VMware Aria Automation. VMware Cloud Director is popular among the large enterprise segment,
accounting for 60% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a
computer software company, accounting for 20% of all views.
The overall dashboarding is very crystal clear. The ability to switch from one infrastructure to another infrastructure and get into detailed information, whether it is compute, storage network, or whatever. That helps you get a holistic view of the overall infrastructure running in your landscape. This also helps the leadership and management be aware of the right potential investment strategy by looking at the potential utilization. vCloud Director also provides ways and means through which you can make a prediction or a forecast of the infrastructure that would be needed in the future, depending on what you are currently running. That does not take away the fact that we have to be completely aware of our pipeline projects in our schedule so that you can plan your infrastructure requirements accordingly. vCloud Director provides multifold features that have been beneficial to the end users.
We use the solution for private clouds.
The tool has a self-provisioning feature, which helps us manage projects easily. The solution is easy to use, secure, and reliable.
vCloud Director's pricing is high. Its integration with open-source technologies is limited.
The tool is stable. VMware…
Senior Technical Advisor at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
As my company started off with the product a few months ago, we have not faced any issues and are still exploring the tool's functionalities. The interface of the product is okay. Sometimes, there is a disconnection that happens between vCloud Director and its underlying VMware vCenter, where the actions are supposed to be taking place, making it an area where improvements are required. My company is still exploring the aforementioned area of the product. I feel the product is continuously evolving. I can't comment on whether VMware needs to focus on marketing efforts to promote its products since it is in the transition phase after Broadcom purchased it. My company is waiting to see what is going to happen next. VMware purchases Broadcom, and I don't know if, under the new management, the changes that will be made are going to be beneficial to customers or not, so it depends on how Broadcom is going to play the game.
As of June 2025, the mindshare of VMware Cloud Director in the Cloud Management category
stands at 6.5%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
PeerResearch reports based on VMware Cloud Director reviews
VMware Cloud Director offers self-service capabilities, multi-tenancy, and scalability. Users appreciate its integration with VMware's Hybrid cloud platform, intuitive UI, and robust security measures. The extensibility allows integration with other services. It excels in orchestration, automation, and virtual machine management. Users value the platform’s stability, easy provisioning, load balancing, and remote console features. It facilitates seamless networking with NSX integration, providing efficient resource management and significant infrastructure flexibility.
"VMware Cloud Director is quite scalable; I would rate it nine out of ten."
"The reliability and flexibility of networking are valuable."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
Room for Improvement
VMware Cloud Director needs enhancement in platform maturity, interoperability, and integration with hyperscalers like Azure and AWS. Its pricing is high for smaller entities. Users desire improvements in UI, search functionality, and automation features. Integration with additional cloud and network devices is required, and better third-party integration and documentation are suggested. Stability, installation, and tech support need refinement. Users request enhanced billing capabilities and more comprehensive public cloud feature sets. Pricing adjustments are desired.
"There are occasional problems when trying to increase the parameters of a virtual machine, which sometimes results in pending tasks that fail due to errors, requiring support intervention."
"VMware should simplify the whole solution as it comprises many different components, making management hard."
"The tool's price is one of the challenges we faced with the solution, making it an area requiring improvement."
ROI
Users achieve ROI with VMware Cloud Director by leveraging service provider models and efficient resource delivery, reaching break-even in 1.5 years. This is achieved through cost-effective licensing, manpower reduction, and improved client provisioning speed. Users note that the total cost of ownership can be high, and the return can be slow. However, some experience positive returns, particularly with managed services and chargeback features. Challenges exist post-Broadcom acquisition, impacting VMware support on AWS.
Pricing
VMware Cloud Director is generally perceived as an expensive solution, with high licensing and setup costs, often rating around four to six out of ten on a pricing satisfaction scale. While the solution is considered pricier than alternatives like Nutanix and Microsoft SPLA, some users find its unique features justifying the expense. Licensing can be perpetual, with costs influenced by usage and licensing models such as VSPP. Discounts may alleviate some pricing concerns, but enterprise buyers should budget for substantial investment.
