AWS Control Tower vs CloudStack comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Apache are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.7, while Apache is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.7. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.5% mindshare in CM, compared to Apache’s 5.1% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Apache users who would recommend it.

AWS Control Tower

Read 17 AWS Control Tower reviews

837 Views
420 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Read 31 CloudStack reviews

1,938 Views
1,445 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

AWS Control Tower

CloudStack

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

CloudStack and AWS Control Tower compete in the cloud management category. AWS Control Tower seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive capabilities and robust enterprise-level support, despite CloudStack's cost-effectiveness.

Features: CloudStack is appreciated for its flexibility, open-source nature, and strong multi-tenancy support. It offers customizable deployments and comprehensive hypervisor support, making it adaptable and versatile. AWS Control Tower is known for its centralized management, enhancing compliance and security with centralized authentication, guardrails, and automated recommendations. It provides a seamless setup process with integrated governance and structured REST API support.

Room for Improvement: CloudStack may improve in simplifying its open-source setup to reduce deployment complexity and enhance ease of use. User interface enhancements could further broaden its appeal. Better documentation and more intuitive user experience can elevate its profile. AWS Control Tower can benefit from more flexible pricing models to improve accessibility for smaller organizations. Its complexity in advanced configuration may require streamlining to enhance user satisfaction. Expanded integration options with third-party tools might improve user flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudStack’s open-source setup requires more expertise, with a focus on community support for troubleshooting. AWS Control Tower offers an out-of-the-box deployment experience and robust enterprise-level support channels, providing smoother operational experiences.

Pricing and ROI: CloudStack's lower initial setup cost is attractive for maximizing early ROI, particularly for budget-conscious organizations. AWS Control Tower, with a potentially higher initial pricing, offers a strong ROI with its comprehensive service and long-term scalability, appealing to large-scale enterprises that prioritize integration and robust management.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Control Tower vs. CloudStack Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Control Tower vs. CloudStack

June 2025

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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

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

CloudStack

Ranking in Cloud Management

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of AWS Control Tower is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudStack is 5.1%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Unified security management ensures comprehensive compliance for account safety

Control Tower offers many valuable features for managing all account security. I can manage user security and user IAM, firewall, and other security-related tasks via Control Tower. The unified security management is a crucial aspect, and whenever an AWS organization is used, Control Tower is typically included to ensure comprehensive compliance fulfillment.

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Wido Den Hollander

Community Ambassador at 42on

A solution that strikes a balance between user-friendliness, scalability, and stability

The market keeps changing, and so does technology. I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved. Regarding container technology, Kubernetes is something many people want to use and something which, as of now, many are using currently. However, there is still room for improvement in Kubernetes, particularly with networking functionality and network virtualization. When it comes to what needs to be improved in CloudStack, I would say that it should stay the way it is currently. It should continue being a stable product that people can rely on since many may be inclined to follow the latest trends and hype, which is not always good for a solution's stability. It is crucial to prioritize stability, which is a key factor that companies seek. In my view, the platform could benefit from adding more metrics. More metrics would offer more insights and data on the platform's performance, utilization, and usage. Overall, I believe that having more metrics available would be highly desirable.

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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

"AWS Control Tower is a tool specifically designed for multi-account management. It offers the advantage of highly granular management."

"With Control Tower, there are ready-to-use automated templates available, simplifying the implementation of a centralized management solution."

"The most intriguing feature is the automatic generation of user accounts. Leveraging Active Directory and global company settings, AWS Cloud Tower enables the creation of AWS user accounts based on job descriptions in Active Directory. This establishes a direct correlation between the user's name, job definition, and the corresponding rules applied to each account."

"Security is the most valuable feature of Control Tower."

"It aligns well with the customer's needs and it ultimately fosters a strong customer-company relationship."

"The solution's initial setup was easy for me."

"Control Tower offers many valuable features for managing all account security."

"It is incredibly user-friendly and functions seamlessly."

More AWS Control Tower pros

"It has become easy to deploy new devices with no or minimal hardware changes. Now, a user can be ready to use a firewall within a few minutes, as compared to the traditional physical model which involved purchase, shipping, hardware configuration, cabling, power, etc."

