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Cisco UCS Director vs Zesty 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

Cisco UCS Director
Ranking in Cloud Management
22nd
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zesty
Ranking in Cloud Management
26th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Cost Management (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 2.0%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zesty is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS Director2.0%
Zesty1.0%
Other97.0%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

OR
Senior Telecommunications Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Managing extensive VoIP services becomes efficient and seamless
We use Cisco UCS Director primarily for managing our VoIP service to maintain seamless service delivery. We operate in an enterprise government environment Cisco UCS Director is straightforward to use, which we greatly appreciate. It helps save time by making it quicker to roll out new call…
Srinivas Rayudu  - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Zensa Technologies
Managing complex onboarding has been challenging but automated cost optimization delivers strong savings
Zesty is a good solution; however, the learning curve can be complex for new users without a solid tech background, posing a challenge in training and the initial setup process. I would deduct one point for this aspect since everything else is fine. A specific example of where the learning curve caused issues is when we introduced Zesty to our new development team, which struggled to understand the platform while working on a project related to AI and ML. Our system architects explained how Zesty works, but I believe a more proactive approach to training and foundational data could help teams be more self-sufficient and less reliant on internal support.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I can manage multiple workloads whether it's on AWS, Azure, or on-premises. They can be managed by using the UCS Director."
"Feature-wise, the solution helps one to add multiple environments in one place...It is a scalable product."
"The improvement for our organization has really been ease of use; we'd be a mess without the solution."
"The main feature of this solution is the integration with all the Cisco solutions and other vendors."
"Cisco UCS Director is straightforward to use, which we greatly appreciate."
"Overall, I think that this is a very good product, although nothing is perfect."
"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."
"As usual, the technical support from Cisco is amazing."
"Zesty has positively impacted our organization by providing a good return on investment, with a total reported percentage of savings around 40 to 50%."
"One of the reasons we decided to onboard Zesty was that it started supporting Windows instances."
"The turnkey aspect of Zesty is very valuable."
 

Cons

"It is not easy to add or expand the product."
"We cannot depend on this solution to manage all of the data center's infrastructure."
"The product's pricing needs to improve."
"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."
"Simplifying the user interface would go a long way to making it more usable."
"There are a lot of bugs in the solution. This is an area in the solution that can be improved."
"We cannot depend on this solution to manage all of the data center's infrastructure."
"There could be an improvement with the integration with the newest solutions from other vendors' technologies."
"There are different resource types that we would like to leverage and get reserved instances for, such as RDS instances."
"Zesty is a good solution; however, the learning curve can be complex for new users without a solid tech background, posing a challenge in training and the initial setup process."
"I would like to get RDS-reserved instances that I could buy and sell, but that's a limitation on AWS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"I would rate the product's pricing an eight 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 budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."
"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."
"The cost of this solution is significant."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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 ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS Director?
Mainly in my region and country, large data center customers are using Cisco UCS Director, not the SMB or mid-market customers. More of the on-premise customers are utilizing Cisco UCS Director. Th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zesty?
Pricing, setup cost, and licensing were very transparent since we got it through the AWS Marketplace, and we faced no upfront problems. It was a transparent, very good solution for us.
What needs improvement with Zesty?
Zesty is a good solution; however, the learning curve can be complex for new users without a solid tech background, posing a challenge in training and the initial setup process. I would deduct one ...
What is your primary use case for Zesty?
Our main use case for Zesty is that it is a hands-off tool for onboarding our teams, specifically for AWS, helping us to offload day-to-day management and AWS savings, which includes CRIs and EC2. ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Entel, Data#3, Cegal, NESIC, LightEdge
Walkme, Wiz, Gong, Grubhub, Singular
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Director vs. Zesty and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.