CloudStack vs IBM Spectrum Computing comparison

Apache and IBM are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Apache is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.7, while IBM is ranked #27 with an average rating of 8.0. Apache holds a 5.1% mindshare in CM, compared to IBM’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 57% of IBM users who would recommend it.

CloudStack

Read 31 CloudStack reviews

1,938 Views
1,445 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Computing

Read 8 IBM Spectrum Computing reviews

348 Views
147 Comparison Views

57% willing to recommend

CloudStack

IBM Spectrum Computing

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM Spectrum Computing and CloudStack are key players in cloud and computing management. IBM Spectrum Computing is often highlighted for its lower initial setup costs and operational efficiencies, whereas CloudStack is recognized for its robust feature set, particularly in support of multiple hypervisors, making it an enticing option for businesses requiring diverse cloud services.

Features: IBM Spectrum Computing supports high-performance computing with resource management capabilities, optimizing workload distributions, and provides flexibility in hybrid cloud environments. It integrates well with OpenStack and other closed-box software, offering a significant advantage in hybrid setups. It also emphasizes strong analytics capabilities. CloudStack offers extensive support for hypervisors like Xen, KVM, and vSphere, centralizes management for scalability, and supports multiple availability zones. Its structured architecture simplifies deployment and maintenance.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Computing might benefit from simplifying its complex systems, which could be overwhelming for some users with less demanding applications. Streamlining the user interface could further enhance its usability. Enhanced integration with newer technologies might also be an area to consider. CloudStack could improve by offering more user-friendly documentation and reducing the technical expertise needed for setup. Better integration with modern cloud services and refining its support structure could enhance user experience. Increasing flexibility in network configuration options could also provide more adaptability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Computing is known for straightforward deployment processes supported by comprehensive documentation, ensuring minimal setup delays, and their highly responsive customer support. CloudStack, while offering a robust open-source framework, demands more technical expertise. Support engagement is moderate but could improve to match industry standards.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Computing generally presents a lower initial investment with flexible pricing structures that result in favorable ROI over time due to operational efficiencies. CloudStack's open-source model involves minimal initial setup costs, but growing maintenance expenses may affect long-term ROI. Cost advantage swings towards IBM with more predictable ongoing expenses against CloudStack’s potential operational expenditures.

To learn more, read our detailed CloudStack vs. IBM Spectrum Computing Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 857,162 peers since 2012

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

CloudStack

Ranking in Cloud Management

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 5.1%, down from 5.9% 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

Wido Den Hollander

Community Ambassador at 42on

A solution that strikes a balance between user-friendliness, scalability, and stability

The market keeps changing, and so does technology. I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved. Regarding container technology, Kubernetes is something many people want to use and something which, as of now, many are using currently. However, there is still room for improvement in Kubernetes, particularly with networking functionality and network virtualization. When it comes to what needs to be improved in CloudStack, I would say that it should stay the way it is currently. It should continue being a stable product that people can rely on since many may be inclined to follow the latest trends and hype, which is not always good for a solution's stability. It is crucial to prioritize stability, which is a key factor that companies seek. In my view, the platform could benefit from adding more metrics. More metrics would offer more insights and data on the platform's performance, utilization, and usage. Overall, I believe that having more metrics available would be highly desirable.

Read full review

Avra Jyoti Ghosh

Data QualityTechnical Architect at Mindtree

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."

"CloudStack’s private gateway networking feature is what enables us to offer utmost security and confidentially to our customers and partners, by enabling them to connect to their virtual data centers via dedicated, encrypted, private fiber lines that never touch the public internet space. Ease of setup and management are certainly important additional benefits for us on the engineering team."

"We had a relevant reduction of bureaucracy tasks."

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

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

"You can manage infrastructure with a few people, since product is monolithic. We had three engineers (storage, virtual, Linux admins) only. Also, CS supports different flavours of hypervisors."

"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."

"The platform is very simple to scale-out."

More CloudStack pros

"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"

"Easy to operate and use."

"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."

"Spectrum Computing's best features are its speed, robustness, and data processing and analysis."

"The most valuable aspect of the product is the policy driving resource management, to optimize the computing across data centers."

"The most valuable feature is the backup capability."

"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."

"We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues."

Cons

"I would like to see support for native VLAN, and fault-tolerance."

"It would be a good to have more specific error messages within administration processes (e.g. problem with creating new instance)."

"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."

"My teammates have complained about the upgrade. The source code had massive files that had to be merged with our own development to upgrade to the latest version of CloudStack. It was quite painful for them. CloudStack could add some cost management tools to give me some control over the costs associated with the number of users of my services."

"It would be great to have a couple of “external” networks for VPC and have the possibility, for each domain, to choose they type of “external” network."

"Environment is sensitive, so, unlike VMware, you can not afford middle-skilled engineers, they will ruin everything."

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

More CloudStack cons

"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."

"We have not been able to use deduplication."

"We'd like to see some AI model training for machine learning."

"IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging."

"This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly."

"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."

"SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing."

"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"CloudStack is an open-source product."

"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."

"This solution is expensive."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

21%

Educational Organization

10%

University

Financial Services Firm

39%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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?

CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product. Additionally, more themes and drag-and-drop interfaces could enhance the user experience. Improved document...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Computing?

Easy to operate and use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Computing?

It is expensive.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenNebula vs CloudStack

Compared 72% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs CloudStack

Compared 9% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs CloudStack

Compared 4% of the time

More CloudStack Competitors

Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 32% of the time

Cloudera Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 27% of the time

Morpheus vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 26% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Computing Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

June 2025

Download CloudStack product report

Buyer's Guide

Hadoop

June 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Computing product report

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com

IBM Platform Computing

Overview

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

IBM Spectrum Computing uses intelligent workload and policy-driven resource management to optimize resources across the data center, on premises and in the cloud. Now up to 150X faster and scalable to over 160,000 cores, IBM provides you with the latest advances in software-defined infrastructure to help you unleash the power of your distributed mission-critical high performance computing (HPC), analytics and big data applications as well as a new generation open source frameworks such as Hadoop and Spark.

IBM

Sample Customers

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

London South Bank University, Transvalor, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Genomic

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

June 2025

Free Report: CloudStack vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. IBM Spectrum Computing and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our CloudStack vs. IBM Spectrum Computing report.

See our list of best Cloud Management vendors.

We monitor all Cloud Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.