"If ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a four out of ten."
"If one means a very bad price, and ten means a very good price, I rate the price as a five on a scale of one to ten."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing eight and a half to nine out of ten."
Popular Use Cases
VMware Cloud Director is primarily used for managing multi-tenant cloud environments, enabling service providers to offer Infrastructure as a Service. It facilitates virtual data center creation, resource automation, infrastructure provisioning, and private/public cloud management. Service providers leverage it for hosting customers, infrastructure optimization, and workload management. Customers gain power over their platforms, allowing them to deploy virtual machines, manage applications, and create virtual private clouds, enhancing cloud service delivery and operational efficiency.
Service and Support
VMware Cloud Director customer service is noted for being helpful and resolving issues promptly. Their technical support receives mixed feedback, with some praising its quick and knowledgeable assistance, while others suggest areas for improvement, like response times and the availability of experienced staff. Many emphasize the effectiveness of VMware's documentation and community resources, reducing the need for direct support. For certain versions, support availability can vary, and some mention frustrations with global support coordination.
Deployment
Experiences with VMware Cloud Director's initial setup are mixed. Many find it straightforward, benefiting from comprehensive documentation. Some describe it as complex, particularly with compatibility concerns and integrating multiple components. Although deployment is quick, configuration challenges exist, especially when integrating with other systems. Improvements in recent versions have been noted, making the setup easier. Expertise in VMware tools can simplify the process, but complexity can increase with specific organizational needs or when transitioning from legacy systems.
Scalability
VMware Cloud Director exhibits strong scalability, enabling rapid expansion in cloud environments. Users highlight seamless scaling from hundreds to thousands of machines, with Dell Blades and pods optimizing growth. Though some limitations exist, many rate scalability highly, appreciating integration with systems like vRealize. It's adaptable for various users, managing increased workloads effectively, and accommodating numerous customers and virtual machines. The platform's flexibility and ease of scaling are advantageous for medium to large enterprises.
Stability
VMware Cloud Director is praised for its mature technology and stability, supporting large loads with minimal issues. Most users report it as very stable, with consistent high availability. Some note rare complications in updates or heavy use, yet VMware addresses these efficiently. Occasional hardware hiccups exist, but the platform's reliability manages them well. Despite some minor backend issues, users find the solution ideal for stable operation and rate its stability highly.
These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.
One of the biggest advantages of vCloud Director is that it allows users to build cloud-ready applications. In several ways, it facilitates the process for developers, including:
Open to DevOps: The product addresses the needs of DevOps teams by providing Infrastructure as Code services with vCD Terraform Provider. This allows developers to deliver infrastructure directly from code. Additionally, it provides capabilities from Python and vCD API as well as Object Storage API and App Launchpad APIs.
Customization: This solution is very customizable and extensible for cloud providers to deliver their own branding, themes, and services to their clients.
Dev-ready cloud: vCloud Director offers support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid for vSphere and multicloud with a plugin for container service extension. Through these, native K8s Clusters or Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Clusters can be delivered and managed through a user interface (UI) and application programming interface (API).
vCloud Director Features
This VMware product has various features through which users can virtualize their data and benefit from quality management solutions. Among the popular capabilities of vCloud Director are:
Elastic secure virtual data centers: This vCloud Director feature provides tenants with securely isolated virtual resources, fine-grained control of their public cloud services, and independent role-based authentication.
Multi-site management: This feature allows companies to stretch data centers across sites and geographies as well as connect to existing dedicated vCenters for access and management or on-broad into VMware vCloud Director.
ISV ecosystem: This feature integrates leading cloud service vendors into the product using an open extensibility framework. Some of the partners of vCloud Director include Dell Data Protection, Veeam, Cloudian, AWS S3, and Dell ECS.
DRaaS workload protection: This feature allows users to deliver self-service tiered disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) on-premises to cloud and cloud to cloud.
Cloud migration: Part of this feature is the plugin VMware Cloud Director Availability, which enables simple migration to cloud, offering self-service cold or warm migration to users' vCloud Director clouds.
