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Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs VMware Cloud Director comparison

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.
VMware Cloud Director
Read 71 VMware Cloud Director reviews
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  • 5,062 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

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Executive Summary
We performed a comparison between Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and VMware Cloud Director based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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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
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Cloud Director
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Read full review
KuldeepSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
KuldeepSingh4
Technical Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Experienced users benefit from resource isolation and valuable self-service portal while seeing potential in enhanced infrastructure visibility
VMware is not going further with VMware Cloud Director. They are integrating the VMware Cloud Director feature with Aria Automation only for the upcoming versions, primarily with the VCF 9, and slowly they are integrating some of the parts they have already integrated, and they might not continue with VMware Cloud Director in the future. They can make it more granular to ensure hardware-level segregation, the underlying infrastructure level of segregation for the end user, and a separate security boundary where users can access the end-to-end layer. End-to-end layer means my software layer along with the hardware layer. If they want to do a certain level of troubleshooting primarily on the ESXi part, that is what I feel is lacking for now because for an end user accessing the SSP, the underlying infrastructure is a kind of black box for them. For VMware Cloud Director, it can be more comprehensive if we enable public cloud integration as well. In today's date, customers are adopting a multi-cloud environment where VMware Cloud Director is much feasible to leverage the underlying VMware backend architecture. If VMware Cloud Director could be made to have more integration with the public cloud and do the day one, day two jobs for public cloud interface as well, that would be beneficial. Additionally, I recommend leveraging the VMware Cloud Director layer if a customer has a multi-cloud environment and is planning some cross-cloud migration capability. Cross-cloud migration refers to if a customer has something on Azure, wanting to bring it up on VMware or maybe from VMware to AWS, vice versa. In that case, VMware Cloud Director should provide some cross-cloud migration capability as well.
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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."
"The stability of the product is better than just 'good.'"
"VMware Cloud Director is quite scalable; I would rate it nine out of ten."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"The most valuable features are: Remote console (ability to control booting and OS installation process), support for Windows desktop OS's (mostly used as test machines for software development companies), and the resource pool payment model (pay for resources instead of paying for hourly use)."
"Simple, scalable, and comprehensive solution for large enterprises"
"The stability is rock solid."
"vCloud Director is a stable solution."
"Our customers host their applications with us like they would host it with AWS or Azure, so the most valuable part of the product for us is the ease of creating resources for them to run their applications and infrastructure for doing business."
More VMware Cloud Director pros
 

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."
"Metering is one of the areas where I find Cloud Director leaves much to be desired."
"Even if there are some transition scripts or similar to help move certain aspects of functionality the transition is going to be a painful process."
"We get too many errors, whether it's the URL not working or errors in some of the UI features."
"vCloud Director could use the vCenter database to store information. This way, we don't end up in a situation where we have things going out of sync."
"We use vCloud Director along with Terraform, and it's difficult to make them work together."
"vCloud Director's pricing is high. Its integration with open-source technologies is limited."
"VMware should simplify the whole solution as it comprises many different components, making management hard."
"Initially, I would rate the stability a three out of ten because we faced some complex stability issues initially."
More VMware Cloud Director cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"vCloud Director is an expensive solution."
"We are paying around $ 15,000 per month for vCloud Director, and it would be nice if it could be made cheaper."
"I recommend using the Enterprise or Enterprise Plus licenses because they unlock all of the solution's capabilities."
"It runs our company in the millions of rand every month."
"If ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a four out of ten."
"The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage."
"We pay monthly for all of the licenses."
"The licensing costs are pretty high, but it might depend on the size of the company."
More VMware Cloud Director pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

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Earn 20 points
Would you change anything about VMware vCloud Director if you could?
VMware vCloud Director works very well and there are not many things that I would like to see changed. However, a single thing comes to mind when I think of improvements and that is integration. In...
See all answers
What is the biggest improvement you saw at your company after you started using VMware vCloud Director?
For my company, VMware vCloud Director noticeably increased operational efficiency. When I started working here a few years ago, my organization was using another cloud management tool. We switched...
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Is vCloud Director convenient for building applications?
When it comes to building applications, vCloud Director offers you various methods to create cloud-ready ones. For example: Your DevOps team is supported through Infrastructure as Code services w...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Logo
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]
Compared 15% of the time
IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Logo
IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]
Compared 15% of the time
VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Logo
VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]
Compared 14% of the time
VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Logo
VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]
Compared 11% of the time
Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Logo
Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]
Compared 6% of the time
More Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Competitors
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Cloud Director Logo
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Cloud Director
Compared 8% of the time
BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management vs VMware Cloud Director Logo
BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management vs VMware Cloud Director
Compared 7% of the time
VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Cloud Director Logo
VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Cloud Director
Compared 7% of the time
Morpheus vs VMware Cloud Director Logo
Morpheus vs VMware Cloud Director
Compared 5% of the time
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs VMware Cloud Director Logo
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs VMware Cloud Director
Compared 5% of the time
More VMware Cloud Director Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cloud Management
July 2026
Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] reportDownload Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report
Buyer's Guide
VMware Cloud Director
July 2026
VMware Cloud Director reportDownload VMware Cloud Director product report
 

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS
vCloud Director
 

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

VMware Cloud Director is a versatile platform renowned for its multi-tenancy, automation capabilities, and ease of use. It integrates with platforms like Amazon and Azure, enabling networking flexibility, scalability, and efficient virtual data center deployment with a resilient and intuitive interface.

VMware Cloud Director empowers organizations by offering a self-service portal for independent resource management, robust security features, and efficient orchestration. Its integration with Amazon and Azure enhances cloud functionality, while scalability allows seamless addition of resources. Despite its strengths, there is a need for improved integration with AWS and Azure, a more intuitive UI, better private cloud support, advanced automation, simplified installation, and competitive pricing. Users seek built-in billing, seamless networking, stable updates, detailed documentation, robust technical support, and open-source compatibility.

What are the key features of VMware Cloud Director?
  • Multi-tenancy: Supports multiple tenants with resource isolation.
  • Automation: Enables automated deployment and management of resources.
  • Integration: Compatible with platforms like Amazon and Azure.
  • Security: Offers robust security features to protect data.
  • Self-service portal: Empowers users to manage resources independently.
  • Networking flexibility: Facilitates efficient network management.
  • Scalability: Allows easy resource expansion.
What benefits or ROI should users expect from VMware Cloud Director?
  • Resilience: Ensures reliable cloud infrastructure management.
  • Clear dashboarding: Provides transparent oversight of resources.
  • Service extension: Expands capabilities to enhance customer satisfaction.
  • Resource optimization: Maximizes resource utilization and efficiency.

In industries such as cloud infrastructure hosting, VMware Cloud Director supports the creation and management of virtual data centers. Organizations leverage it for delivering public and private cloud services, enabling the deployment and management of applications. Service providers utilize its capabilities to streamline customer onboarding and foster infrastructure segregation, catering to diverse cloud requirements.

Broadcom
 

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.
Buyer's Guide
Cloud Management
July 2026
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