Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs CloudStack comparison

Cisco and Apache are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Apache users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Read 34 CloudStack reviews

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3,491 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

CloudStack

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and CloudStack based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management.

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Cloud Management

July 2026

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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

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

CloudStack

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (7th)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

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Tharun Kumar Reddy Thamatam

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.

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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

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

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

"CloudStack is simple to stand up and get off the ground in a hurry. Its centralized design allows for easier troubleshooting when compared to OpenStack. Out of the box, it’s very well suited for white labeling and IaaS."

"The APIs for automation in CloudStack are excellent; everything is API-driven, and while the API is very rich and hard to learn, you can do everything you would want to do, including everything in the user interface and more."

"I have also explored setting up with OpenStack and I found it harder to use than CloudStack."

"I liked the separation of the isolated network versus the shared network."

"The structuring of the components and isolated environments helped us when using parts of the framework at different levels of product development."

"CloudStack has reduced the time to market for the delivery of new products."

"It is very easy to install and manage. It has the all modules in one node, unlike other software (OpenStack). The product allows a customized look and feel, and the ability to add custom workflows."

More CloudStack pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"CS has very descriptive logging, and every time I faced issues and asked for help, I didn’t get any reply from the community. Reason? Its quite obvious. CS runs on specific environments, unique to each case. So, unless it is a functional issue of CS, nobody can help you. All issues were resolved by myself going through logs. This is another reason why you need smart enough people to manage it. Engineers must have knowledge of hypervisors and understand how CS interacts with them."

"Companies need to be knowledgeable about cloud technology. It's not for novice users."

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

"The area of improvement could be the regionalization aspect. For example, managing multiple regions or HubStack deployments together was not thought out thoroughly in the versions I used. We faced issues around managing the global infrastructure and had to develop around it."

"From time to time there is a bug in calculating limits of resources for customer domain/account. Maybe it’s a problem with 4.9.2."

"The product has evolved a lot since the first versions in which it was very complicated to do version updates, and had various problems."

"The product does not have an easily implementable payment gateway."

More CloudStack cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

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Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

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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?

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

July 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

August 2026

Download CloudStack product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

Vmops, Cloud.com

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

CloudStack offers an easy-to-manage platform compatible with multiple hypervisors, enabling seamless networking and efficient workload scaling. Its advanced APIs and open-source nature facilitate automation and customization, making it ideal for extensive cloud environments.

CloudStack is recognized for ease of setup, robust networking, and hypervisor compatibility. Supporting a range of workloads, it scales efficiently, offering flexible features like VM migration, private networking, and multi-zone support. Its user-friendly open-source design aids troubleshooting and customization, making it ideal for managing broad cloud deployments. Despite needing upgrades in interface and integration with third-party vendors and container technology, CloudStack remains a strong choice for businesses seeking effective virtualization solutions. Improvements in documentation, regional management, and emerging tech support would enhance usability and performance.

What are CloudStack's notable features?

Hypervisor compatibility: Supports diverse virtualization technologies for flexible deployment.
Robust networking: Ensures reliable and scalable network infrastructure management across zones.
Advanced APIs: Facilitates automation and integration to streamline cloud operations.
VM migration: Enhances operational flexibility with seamless virtual machine relocations.
Private networking: Provides secure and isolated network environments for critical tasks.
Multi-zone support: Offers scalable solutions for distributed cloud management.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Open-source model: Allows extensive customization without licensing costs, enhancing ROI.
Ease of management: Simplifies operations, reducing time and resources spent on maintenance.
Scalability: Enables growth and adaptability, fostering agility in expanding businesses.
Flexibility: Supports various workloads and environments, meeting diverse operational needs.

CloudStack is implemented across industries, used in managing virtual environments, offering IaaS in public, private, and hybrid cloud models. Companies use it for internal virtualization and customer service, integrating with hypervisors across data centers to orchestrate virtual machines and support development and testing globally.

Apache

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Broadcom, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: July 2026.

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