Operational visibility and insights: The product includes an accessible dashboard and a single pane of glass to provide centralized multi-tenant cloud management views.
Cloud-native applications and development: This feature makes the platform suitable for developers to sandbox or deploy apps as it natively supports Tanzu Basic, native K8s, and PKS.
Automation: Through various tools and deep integration, the solution allows users to automate complex infrastructure-as-code and tile UI-driven workflows. This allows them to deploy X-as-a-Service and maintain full access control and visibility at the same time.
Application Platform as a Service: This feature enables users to deliver their own catalog-based applications or VMware Cloud Marketplace-certified third-party cloud applications through the plugin App Launchpad VMware Cloud Director.
GPU as a Service: Utilizing Nvidia AI Enterprise, this feature provides support for GPU as a Service and delivers multi-tenant GPU services for customers who require high-performance compute for GPU-specific applications.
Secure cloud: The solution supports multiple security-centric features to deliver an enterprise-class cloud service, including NSX-T distributed firewalling, workload encryption, and integrated disaster recovery replication.
vCloud Director Benefits
VMware vCloud Director offers various benefits to its users. Some of these include:
The solution provides a highly efficient self-service model which consists of a virtual data center compute, network, storage, and security.
VMware vCloud Director offers its users multi-tenancy infrastructure with deep automation which facilitates their daily tasks.
The product is cost-efficient, as it is service-ready on its very first day and offers a high revenue from services.
Businesses can deliver services to their clients in a timely manner through this product, benefitting from its natively integrated solutions.
VMware vCloud Director provides users with high flexibility, as it allows businesses to stretch networks across virtual data centers globally.
The solution provides load-balancing capabilities, which facilitate the creation of new hybrid applications and digital transformation initiatives.
"VMware Cloud Director is quite scalable; I would rate it nine out of ten."
Cons
"There are occasional problems when trying to increase the parameters of a virtual machine, which sometimes results in pending tasks that fail due to errors, requiring support intervention."
What is our primary use case?
We build virtual machines, create infrastructure topologies, and provide various services in VMware Cloud Director. We also use VPN features inside it, primarily for virtual machines and their relevant services, and ensure seamless connections for users to their virtual machines.
What is most valuable?
A notable feature is the Independent Disk, which allows detaching a virtual drive from one virtual machine and attaching it to another, enabling more flexibility in operations. VMware Cloud Director's multi-tenancy capability also enhances cloud management by maintaining stability and redundancy. If one data center fails, another ensures service continuity.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
"The solution's pricing is high, and VMware should consider lowering it."
What is our primary use case?
vCloud Director gives you the overall capability to manage your infrastructure running on the VMware private cloud, whether it is your compute, network, or storage. The solution gives you the ability not only to manage and monitor but also to optimize the infrastructure running in the environment.
It also has the capability to help support and provide the basic assessment for the identified infrastructure servers, which can be potential candidates for migration to public cloud services.
What is most valuable?
The overall dashboarding is very crystal clear. The ability to switch from one infrastructure to another infrastructure and get into detailed information, whether it is compute, storage network, or whatever. That helps you get a holistic view of the overall infrastructure running in your landscape. This also helps the leadership and management be aware of the right potential investment strategy by looking at the potential utilization.
vCloud Director also provides ways and means through which you can make a prediction or a forecast of the infrastructure that would be needed in the future, depending on what you are currently running. That does not take away the fact that we have to be completely aware of our pipeline projects in our schedule so that you can plan your infrastructure requirements accordingly. vCloud Director provides multifold features that have been beneficial to the end users.
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
Head of Transport & Data Networks Engineering Department at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
Verified user of VMware Cloud Director
Feb 7, 2024
Efficient infrastructure management that offers comprehensive cloud management capabilities, including multi-tenancy, self-service provisioning and integration with VMware technologies
" Key enhancements include better synchronization with vCenter and increased reliability, ensuring stability during extensive usage and various actions."
Cons
" It would be beneficial to have enhanced integration capabilities with third-party solutions within vCloud Director, especially in networking and data security."
