Cloudify Reviews and Pricing

it_user687177

devOps engineer at a financial services firm

Jun 22, 2017

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It is easy to follow the template. More of the debug functionality is needed.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to follow the template.

How has it helped my organization?

It's easy to create a cloud server, such as Linux with JBoss or WebSphere, which is good for continuous deployment.

What needs improvement?

More of the debug functionality is needed; hopefully, we can pause during the server building process.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for three months.

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no stability issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were not using any other solution before.

How was the initial setup?

Another team was responsible for the setup in the low-level environment.

What other advice do I have?

You should be familiar with more testing procedures.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user673509

IT Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jun 22, 2017

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Reduced the manual tasks during application release activities.

What is most valuable?

No need to change the existing application code base.

How has it helped my organization?

Reduced the manual tasks during application release activities.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for six months.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

I did not encounter any issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I did encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

I would rate customer support as good.

Technical Support:

I would rate technical support as good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not evaluate any other options.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

In-house teams implemented it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing and licensing are decent.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Buyer's Guide

Cloudify

June 2025

Free Report: Cloudify Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Cloudify. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.

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it_user634341

Partner, Cloud Services at a tech services company

Mar 27, 2017

Applications are modeled as abstract blueprints, and interfaces to external systems are implemented in Python plugins.

Cloudify is an application that allows users to control the full lifecycle of distributed applications. Based on TOSCA – an open specification for defining an application's topology, lifecycle workflows and lifecycle events – Cloudify can manage complex, distributed applications across both public and private clouds (multi-cloud and hybrid), including containerized applications and SDN.

At Risk Focus, we're often engaged by enterprise customers to build a cloud management layer that allows our clients to integrate their cloud services with existing services and controls. We use Cloudify in three common use cases:

In highly regulated industries (e.g., capital markets firms) where the organization has existing controls that need to be implemented across all new environments, including cloud. Cloudify integrates well into existing infrastructure, not requiring massive retooling. It also allows iterative rollout, crucial in firms where ensuring execution of all controls is a must.
In hybrid environments, where the client is pursuing (or intends to pursue) a cloud-agnostic strategy that may involve a mixture of virtualization, cloud, and container destinations
In network-rich environments where managing the network is a first-class task (e.g., common at Telcos).

Cloudify is not a turn-key solution, nor designed as such. It's a framework that can be built on to provide a customized solution for an organization. Its model – applications are modeled as abstract blueprints, and interfaces to external systems are implemented in Python plugins – is both a weakness and a strength. Plugins exist for common scenarios, such as public clouds (AWS and Azure), private clouds (VMware and OpenStack), and containers (Kubernetes and Docker Swarm, e.g.). Similarly, example blueprints exist for common applications. However, for less common apps or frameworks, the user is forced to do some blueprint development and Python coding. It does require some forethought around a scalable SDLC for these tasks. We've found that this is not an undue burden, and the extra work gives immense flexibility and portability. For example, at one client, this flexibility allowed us to create a virtual "manager of managers", displaying the executions from a set of environments on one pane of glass, and expanding the product to cover a scenario not anticipated by the developers.

Cloudify is iterating very quickly, and suffered some significant growing pains in earlier versions. Both the latest 3.4 version and the much-anticipated 4.0 version largely overcome earlier scaling issues and gaps in UI and controls. As a development organization, GigaSpaces has been great in accepting product feedback and incorporating that feedback to both patch and later versions of the product. I expect that our introduction of Cloudify into existing and new customers will significantly grow over time as the product embraces more use cases.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: My company has installed a number of cloud management systems based on Cloudify, and has collaborated with GigSspaces (developer for Cloudify) on several of those systems.

it_user617943CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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May 4, 2017

Very accurate and informative review by Risk Focus. Cloudify is maturing rapidly in terms of scalability and breadth/depth of the plugins. They are also putting significant resources into traditional Cloud Management Platform (CMP) functions like chargeback, catalog and policy governance. Because of their core strength in orchestration and NFV, this will set them apart from other CMPs

it_user617943

CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Mar 5, 2017

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It can be deployed in combinations of cloud environments.

What is most valuable?

The application orchestration and NFV capabilities represent the state of the art in orchestration tools. Cloudify can be deployed successfully in any combination of cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, OpenStack, Hyper-V and VMware; same automated process, any platform. As TOSCA adoption increases and becomes more standard, we feel comfortable recommending Cloudify to our customers because it will preserve their investment and avoid vendor lock-in.

How has it helped my organization?

We have solved many critical problems for our customers with Cloudify, including DevOps deployment, hybrid cloud management and VNF. These implementations have saved millions of dollars in operational and cloud management costs for our customers.

What needs improvement?

We like the current roadmap, which is evolving Cloudify into the cloud management platform space. We'd like to see the maturity of the plugins continue, including Amazon EMR and others.

Specifically, we’d like to see Cloudify evolve its functionality to include a service catalog, chargeback functionality and an enhanced governance policy engine. When the product has that capability, coupled with the advanced application orchestration and NFV that it already does so well, it will be a formidable competitor in the CMP space.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for 2.5 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment should be well thought out because of the complexity of the environments that can be managed by Cloudify. For example, with DevOps, it is important to use application development standards, including shared services to be able to deploy apps in multiple cloud platforms.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not encountered any stability issues in the past 12 months.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

How is customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service is very responsive. We have had no issues and the Cloudify organization is great to work with.

Technical Support:

I rate technical support very highly. GigaSpaces has some very deep technical expertise in cloud platforms, orchestration and cloud management.

How was the initial setup?

For small implementations, the initial setup is straightforward. YAML skills are essential so you can understand blueprinting (define once, deploy anywhere) and best practices.

What was our ROI?

We have been able to realize ROI for our customers in the form of reduced cost, higher top line and increased valuation through improved profitability. Customers can expect an ROI of 6 to 18 months depending on problem, scope and size.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The great thing about Cloudify is that it is open source. Prospects can download it, install it, and configure it, and really see which problems can be solved and how it can co-exist inside an existing technology investment portfolio. If you have an existing investment in configuration management or a cloud management platform, start to think about the complimentary aspects and how Cloudify can work with those tools. Once you truly understand the value that it can bring to your organization, then you can conduct an accurate ROI and decide on licensing. We would recommend that any production environment be licensed. Using open-source code without support in a live environment is not worth the risk.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before partnering with GigaSpaces and Cloudify, we evaluated many tools, including Red Hat CloudForms/OpenShift, as well as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, StackStorm, Ayehu and others.

What other advice do I have?

Before becoming a GigaSpaces implementation partner and investing in Cloudify, we conducted a thorough market analysis, including both proprietary and open-source solutions. We selected Cloudify because of the scalability, ease of integration (so our customers can keep their existing investments in a CMP or config orchestration tool) and rapid evolution of the product. It enables us to solve our customers' automation problems quickly and with minimal investment and risk.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Zefflin is an implementation partner of GigaSpaces.