CloudStack vs Nutanix Central comparison

Apache and Nutanix are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2, while Nutanix is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.8. Additionally, 94% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

CloudStack

Read 34 CloudStack reviews

2,000 Views
1,820 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Nutanix Central

Read 6 Nutanix Central reviews

750 Views
420 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Nutanix Central

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

CloudStack and Nutanix Central are both players in the cloud management and infrastructure solutions market. Nutanix Central stands out with its advanced features and robust ecosystem, often considered worth the investment despite higher costs, while CloudStack is appreciated for its pricing flexibility and strong community support.

Features: CloudStack offers efficient resource pooling and a hypervisor-agnostic architecture, making it adaptable across various environments. It supports multiple hypervisors such as Xen, KVM, vSphere, and Hyper-V, and provides a structured REST API for integration. Nutanix Central excels with its integrated platform approach offering powerful management tools, scalability options, and a unified control plane, all of which enhance operational efficiency.

Room for Improvement: CloudStack could improve in areas such as simplifying its interface and enhancing native support for more cloud platforms. Additional built-in analytics tools and more automated features would be beneficial for its users. Nutanix Central could work on reducing its initial deployment complexity, improve its cost efficiency, and enhance its compatibility with additional third-party tools to augment its ecosystem further.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudStack typically involves a straightforward deployment with extensive community support, facilitating quick adoption in varied environments. Conversely, Nutanix Central provides a more sophisticated deployment model with professional support services that address complex installations and configurations.

Pricing and ROI: CloudStack's open-source nature offers a lower setup cost, making it a cost-effective option for those with tighter budgets, while also offering a steady ROI through reduced operational costs. Nutanix Central requires a higher initial investment; however, it often delivers a high ROI due to its comprehensive management capabilities and reduced overheads, making it a preferred choice for enterprises focusing on long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed CloudStack vs. Nutanix Central Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Central

December 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

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

Nutanix Central

Ranking in Cloud Management

15th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Virtualization Management Tools (6th), Data Center Infrastructure Management (3rd), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (8th)

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

reviewer2703777

S30290139 Infrastructure Administrator II at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees

Helps us get ahead of potential problems, and their support has been phenomenal

I don't think there's much improvement needed in Nutanix Central. Maybe there are different tools I haven't discovered yet that may bring everyone on the same page. I am still in the process of researching them and providing feedback to Nutanix. For what we use it for, it runs efficiently. What I think is missing in Nutanix Central to make it the best product ever is compatibility with our backups. One of the biggest challenges we have with Nutanix currently is that our Rubrik backups do not work with the Nutanix API. That would be great to resolve, as it would reduce the time spent resolving the issue.

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

"When compared to OpenStack, CloudStack is also an open-source platform that is continuously improving its features and capabilities with each new version release. Having worked with CloudStack 4.7, 4.14, and most recently, 4.17, I have noticed significant enhancements in the platform's features and customer experience, such as the introduction of a new user interface in the latest release. Notably, the latest versions have made major improvements to VM live migrations, making them more efficient and effective."

"CloudStack, by default, gives us a zone-based setup which makes it easier to manage datacenters located in different geographical areas."

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

"The API with CloudStack made integration into various external facing web applications simple enough."

"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."

"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."

"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."

"The product gives us the ability to orchestrate large virtual environments and is flexible enough to allow us to configure it for what we need. We value the flexibility of the networking feature set as well as the ability to build virtual private clouds."

More CloudStack pros

"My experience has been phenomenal."

"The ability to look in one place in Nutanix Central is what I prefer the most. We can see storage but also capacity, and it gives my boss a place to look, so he doesn't ask me questions."

"I would give the customer service a perfect score."

"One of the best features is that it provides a unified control plane, which offers single-pane-of-glass visibility for us."

"The features of Nutanix Central that I value most are primarily the hardware portion because it tells us everything available regarding BIOS upgrades and any updates that become compatible, including LCM upgrades. I enjoy troubleshooting and dealing with urgent issues."

"Nutanix Central scales very effectively with our growing needs."

"I find the categories in Nutanix Central most valuable because they allow us to group things easily, so we don't have to deal with complications, and that's how we use our DR."

"We have multiple Prism Centrals - two currently, with more coming in, especially with NC2 and the public cloud. We can log into one portal, one panel, and see metrics, VMs, and perform administration tasks, all from one site."

More Nutanix Central pros

Cons

"The absence of the feature, deploy an instance from a snapshot, is the weak point of the platform. It is a feature that everyone needs nowadays."

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

"A technology upgrade is one item which could be improved upon a lot."

"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."

"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."

"I encountered some stability issues. When I tried to remove high-capacity virtual machines it took a long time to update, and sometimes the VM status failed to update properly in the cloud database. This occurred multiple times, even though I had sufficient resources."

"CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product."

More CloudStack cons

"The API needs work. It's not specifically Central, but just the API as a whole. We've had a recurring issue where the API calls stack up and hang during backups from Rubrik, which has been a challenge, but Nutanix has their API version four coming out pretty soon, or it is available now, and we just can't upgrade yet. We're hoping to see some major improvements there."

"The update process in terms of using LCM or using Central is sometimes confusing, but I think they are working towards unifying that."

"One of the things I'd want to see in Nutanix Central is more utility. It would be nice to go in and say, "This VM doesn't need to be in this data center, and we'd prefer to put it in this one," and have the ability to initiate the migration, even if we have to make changes to networks."

"There is a sense that they want to close tickets faster than always getting the resolution right."

"What I think is missing in Nutanix Central to make it the best product ever is compatibility with our backups. One of the biggest challenges we have with Nutanix currently is that our Rubrik backups do not work with the Nutanix API. That would be great to resolve, as it would reduce the time spent resolving the issue."

"The permissions should be set for the highest level, more akin to cluster admin and Prism admin. There have been occasions where I needed to log into Prism Central directly to complete work due to permissions issues from Nutanix Central. They are very close to a one-for-one equivalence. While their website states it is not meant to replace Prism Element or Prism Central, I would prefer to see it reach the level where I can perform all Prism Central tasks from one location to multiple Prism Centrals."

"One area of improvement could be from the AI side, as the industry shifts and grows."

"There has been confusion regarding the initial setup of Nutanix Central."

More Nutanix Central cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open-source and free."

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

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

"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."

"Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer."

"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 product."

"My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is limited as I don't manage that part. However, I know it has been within budget and hasn't impacted our financial planning."

"Our experience was fine. We have no complaints."

"We had the benefit of already being under Ultimate and Pro for the majority of our licensing models. We do not incur additional costs for using Nutanix Central. Similar to Security Central, this is one of those tools we are adopting, integrating, and promoting because we already have access to it."

"We tie in with cost governance in Nutanix Central, which helps us identify other products and determine whether we need to increase our licensing or reduce it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

10%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

15%

Government

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

Questions from the Community

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

What is your primary use case for CloudStack?

My usual use cases for CloudStack involve an AWS style private cloud or public cloud. I can deploy an AWS style cloud using the open source tool that is CloudStack. The use case depends on the cust...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Central?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is limited as I don't manage that part. However, I know it has been within budget and hasn't impacted our financial planning.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Central?

One area of improvement could be from the AI side, as the industry shifts and grows. If we could get workflow mechanisms built into Nutanix Central, we could define workflows to solve known issues ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Central?

We use Nutanix Central for our hybrid cloud management because we have our on-premises Nutanix clusters and AWS cloud resources.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 45% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs CloudStack

Compared 8% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

HPE OneSphere vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

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Morpheus vs Nutanix Central

Compared 35% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs Nutanix Central

Compared 15% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Nutanix Central

Compared 15% of the time

NTT Cloud Management Platform vs Nutanix Central

Compared 13% of the time

AWS Outposts vs Nutanix Central

Compared 11% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

January 2026

Download CloudStack product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Central

January 2026

Download Nutanix Central product report

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com

No data available

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

Nutanix Central offers a comprehensive platform for IT management, providing seamless integration and enhanced control across multi-cloud environments. It supports enterprises in scaling their digital operations efficiently and securely.

Designed for enterprise-grade deployment, Nutanix Central simplifies management tasks across different workloads with its intuitive interface. By integrating hybrid and multi-cloud operations, it allows management from a central point, making administration straightforward. This single platform is optimized for performance, helping companies reduce complexity while maintaining top-notch security protocols. With scalability at its core, Nutanix Central adapts to the changing demands of businesses, offering a reliable infrastructure for various applications.

What are the most important features?

Unified Management: Centralizes control of IT environments from a single dashboard.
Multi-cloud Integration: Supports seamless operation across public and private clouds.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs without compromising performance.
Security: Ensures data protection with robust security measures.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces operational expenses by optimizing resource use.
Enhanced Productivity: Streamlines IT management activities.
Business Agility: Enables swift response to market changes.
Reduced Complexity: Simplifies infrastructure management processes.

Industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail leverage Nutanix Central for its capability to manage distributed IT environments efficiently. In healthcare, it supports compliance and patient data security, while retail benefits from its ability to enhance customer experiences through agile IT operations. The financial sector relies on its robust security features to safeguard sensitive information, ensuring business continuity and regulatory adherence.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Nutanix Central

December 2025

Free Report: CloudStack vs. Nutanix Central

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