What is our primary use case?
As a telecom company, we use vCloud Director exclusively for providing services to our customers, making it a multi-tenant platform. We provide Infrastructure as a Service, allowing our customers to construct their own solutions within a virtual data center using vCloud Director. Our platform supports a diverse range of applications, including IP infrastructure, engineering solutions, consulting services, and various other functionalities tailored to their needs.
How has it helped my organization?
Our customers leverage vCloud Director for cloud provisioning and management tasks, accessing it through the portal we provide. Within our platform, they operate as tenants, utilizing the portal to handle all aspects of their virtual services. They exclusively interact with CloudDirect, as our platform seamlessly integrates their control over virtual services with vCloud Director.
The specific features of vCloud Director that are most valuable for orchestrating data center services lie in its capabilities for multi-tenancy and self-service provisioning within a single cloud environment. While our focus is primarily on automating tasks within our VMware-based infrastructure, vCloud Director offers extensive flexibility, allowing customers to manage their virtual data centers autonomously. This aspect of empowering tenants to self-service within their designated environments stands out as the greatest benefit for our operations.
Configuring and deploying vApps using vCloud Director presented challenges, particularly regarding their integration into our infrastructure. While vApps are an integral part of the product, our utilization may not align precisely with its intended purpose. Our customers often view vApps as individual environments or subsets of their overall tenant space, incorporating various servers and applications. This approach sometimes complicates matters, especially when integrating third-party solutions like Rubrik for data backup.
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
"Sometimes, there is a disconnection that happens between vCloud Director and its underlying VMware vCenter, where the actions are supposed to be taking place, making it an area where improvements are required."
What is our primary use case?
I am satisfied with the use of the product in my company.
What needs improvement?
As my company started off with the product a few months ago, we have not faced any issues and are still exploring the tool's functionalities.
The interface of the product is okay. Sometimes, there is a disconnection that happens between vCloud Director and its underlying VMware vCenter, where the actions are supposed to be taking place, making it an area where improvements are required. My company is still exploring the aforementioned area of the product. I feel the product is continuously evolving.
I can't comment on whether VMware needs to focus on marketing efforts to promote its products since it is in the transition phase after Broadcom purchased it. My company is waiting to see what is going to happen next. VMware purchases Broadcom, and I don't know if, under the new management, the changes that will be made are going to be beneficial to customers or not, so it depends on how Broadcom is going to play the game.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Assistant Manager at Melco Resorts & Entertainment
Verified user of VMware Cloud Director
Oct 30, 2023
Provides control over applications used by users through the launcher but initial setup was complex, especially when dealing with legacy profiles and migrations
"We were using VMware, also combined with AirWatch and Boxer. We configured corporate emails on mobiles and used them for MDM applications on tablets, like the launcher."
Cons
"The reason we moved to Microsoft Intune was because of the license cost of VMware. It's very expensive."
What is our primary use case?
In the beginning, we were using VMware, also combined with AirWatch and Boxer. We configured corporate emails on mobiles and used them for MDM applications on tablets, like the launcher.
We are not using AirWatch for mobiles anymore. We are using it only for MDM for tablets with the launcher so we can control the applications our users use.
What needs improvement?
The reason we moved to Microsoft Intune was because of the license cost of VMware. It's very expensive.
So, there is room for improvement in terms of pricing.
Another thing that could be improved is the support. Sometimes, the response takes a long time, and the advice they provide could be better.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
Cons
"The tool's price is one of the challenges we faced with the solution, making it an area requiring improvement."
What is our primary use case?
VMware Cloud Director is the same as VMware Cloud Foundation, so it is almost the same product that we are using across our use cases. One of the tools is used for the public cloud, while the other one is for the private cloud. Overall, my company is happy with this product. VMware Cloud Director is used for the public cloud.
What is most valuable?
It is a good product when dealing in a multi-tenancy environment.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Since June the vCloud Director SP Beta has been running with a lot of renewed interest in the IaaS Platform. The beta was well participated in and there was a lot of robust discussion around the future of vCD as well as questions around the lack of a decent UI for those without in house development skills to exploit the new API only features. The beta program was closed the weekend of VMworld San Francisco with v8.0 GA’ing a few weeks later.
