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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
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
18
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 March 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of AWS Control Tower is 1.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudStack is 2.5%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CloudStack2.5%
AWS Control Tower1.8%
Other95.7%
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

"I would rate the solution a 10 out of 10."
"Security is the most valuable feature of Control Tower."
"It provides a central point for account management, access control, and compliance monitoring."
"There are two features in Control Tower which are the most valuable. One is the guardrails because it has preventive and detective guardrails."
"One of the standout advantages is the fine-grained control it offers in terms of permissions and privileges."
"The advantages of AWS Control Tower that stand out for me include centralized management and easy governance control."
"AWS Control Tower helps companies save costs."
"With Control Tower, there are ready-to-use automated templates available, simplifying the implementation of a centralized management solution."
"​You can build your own cloud and make it customizable with APIs​."
"Multiple types of hypervisor support, multi-zone support, and VPC are great valuable features."
"I have been impressed by CloudStack's most recent updates around Kubernetes. In particular, they have worked with Kubernetes to support the Cluster API, and you can now easily integrate Kubernetes into CloudStack and get access to a lot of good features."
"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."
"It gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs."
"The product gives us the ability to orchestrate large virtual environments and is flexible enough to allow us to configure it for what we need. We value the flexibility of the networking feature set as well as the ability to build virtual private clouds."
"Key features include stability, centralized management design that scales well, and transparent interoperability with different hypervisors and manufacturers.."
"The API with CloudStack made integration into various external facing web applications simple enough."
 

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 should provide more resources, examples, and tutorials."
"There should be more automation security tools in the Control Tower."
"The tool's setup is very technical. Its pricing can be cheaper."
"While using the solution recently, it broke a certain activity. So, AWS Control Tower needs to consider making the solution better."
"The sole drawback is its restriction to enable only one Control Tower."
"The solution's stability could be improved."
"The initial setup is complex."
"A technology upgrade is one item which could be improved upon a lot."
"It would be a good to have more specific error messages within administration processes (e.g. problem with creating new instance)."
"The area of Apache CloudStack that could stand the most improvement is the functionality/features around the virtual routers. They can be somewhat cumbersome to deal with at times and are the least stable piece of the product."
"For time consuming operations like storage migrations, volume Snapshot restore and the like, we faced issues like MySQL operations timing out and status update failures. Those areas needs improvement."
"Lack of support for third-party software vendors such as Veeam and Zerto creates limitations on comprehensive offerings which would include backup and disaster recovery."
"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 Windows hosts do not get their hostnames from cloud-init."
"I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AWS Control Tower is not really that expensive."
"It operates on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning we are charged only for the services we actively use within it."
"The pay-as-you-go model ensures you're only charged for what you use, which offers great flexibility for different types of companies."
"The product's affordability depends on the value it brings to specific organizations."
"The cost is reasonable, but there are opportunities for improvement in terms of pricing for larger enterprises."
"The solution is free."
"The pricing structure is closely intertwined with the specifics of your environment and the billing strategy you employ."
"The pricing is efficient, not overly expensive but also not very cheap."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"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."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"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."
"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."
"The solution is open-source and free."
"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
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 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 si...
What is your primary use case for AWS Control Tower?
I use AWS Control Tower to enhance governance, enhance security, and manage multiple subsidiaries. We sunset the AWS Control Tower that I implemented, but it was a new project that we implemented. ...
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: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.