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CloudStack vs Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) 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

CloudStack
Ranking in Cloud Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)
Ranking in Cloud Management
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (9th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 4.7%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Nelson Marcos - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easier to provision VMs than other solutions and you can customize it to integrate with load balancers
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.
Panomporn_Meesangeam - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrated with the personal files and knowledge management processes but is expensive
The customer is a company in Thailand. They use Nutanix Cloud Clusters for file sharing and integrate with personal file share and knowledge management. Our customer attaches a file service with a login and connects with WiFi for cloud content, such as second documents or email access files…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was easy to deploy, both for PoC and production (with HA)."
"Valuable features include that it is a user-friendly portal, VPN P2S and S2S possibilities, and it's easy to manage accounts and limits."
"You can use a single API to get things done, rather than multiple APIs on multiple modules."
"My company could implement a lot of customizations and integration with load balancers and DNS. When we started using CloudStack, we didn't have that integration, so we developed that. We could fix anything missing in the solution."
"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."
"CloudStack is simple to stand up and get off the ground in a hurry. Its centralized design allows for easier troubleshooting when compared to OpenStack. Out of the box, it’s very well suited for white labeling and IaaS."
"Key features include stability, centralized management design that scales well, and transparent interoperability with different hypervisors and manufacturers.."
"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 features of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) that I appreciate most are the scalability; being able to spin up or reduce the cluster size based on the needs that we have has been helpful for us."
"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Clusters is to protect the data."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its quick configuration and installation."
"The solution can scale well."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the redundancy on all levels."
"Nutanix has the best customer service."
"We spent a year on this ASR project and had so many issues when we attempted to do a failover. It took four to 24 hours to failover a couple of SQL VMs. During our first test deployment of NC2, it only took three or four minutes to failover and recover our VMs. This blew the Microsoft platform out of the water."
"I've been very pleased with their support overall."
 

Cons

"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."
"We did encounter issues with stability, and the main issue was secondary storage. When it is not available, XenServers and hypervisors are affected. And CS doesn’t do anything to reboot, or fix. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn’t, considering their approach – CS just orchestrates everything else on the hypervisor and storage level."
"Lack of support for third-party software vendors such as Veeam and Zerto creates limitations on comprehensive offerings which would include backup and disaster recovery."
"Accounts, domains, and user accounts are set up with public cloud in mind, not private."
"For time consuming operations like storage migrations, volume Snapshot restore and the like, we faced issues like MySQL operations timing out and status update failures. Those areas needs improvement."
"A technology upgrade is one item which could be improved upon a lot."
"I think that container technology in CloudStack is an area that needs to be improved."
"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 should not be so expensive. Its price is high, but at the same time, it does give the results it offers."
"I'd like more flexible options to get in and out of migration modes."
"The most significant improvement would be to streamline the starting point so that we could kick off the deployment with one node and then scan out that deployment without a need to restructure or reformat anything."
"The offering on GCP is a feature we have been waiting for to compare costs."
"The interface organization can be better. If we can, for example, organize virtual machines by groups, folders, and sub-folders, it will be easier to administer and monitor."
"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) could be improved with some more tools that could help synchronize on-prem and cloud stuff better."
"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) could be improved with some more tools that could help synchronize on-prem and cloud stuff better."
"Having compatible feature sets between Azure and AWS would go a long way to improving the overall NC2 experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open-source and free."
"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."
"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
"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."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"The price is high."
"The licensing portability can be very interesting. At the moment, I am working with Nutanix Appliances with the AHV as a hypervisor. I did not have a chance to ask for portability between platforms, but it will be good if you can have portability between multiple types of platforms."
"The transition from the perpetual license to what they have now is, from a business perspective, understandable, but from an operational and cost perspective, for me, it is really expensive. However, our partners at Nutanix did work with us recently and reduced a huge licensing cost for us."
"There are positives and negatives to licensing. It all makes sense now, but it took a while. When the licenses first changed, it was a bit confusing."
"I'm not familiar with the contracts, but I thought the process was pretty seamless. Licensing for the Nutanix part was the same as licensing something on-prem, and since it runs on bare metal EC2, there was no new process we had to go through—it fits into our existing procurement processes nicely. I appreciate Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)'s license portability."
"The licensing model of Nutanix is complex."
"I am working on one configuration that is priced at $50,000 USD, whereas another one that I'm working on is estimated to cost $250,000 USD."
"The solution's licensing can be very pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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.
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.
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...
What do you like most about Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?
The overall infrastructure is the most valuable part of Nutanix Cloud Clusters.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?
I'm not familiar with the contracts, but I thought the process was pretty seamless. Licensing for the Nutanix part was the same as licensing something on-prem, and since it runs on bare metal EC2, ...
What needs improvement with Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?
We've been told some of these things are on the road map. I believe that networking is one of the biggest improvements. They have a great stock already, but some use cases, particularly around incr...
 

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com
Nutanix Clusters
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
The Home Depot, JetBlue, Hyundai, ShiftLeft
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.