With the v8.0 SP release the vCD team have started to incorporate enhancements from the vCloud Air vCD builds, though the original 6 month lag between VCA services coming to the SP builds seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Before diving into the new features of the 8.0 version I thought it would be a great time to highlight the release history of vCloud Director since v 1.0 was released back in August of 2010. There have been 6 major releases and 16 minor releases which backs up one of my biggest claims around platform maturity and as to why vCloud Director is the best Cloud Management Platform on the market when it comes to the abstraction of vSphere resources and presenting pools of compute, storage and networking via a true multi-tenant interface.
VMware vCloud Director 8.0 Features:
vSphere 6.0 Support:
This to me is the biggest reason to look at upgraded to the new build. Support for vSphere 6.0 is significant for Service Providers who are looking to upgrade to take advantage of all the new features and benefits and optimizations. Note that Hardware Version 11 is not supported and won’t be exposed via the Provider vDCs.
NSX 6.1.4 Support:
This is also a significant feature that allows Service Providers to have NSX-v 6.1.4 deployed and working in a supported fashion with vCloud Director. Deployment of the vShield Edges will be 5.5.4 builds and allow deployments, redeployments and manageability to be maintained.
Organizational virtual data center (vDC) templates:
System administrators can now develop organization specific virtual data center templates with pre-set resource and delegation rules. Organizations deploy these templates to quickly create new virtual data centers on a self-service basis – Without API capabilities this feature can’t be accessed…however I don’t see a great amount of value in this particular feature as in general SPs doing their own provisioning do so off workflows that take into consideration self service vDC profiles.
vApp enhancements:
System administrators can now reconfigure virtual machines within a vApp, as well as network connectivity and virtual machine capability during vApp instantiation – Again from what I’ve seen this features can’t be accessed unless you are deploying and modifying vApps/VMs from the API. I know that this perticular feature solves a problem with Zettagrid faced in creating our vCD UI where VMs needed to be created first and then only able to be modified after that was complete…this allow VM composition on the fly.
OAuth support for identity sources:
OAuth2 tokens are now supported – Probably a feature that isn’t going to be used by most Service Providers…unless I’m missing something?
Tenant throttling:
Prevents a few tenants from consuming a majority of the resources for a single instance of vCloud Director and ensures fairness of execution and scheduling among tenants – This sounds like an awesome features that gives the ability for workloads to be throttled to protect against noisy neighbors and sets more granular control of what a tenant can consume in terms of storage, compute and networking…however it’s only offering a new algorithm that ensures operations running or in queue from a “busy” tenant do not stop or slow down a request from a “sedentary” tenant. The tenant throttling feature only gives control over the number of simultaneous resource-intensive operations any tenant can run…ie this might be fairly useful in large (vCloud Air) vCD deployments, but isn’t a ground breaking feature that offers too much to the majority of SPs.
Preparation for Advanced Networking Services:
The answer to the question as to what’s Changed in the UI is…nothing…however interestingly I did spot a UI addition which had been introduced (apparently undocumented) in preparation for the still not yet in Beta Advanced Networking Service which will allow vCD to interact with a new appliance that acts as the gateway for vCD and NSX to talk advanced services.
Can’t say too much more on the Advanced Networking Service but it will be fed down to vCAN Service Providers on the back of it’s release in vCloud Air last month as part of VMware’s commitment to delayed feature parity for SPs deployments and vCloud Air…good to see some UI enhancement in any case!
Final Thoughts:
As I mentioned above for the majority as Service Providers that can’t make use of the new features the biggest feature enhancements in this release is the compatibility with vSphere 6.0 and NSX-v 6.1.4 and even for those that have the capability to develop against the API’s the vApp Enhancements around VM recomposition will allow for a more streamlined provisioning flow for VMs but the other features are a little less impressive…however I am certainly looking forward to the next release as it should deliver a lot more vCloud Air service features.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
