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AWS Control Tower vs CloudStack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 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

AWS Control Tower
Ranking in Cloud Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CloudStack
Ranking in Cloud Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of AWS Control Tower is 1.4%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudStack is 2.1%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CloudStack2.1%
AWS Control Tower1.4%
Other96.5%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sharkrit Impat - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Platform Engineering at Ascend Group Co., Ltd.
Streamlines governance and security management but requires effort in managing hidden costs
I believe AWS Control Tower could be improved. I compare it with Huawei Cloud's enterprise project, which is a similar concept but different implementation. In Huawei Cloud, you partition in one single account, but in AWS, you have to separate many accounts. You end up with maybe 20 or 30 accounts if you try to separate. It has limitations; you pay a fixed amount for 15 accounts, but if you exceed that, you have to pay more. It could be useful for implementing a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) for multiple organizations, but for one organization, I would advise against it; it is too much overhead and adds hidden costs. There are limitations on the Landing Zone feature as well. If we implement AWS Control Tower, we need to implement Landing Zone and the security policy, guardrails, and Account Factory; it is not one single product. Using another cloud's enterprise project, you can just create the project and manage it already. It requires some learning curve to get hands-on. For pricing and licensing of AWS Control Tower, it has hidden costs. The Control Tower itself does not cost much, but the child accounts created from AWS Control Tower add costs for checking all configurations, logging, and metrics.
Tharun Kumar Reddy Thamatam - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides a central point for account management, access control, and compliance monitoring."
"Compliance is the most valuable feature."
"It offers automated recommendations for security and policies, creating a landing zone and providing a list of policies."
"It provides centralized solutions for all AWS accounts in one place, customized to meet the organization's specific needs."
"There are two features in Control Tower which are the most valuable. One is the guardrails because it has preventive and detective guardrails."
"The solution's initial setup was easy for me."
"AWS Control Tower provides tremendous value by simplifying multi-account governance and reducing operational complexity."
"I would rate the solution a 10 out of 10."
"CloudStack is simple to stand up and get off the ground in a hurry."
"We like the virtualization capabilities."
"CloudStack is a very feature-rich product; it gives you a lot of control over your VM networks and has extensive integration with storage plugins where you can use many open source tools to bring storage into your CloudStack environment for backups or even to run VMs."
"CloudStack is highly stable."
"CloudStack’s private gateway networking feature is what enables us to offer utmost security and confidentially to our customers and partners, by enabling them to connect to their virtual data centers via dedicated, encrypted, private fiber lines that never touch the public internet space. Ease of setup and management are certainly important additional benefits for us on the engineering team."
"We had a relevant reduction of bureaucracy tasks."
"The API with CloudStack made integration into various external facing web applications simple enough."
"CloudStack manages infrastructure with 2-4 thousands of hosts easily."
 

Cons

"The solution's stability could be improved."
"There is a sync issue within the organization. It is important that the system syncs automatically instead of requiring me to manually choose sync options."
"The process of closing an AWS account using Control Tower needs improvements to simplify it, especially when managing multiple accounts."
"AWS should provide more resources, examples, and tutorials."
"It is essential to clarify that this isn't necessarily a drawback of the service, but having a clear and concise set of predefined guidelines from AWS for moving existing accounts under AWS Control Tower would be highly beneficial as it would simplify the process and make it more user-friendly."
"There aren't any additional features that I feel are missing. However, it's worth noting that Control Tower seems to function as a layer utilizing standard AWS products in the background. Occasionally, the interface may appear less streamlined, with changes in layout based on the underlying products being used. While this doesn't impact functionality, having a more standardized user interface, irrespective of the background products, could enhance the user experience."
"The product's affordability depends on the value it brings to specific organizations."
"The integration with other AWS functions has room for improvement."
"It would be a good to have more specific error messages within administration processes (e.g. problem with creating new instance)."
"I think CloudStack needs to promote itself better, since I believe it a better solution than OpenStack."
"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 absence of the feature, deploy an instance from a snapshot, is the weak point of the platform. It is a feature that everyone needs nowadays."
"The stability is problematic, in part, because there is no support."
"After Citrix divested CloudPlatform to Accelerite, commercial support was absolutely atrocious."
"The web UI can be improved. It is too complex, and not trivial for the average user."
"The installation of CloudStack can be quite challenging because you need a good understanding of the product before starting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is reasonable, but there are opportunities for improvement in terms of pricing for larger enterprises."
"The pay-as-you-go model ensures you're only charged for what you use, which offers great flexibility for different types of companies."
"AWS Control Tower is not really that expensive."
"The product's affordability depends on the value it brings to specific organizations."
"The solution is free."
"I believe it's free of charge or comes at a very low cost. It's an additional feature. Even if there is a fee, it's minimal. AWS seems to assist customers in gaining a comprehensive view of their security setups within AWS. Using Control Tower is highly recommended, especially as your company grows and involves Active Directory, various departments, and different architectural aspects. It becomes more advisable to leverage Control Tower rather than managing these aspects manually, especially for larger organizations."
"It is cost-effective and the associated cost is quite minimal."
"It operates on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning we are charged only for the services we actively use within it."
"The solution is open-source and free."
"​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."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
"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."
"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Control Tower?
Control Tower within the AWS Organization does not have a charge. It is free and does not incur additional charges.
What needs improvement with AWS Control Tower?
I would like to see greater customization and flexibility for the landing zone, easier integration with existing enterprise environments, more advanced reporting and governance dashboards, and expa...
What is your primary use case for AWS Control Tower?
My primary use case for AWS Control Tower is multi-account governance, as it provides a standardized landing zone that allows us to provision accounts consistently, enforce security guardrails, cen...
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.
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Vmops, Cloud.com
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Control Tower vs. CloudStack and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.