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CloudStack vs Red Hat CloudForms 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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat CloudForms
Ranking in Cloud Management
36th
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 2.3%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat CloudForms is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CloudStack2.3%
Red Hat CloudForms1.9%
Other95.8%
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.
Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Services Automation Technologies Manager at Garanti Teknoloji
A stable solution that helps to provision servers
We use the solution to provision servers.  I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs.   The solution's provisioning engine needs to be improved.  I would rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.  I would rate the product's scalability a seven out of ten and…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We acquired some good clients for our billing and control portal solutions with CloudStack and it improved our business greatly."
"You can build your own cloud and make it customizable with APIs."
"The structuring of the components and isolated environments helped us when using parts of the framework at different levels of product development."
"Multiple types of hypervisor support, multi-zone support, and VPC are great valuable features."
"CloudStack provides an easy way to have high availability (HA) of the virtual machines and helps with a better SLA."
"CloudStack provides an environment that is very simple to use, with built-in APIs and a web interface that supports almost all features of AWS and Azure."
"CloudStack helped us showcase our features through process visualization and functional solutions."
"CloudStack is simple to stand up and get off the ground in a hurry."
"The optimization of the solution is quite interesting, as it means we can prepare a bunch of VMs with self-service provisioning."
"The optimization of the solution is quite interesting."
"Red Hat CloudForms is stable once it is up and running."
"The integration with other open-source tools is pretty good; it integrates particularly well with Kubernetes and Docker, and they are a very mature product."
"The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't had any issues with it."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs."
"Red Hat CloudForms is stable once it is up and running."
"The stability of the solution is very good, and we haven't had any issues with it."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 could improve by embracing newer technologies like GPU virtualization."
"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."
"There are some minor things that can be improved even more such as, perhaps, a bit more polishing on the GUI side to catch up with the API possibilities (which are really extensive) but otherwise nothing critical."
"Multi-deployments."
"Because the solution needs to integrate with other products that surround it, there is a lot of configuration required, and this can be quite complex. It's not as easy as it is with, for example, VMware."
"Our clients had challenges or issues with the updates. Its updates should be better managed. They should provide quicker and more stable updates. Its stability can also be better. We initially faced ease-of-use and compatibility issues while integrating it. We had a lot of compatibility issues with other products. Our clients are concerned about whether it is under IBM or it is still Red Hat. Clients are not very clear about the support, and they're not really happy with it. Currently, they're getting support from Red Hat, but going forward, they're not really clear about what would be the life cycle of the product, which is a concern for them."
"The complexity of the solution is a bit high in comparison to VMware."
"The solution is still quite immature."
"Because the solution needs to integrate with other products that surround it, there is a lot of configuration required, and this can be quite complex. It's not as easy as it is with, for example, VMware."
"The solution is still quite immature."
"All of the areas of Red Hat CloudForms could improve. It doesn't do half of the things that it says it can do out of the box. It takes configuration to make any of it work, which is not uncommon for solutions similar to this. However, it is frustrating."
"It is difficult to create a complete dashboard that includes all the needed features or catalogs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"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."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
"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."
"The solution is open-source and free."
"Red Hat CloudForms is a bit expensive."
"The price of Red Hat CloudForms was not competitive, it was expensive."
"It is definitely cheaper than VMware. Everything is included. There is no challenge there."
"The product's licensing is based on the number of servers."
"Red Hat CloudForms has a subscript-based pricing model. The cost is approximately $20,000 annually which allows you to use as many users as you want."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

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 Business4
Large Enterprise7
 

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...
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Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
Cox Automotive, Penn State, FICO, G-ABLE, Seneca College, ITandTEL, The Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS), MyRepublic, Macquarie, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, CBTS, Network Data Solutions (NDS)
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. Red Hat CloudForms and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.