CloudStack vs Red Hat CloudForms comparison

Apache and Red Hat are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Apache is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2, while Red Hat is ranked #29. Apache holds a 4.3% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Apache users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

CloudStack

Read 34 CloudStack reviews

2,023 Views
1,841 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Red Hat CloudForms

Read 10 Red Hat CloudForms reviews

672 Views
665 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

CloudStack

Red Hat CloudForms

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

CloudStack and Red Hat CloudForms compete in the cloud management space. Red Hat CloudForms stands out due to its comprehensive feature set.

Features: CloudStack is known for straightforward orchestration, scalable infrastructure, and extensive hypervisor support. Red Hat CloudForms offers robust automation capabilities, policy-based governance, and integration with Red Hat's ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: CloudStack could enhance its automation and governance capabilities. It might also benefit from deeper integration with third-party tools. Additionally, broadening its feature set could make it more competitive. Red Hat CloudForms could improve its pricing model to be more accessible. Simplifying the deployment process could also be beneficial. Enhancing user interface intuitiveness would make the product easier to use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudStack offers a simple deployment process and efficient customer service. Red Hat CloudForms provides customizable deployment options with excellent support for enterprise integration.

Pricing and ROI: CloudStack offers lower upfront costs, making it appealing for budget-conscious businesses with fast ROI. Red Hat CloudForms requires higher initial investments but offers long-term value through advanced features and integration, promising substantial ROI over time.

To learn more, read our detailed CloudStack vs. Red Hat CloudForms Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Red Hat CloudForms

September 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

Red Hat CloudForms

Ranking in Cloud Management

29th

Average Rating

6.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 4.3%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat CloudForms is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
CloudStack	4.3%
Red Hat CloudForms	1.5%
Other	94.2%

Cloud Management

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.

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Ilhami Arikan

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"It gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs."

"It works, and pretty much always has. Reliability and support for enterprise features, with a multi-tenant interface, makes CloudStack a very compelling solution."

"It has become easy to deploy new devices with no or minimal hardware changes. Now, a user can be ready to use a firewall within a few minutes, as compared to the traditional physical model which involved purchase, shipping, hardware configuration, cabling, power, etc."

"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."

"I have been impressed by CloudStack's most recent updates around Kubernetes. In particular, they have worked with Kubernetes to support the Cluster API, and you can now easily integrate Kubernetes into CloudStack and get access to a lot of good features."

"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."

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

More CloudStack pros

"Red Hat CloudForms is stable once it is up and running."

"They are a very mature product."

"The optimization of the solution is quite interesting."

"The most valuable features of Red Hat CloudForms are the benefit of the collective functionality."

"The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't had any issues with it."

"The solution is compatible and integrates with various infrastructures or providers."

"I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs."

"The multi-tenancy feature has been very helpful for our clients. It has been working fine and seamlessly for them. Its interface is also very simplified, and it is also an open and easy-to-scale solution."

More Red Hat CloudForms pros

Cons

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

"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."

"The Windows hosts do not get their hostnames from cloud-init."

"The numerous, multi-layered drill-down menus make it difficult to find one simple knob to turn."

"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."

"The product could improve by embracing newer technologies like GPU virtualization."

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

More CloudStack cons

"It is difficult to create a complete dashboard that includes all the needed features or catalogs."

"The solution is still quite immature."

"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."

"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 problem is that the platform requires it to be maintained and updated. Also, a few cases are still pending with the Red Hat support team since they are not closed yet."

"Red Hat CloudForms could improve by allowing more customization of reports. We have to do a lot of coding to accomplish what we want. Additionally, the compatibility with the multi-cloud could improve. The latter versions of the solution removed Google support and the cost comparison between other clouds was high."

"I have issues with the solution's permissions. Unlike VMware, the product doesn't allow folder-type permissions."

"The complexity of the solution is a bit high in comparison to VMware."

More Red Hat CloudForms cons

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."

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

"The solution is open-source and free."

"CloudStack is an open-source product."

"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."

"It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."

"It is definitely cheaper than VMware. Everything is included. There is no challenge there."

"The price of Red Hat CloudForms was not competitive, it was expensive."

"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."

"Red Hat CloudForms is a bit expensive."

"The product's licensing is based on the number of servers."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Educational Organization

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Government

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Large Enterprise	7

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?

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

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Comparisons

OpenNebula vs CloudStack

Compared 75% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs CloudStack

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs CloudStack

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs CloudStack

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs CloudStack

Compared 5% of the time

More CloudStack Competitors

Morpheus vs Red Hat CloudForms

Compared 30% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Red Hat CloudForms

Compared 28% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Red Hat CloudForms

Compared 23% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Red Hat CloudForms

Compared 19% of the time

More Red Hat CloudForms Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack

September 2025

Download CloudStack product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat CloudForms

August 2025

Download Red Hat CloudForms 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

Manage container, virtual, private, and public cloud infrastructures

Managing a complex, hybrid IT environment can require multiple management tools, redundant policy implementations, and extra staff to handle the operations. Red Hat® CloudForms simplifies IT, providing unified management and operations in a hybrid environment.

As your IT infrastructure progresses from traditional virtualization toward an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model, CloudForms evolves, protecting your investments and providing consistent user experience and functionality.

Red Hat

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)

Buyer's Guide

CloudStack vs. Red Hat CloudForms

September 2025

Free Report: CloudStack vs. Red Hat CloudForms

Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. Red Hat CloudForms and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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