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

CloudStack vs Rapid7 InsightCloudSec 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
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec
Ranking in Cloud Management
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (15th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), AI Observability (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 2.5%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightCloudSec is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CloudStack2.5%
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec0.9%
Other96.6%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tharun Kumar Reddy Thamatam - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Arun Babu - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC analyst at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Daily endpoint monitoring has improved investigations and saved time but detection rules still need tuning
It is important to note that Rapid7 InsightCloudSec's features are not 100% precise, but I find about 70% of the time it is satisfactory. I would like to suggest that you improve it to be more precise, ideally making it 100% if possible. Some cases in Rapid7 InsightCloudSec indicate that the log is not enough, as they mostly just generate alerts, and the synchronization between data connectors is often problematic, particularly in terms of not being in sync always, especially between the AD and Rapid7 alerts, which generates numerous false positives. Additionally, the traditional rules should be updated, as this is a main point worth mentioning since we spend a lot of time fine-tuning these traditional rules. I suggest improving the legacy detection rules. If there are any authentication cases, such as impossible travel activity where a user has their SharePoint hosted in a different location, Rapid7 can often trigger alerts, creating confusion as we cannot fine-tune it properly. Another issue is with honeypot access. We sometimes lack necessary logs because Defender's advanced threat protection scanning gets detected as honeypot activity by Rapid7, leading to annoying and noisy alerts that we need to constantly close. If you can improve the traditional detection rules to reflect current detection rules, it would make it significantly easier for us to manage, as we constantly need to check legacy rules to update or possibly turn them off. Updating the legacy rules should be a priority.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Key features include stability, centralized management design that scales well, and transparent interoperability with different hypervisors and manufacturers.."
"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 gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs."
"It was easy to deploy, both for PoC and production (with HA)."
"The most valuable feature from my point of view is access to environment via console through separate browser window."
"CloudStack, by default, gives us a zone-based setup which makes it easier to manage datacenters located in different geographical areas."
"Valuable features include that it is a user-friendly portal, VPN P2S and S2S possibilities, and it's easy to manage accounts and limits."
"Multiple types of hypervisor support, multi-zone support, and VPC are great valuable features."
"ICSE is cheaper compared to other tools and has a pleasant user experience with good support."
"I find the security frameworks and security tools valuable. I think they're good in the infrastructure of the code security. They are also good at threat protection."
"After implementing Rapid7 InsightCloudSec, we increased our CIS benchmark score from 48 to around 88 after addressing missing patches on some VM instances, indicating a significant positive impact."
"ICSE is cheaper compared to other tools and has a pleasant user experience with good support."
"Rapid7 InsightCloudSec has positively impacted my organization because we are using Microsoft Defender for endpoint protection alongside Rapid7."
"The tool provides centralized visibility through dashboards and alerts, allowing customers to receive reports on cloud vulnerabilities and security posture. Rapid7 InsightCloudSec provides customers with a robust understanding of cloud security."
"I can confirm money and time savings with Rapid7 InsightCloudSec, as we can scan the entire IP range simultaneously instead of manually checking each asset for vulnerabilities, reducing the need for technicians to move around the organization and thus saving significant time."
"It runs every hour and has been reliable since I started."
 

Cons

"The number of contributors to this solution is relatively small compared to other solutions. However, if more frequent users of CloudStack contribute to the open-source community, it will significantly enhance the overall community experience and make it more useful for everyone involved."
"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."
"The area of Apache CloudStack that could stand the most improvement is the functionality/features around the virtual routers. They can be somewhat cumbersome to deal with at times and are the least stable piece of the product."
"The main reason why we started looking for another solution: backups, replication, HA, and dependency on secondary storage. CS is quite sensitive for infrastructure, and any kind of network disruption between CS and secondary storage leads to VM hanging."
"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."
"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."
"CloudStack lacks a billing solution which would complete it as a full 360-degree product."
"The Windows hosts do not get their hostnames from cloud-init."
"Technical support could be better. It could also be easier, more user-friendly, and intuitive. The API keys aren't easy to understand, and the cloud layouts aren't intuitive and user-friendly. We should be able to integrate IM governance and APIs into non-compliant workloads like legacy solutions."
"The tool needs to improve its documentation."
"The platform could be improved with more customizable dashboards and reporting."
"For a first-time user who starts using Rapid7 InsightCloudSec, it is somewhat complicated to navigate through the UI and search for logs or vulnerabilities, so this is one aspect that could be improved."
"Rapid7 InsightCloudSec could be better at showing dashboards for virtual firewalls and appliances. Compared to other solutions like Palo Alto, this area is not as good. So, they should work on improving this for virtual devices."
"Improvements could include providing better human-readable report formats with thorough explanations of CVEs and threats, detailing what can be done to eliminate malicious activities."
"I would say that because Rapid7 InsightCloudSec does not have automatic patching capabilities, it provides recommendations, but it does not execute anything from within Rapid7 InsightCloudSec."
"Some cases in Rapid7 InsightCloudSec indicate that the log is not enough, as they mostly just generate alerts, and the synchronization between data connectors is often problematic, particularly in terms of not being in sync always, especially between the AD and Rapid7 alerts, which generates numerous false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"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."
"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."
"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
"The solution is open-source and free."
"Companies generally buy this tool because the pricing is not that high."
"We're doing an annual subscription. There are additional expenses, but not within the confines of this platform."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Insurance Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

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.
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...
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...
What do you like most about Rapid7 InsightCloudSec?
The tool provides centralized visibility through dashboards and alerts, allowing customers to receive reports on cloud vulnerabilities and security posture. Rapid7 InsightCloudSec provides customer...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightCloudSec?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Rapid7 InsightCloudSec are reasonable, and since our organization is growing, I have observed that the more numbers you have, the less costly the product ...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightCloudSec?
I would say that because Rapid7 InsightCloudSec does not have automatic patching capabilities, it provides recommendations, but it does not execute anything from within Rapid7 InsightCloudSec. It h...
 

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com
DivvyCloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
Fannie Mae, 3M, PizzaHut, Spotify, Autodesk, Discovery
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. Rapid7 InsightCloudSec and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.