Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cloudify vs IBM Spectrum Computing 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

Cloudify
Ranking in Cloud Management
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Spectrum Computing
Ranking in Cloud Management
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cloudify is 1.7%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Computing is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Wittling - PeerSpot reviewer
Works very well for advanced service chaining requirements and has extremely advanced engineers for support
We had a manager who thought that Cloudify could be used as a replacement for Horizon in OpenStack, but we found that Cloudify lacked the user interface or GUI for doing multitenancy and basic platform management tasks. Cloudify was really good at launching, for example, firewalls and configuring them and doing service chaining and rather advanced things like that, but it didn't meet the requirements for a basic platform management solution. It is something that seems to work better as a bolt-on or an augmented solution. It is a bit mis-marketed as a Cloud Management solution. It is not that. It is more of a service orchestration and automation tool. It is very good at doing that, but it fails to meet basic platform management requirements. Once you have it running, you can't really do anything with it without writing code and scripts. It requires a full-time DevOps person to use it. We deployed a Palo Alto firewall with it. That's basically what the project was for us, and it worked flawlessly once we got it finished, but it took another 12 weeks to get all of the automation and everything else coded, tested, and working. There is certainly a place for this technology, but when we got rid of OpenStack and moved to VMware, we either had to go with the vRealize Automation Suite to do this kind of automation, or we had to find an alternative solution to manage the private cloud. So, we put Cloudify in, but we really couldn't find it useful for basic platform administration tasks.
Avra Jyoti Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
One of the best tools in the data management and services area
I mainly used Spectrum Computing for data management, governance, quality, and ETL activity Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis.  Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can use only what you need. You can remove certain Cloudify functions from the framework to create a "minified" version of what you need. This might only consist of the messaging delivery system, and the orchestration functions."
"Product has given us the ability to catch early scaling issues that many companies hit on with private clouds."
"TOSCA model allows modeling the application rather than the automation. It is a machine-readable representation of the application and its infrastructure, which can be used for other things too, not just for the orchestration (e.g. enterprise architecture big picture, who connects to whom)."
"Cloudify provides the infrastructure-as-code, as well as operational action capabilities (orchestrated startups or upgrades, and more)."
"Has great extendability which means you can build your own custom logic."
"The solution includes the option to run background scripts and processes from a connected API."
"It enables a single platform to communicate with the entire infrastructure."
"Cloudify works in cases where you have very advanced service chaining requirements. It really works well there, and it fits the best. They have a standardized markup that's based on TOSCA, which is a standard. I like the fact that they're standards-based. Their solution works extremely well if you have the talent and the manpower to write TOSCA descriptors to deploy and interchange services or to automate the configuration and turn up of services."
"Easy to operate and use."
"The most valuable feature is the backup capability."
"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"
"The comparison was challenging, but the IBM Spectrum Scale offered a balanced solution. Our engineers rated itsanalytics capabilities equally high as Pure Storage. For workload management, Spectrum Computing provided effective solutions that met our needs. Workload management is part of a complete solution that uses different tools. There were the cloud and HPC parts; within HPC, there were parts like liquid cooling, simple computing, storage, and orchestration. The orchestration team handled the workload management."
"The most valuable aspect of the product is the policy driving resource management, to optimize the computing across data centers."
"We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues."
"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."
"Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis."
 

Cons

"The upgrading process could be simplified."
"Error handling could be improved; GUI is lacking with respect to user privileges and connectivity."
"Certainly the UI could use some intensive work, but nevertheless, overall, it’s a complete product with its 3.4 version and much better features are available with 4.0."
"It lacked the user interface for multitenancy and basic platform management tasks. It is a leader in the niche area that they like to perform in, but it only does about 30% of top-tier advanced functions of platform management. It doesn't meet about 70% of what you need to manage a private cloud platform."
"Install of the product itself could be improved and I would like to see better event monitoring."
"Unlike the Docker environment, Cloudify takes time for configuration and its learning curve."
"The solution is a bit of a headache because mistakes happen in the blueprint every time we deploy and they require modifications."
"SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing."
"We have not been able to use deduplication."
"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."
"We'd like to see some AI model training for machine learning."
"IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging."
"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."
"This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly."
"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I wasn't involved in the pricing of it because we were just doing prototype work with it, but I was told by the upper management team that it was quite expensive. That was another reason we switched to Morpheus."
"This solution is expensive."
"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Retailer
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
39%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Computing?
IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging. To work on an IBM deal, you often need to involve multiple specialists, each knowledgeable about only part of the product, rather than having a...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Platform Computing
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Proximus Partner Communications (Israel) VMware NTT Data Metaswitch Spirent Communications Lumina Networks Atos Fortinet
London South Bank University, Transvalor, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Genomic
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudify vs. IBM Spectrum Computing and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.