"Key features include stability, centralized management design that scales well, and transparent interoperability with different hypervisors and manufacturers.."

"The most valuable feature from my point of view is access to environment via console through separate browser window."

"When compared to OpenStack, CloudStack is also an open-source platform that is continuously improving its features and capabilities with each new version release. Having worked with CloudStack 4.7, 4.14, and most recently, 4.17, I have noticed significant enhancements in the platform's features and customer experience, such as the introduction of a new user interface in the latest release. Notably, the latest versions have made major improvements to VM live migrations, making them more efficient and effective."

"Multiple types of hypervisor support, multi-zone support, and VPC are great valuable features."

"We had a relevant reduction of bureaucracy tasks."

"It gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs."

"You can build your own cloud and make it customizable with APIs."

More CloudStack pros

Cons

"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."

"AWS Control Tower should improve its fast execution. It also needs more tools for triggering and monitoring AWS services. AWS Control Tower needs more tracking as well."

"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."

"By making APIs and organizational units more centralized, it would be simpler to pinpoint the source of issues in case of a breach and would ultimately benefit everyone involved."

"There is a sync issue within the organization."

"AWS should provide more resources, examples, and tutorials."

"The initial setup is complex."

"The tool's setup is very technical. Its pricing can be cheaper."

More AWS Control Tower cons

"There are some minor things that can be improved even more such as, perhaps, a bit more polishing on the GUI side to catch up with the API possibilities (which are really extensive) but otherwise nothing critical."

"The numerous, multi-layered drill-down menus make it difficult to find one simple knob to turn."

"We did encounter issues with stability, and the main issue was secondary storage. When it is not available, XenServers and hypervisors are affected. And CS doesn’t do anything to reboot, or fix. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn’t, considering their approach – CS just orchestrates everything else on the hypervisor and storage level."

"The user can't upload SSH keys from the UI. We have to use the API for this, and it is not always convenient."

"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."

"My teammates have complained about the upgrade. The source code had massive files that had to be merged with our own development to upgrade to the latest version of CloudStack. It was quite painful for them. CloudStack could add some cost management tools to give me some control over the costs associated with the number of users of my services."

"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."

"It would be great to have a couple of “external” networks for VPC and have the possibility, for each domain, to choose they type of “external” network."

More CloudStack cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's affordability depends on the value it brings to specific organizations."

"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 operates on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning we are charged only for the services we actively use within it."

"The pricing is efficient, not overly expensive but also not very cheap."

"The pricing structure is closely intertwined with the specifics of your environment and the billing strategy you employ."

"It is cost-effective and the associated cost is quite minimal."

"It is expensive but it is an investment in my opinion."

"The solution is free."

More AWS Control Tower pricing and cost advice

"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."

"CloudStack is an open-source product."

"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."

"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."

"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."

"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

21%

Educational Organization

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Control Tower?

The most intriguing feature is the automatic generation of user accounts. Leveraging Active Directory and global company settings, AWS Cloud Tower enables the creation of AWS user accounts based on...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Control Tower?

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.

See all answers

What do you like most about CloudStack?

The initial implementation process was quite good.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with CloudStack?

CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product. Additionally, more themes and drag-and-drop interfaces could enhance the user experience. Improved document...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 42% of the time

AWS Trusted Advisor vs AWS Control Tower

Compared 34% of the time

Morpheus vs AWS Control Tower

Compared 12% of the time

OpenNebula vs AWS Control Tower

Compared 11% of the time

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OpenNebula vs CloudStack

Compared 72% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs CloudStack

Compared 9% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs CloudStack

Compared 4% of the time

More CloudStack Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Control Tower

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

June 2025

Download CloudStack product report

Also Known As

No data available

Vmops, Cloud.com

Overview

AWS Control Tower offers the easiest way to set up and govern a new, secure, multi-account AWS environment. It establishes a landing zone that is based on best-practices blueprints, and enables governance using guardrails you can choose from a pre-packaged list.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Apache CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.

Apache

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000

Buyer's Guide

AWS Control Tower vs. CloudStack

June 2025

Free Report: AWS Control Tower vs. CloudStack

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