Cisco UCS Director vs CloudStack comparison

Cisco and Apache are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Cisco is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.7, while Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2. Cisco holds a 1.7% mindshare in CM, compared to Apache’s 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 73% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Apache users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Director

Read 15 Cisco UCS Director reviews

602 Views
572 Comparison Views

73% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Read 34 CloudStack reviews

1,964 Views
1,768 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Director

CloudStack

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

CloudStack and Cisco UCS Director are competing in IT infrastructure management. Cisco UCS Director generally has the upper hand with a wider feature set appealing to large-scale, intricate environments, while CloudStack captures attention with cost advantages and adept customer support.

Features: CloudStack provides powerful APIs, extensive support for various hypervisors, and compatibility with multiple availability zones. It offers orchestration of large virtual environments, making it a flexible cloud deployment option. Cisco UCS Director stands out by unifying infrastructure management across compute, storage, and networking, with integration capabilities enhancing its comprehensive IT management solution.

Room for Improvement: CloudStack could enhance its integration with newer technologies to maintain competitiveness. Strengthening its interface for non-technical users would also be beneficial. Improving its documentation and community resources would help new users. Cisco UCS Director could lower its initial complexity for setup. Expanding compatibility beyond primarily Cisco environments would widen appeal. Improving user interface intuitiveness could attract a larger user base.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudStack is known for its easy deployment, particularly in environments with open-source tools. Its customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, which enhances overall user experience. Cisco UCS Director requires a more detailed setup due to its complexity but is supported by Cisco’s robust service network that ensures comprehensive problem resolution.

Pricing and ROI: CloudStack offers lower initial costs, appealing to organizations under budget constraints, and presents quick ROI by utilizing open-source foundations. Cisco UCS Director, while having a higher upfront cost, offers substantial ROI through better operational efficiencies and infrastructure management, aligning well with larger enterprises seeking comprehensive capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Director vs. CloudStack Report (Updated: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Director vs. CloudStack

November 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

Cisco UCS Director

Ranking in Cloud Management

20th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudStack is 3.4%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
CloudStack	3.4%
Cisco UCS Director	1.7%
Other	94.9%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair

Solution Architect and Senior Consultant at Keysight Technologies

Good multi-cloud management capability, but third-party and legacy integration needs improvement

Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at a non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems. I feel that more development or a more integrated road map should be set up so that it becomes a common platform for any infrastructure. In the next release of this solution, I would like to see changes in the navigation controls of UCS Director. That would be helpful. Modifying the icons that are available for use, as well as virtualization aspects.

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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

"An easy and strong configuration, along with its low cost, are some of the features of the solution."

"The product is flexible and compact. It has a lot of features."

"I can manage multiple workloads whether it's on AWS, Azure, or on-premises. They can be managed by using the UCS Director."

"The solution is helpful for centralized management."

"A product that really aids in systems management without complexity."

"UCS director enables us to be more productive and more agile, and also more self-sufficient because we don't have to depend on anybody else."

"Cisco UCS Director is straightforward to use, which we greatly appreciate."

"The reason we went with Cisco is that it comes at a very negligible cost as part of the BOQ. Compared to the competition's products, which are incredibly expensive, UCS Director is low-cost."

More Cisco UCS Director pros

"CloudStack has greatly helped integrate our existing infrastructure because we manage a massive cloud platform with thousands of VMs and around 1,200 to 1,500 hypervisors."

"Over the years, we have valued CloudStack for its stability."

"Killer features for me were: support for many hypervisors, ability to match business logic, "everything in one box," available APIs."

"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."

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

"The initial implementation process was quite good."

"CloudStack supports every operating system that supports hypervisors, which makes the product more attractive, compared to vCloud Director or Azure."

"It was easy to deploy, both for PoC and production (with HA)."

More CloudStack pros

Cons

"There could be an improvement with the integration with the newest solutions from other vendors' technologies."

"It is not easy to add or expand the product."

"Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at a non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems."

"The product could allow more programmatic opportunities through better development of the API."

"I would like to see more integration with other solutions."

"Simplifying the user interface would go a long way to making it more usable."

"Currently, Cisco UCS Director is unable to integrate with another product or with a server from another brand."

"The tool should be a lot more intuitive and make it easy for us to understand and migrate."

More Cisco UCS Director cons

"The product could improve by embracing newer technologies like GPU virtualization."

"I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved."

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

"This product needs a lot improvement on the development side. Every new version introduces new bugs. It lacks many features needed for NFV like DPDK, SR-IOV support, etc."

"VPN P2S is cutting all connections except the CloudStack environment for the user when he is connected. I would like to have VPN like Cisco's AnyConnect."

"The installation of CloudStack can be quite challenging because you need a good understanding of the product before starting."

"We recognize that CloudStack is an easy-to-use cloud management platform and, in my opinion, there has been a large number of improvements in the past few years, particular when it comes to the modern UI and overall ease of management. However, I believe that CloudStack needs to grow their marketing in the commercial side. They don't have a great piece of market share right now."

"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."

More CloudStack cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."

"I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."

"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing around five to six out of ten."

"I rate Cisco UCS Director's price a three out of ten. Cisco UCS Director is not an affordable product. With Cisco UCS Director, there is a need to pay an overall price, which consists of the product, software, and support."

"The cost of this solution is significant."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"CloudStack is an open-source product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

18%

Educational Organization

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Director?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Director?

While the pricing might be seen as expensive, it provides value for money due to reliable service and excellent technical support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Director?

It should be more of a cloud-based architecture for Cisco UCS Director, and it should be affordable to small customers as well because the pricing is a major challenge when we talk about Cisco UCS ...

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?

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

Comparisons

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IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco UCS Director

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OpenNebula vs CloudStack

Compared 73% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs CloudStack

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs CloudStack

Compared 4% of the time

More CloudStack Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Director

November 2025

Download Cisco UCS Director product report

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

November 2025

Download CloudStack product report

Also Known As

No data available

Vmops, Cloud.com

Overview

Cisco UCS Director enables automated delivery of physical and virtual data center resources, empowering data centers to move at the speed of business.

Cisco

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

Entel, Data#3, Cegal, NESIC, LightEdge

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Director vs. CloudStack

November 2025

Free Report: Cisco UCS Director vs. CloudStack

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