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CloudStack vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management 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
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Cloud Management
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of CloudStack is 2.8%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CloudStack2.8%
ServiceNow IT Operations Management1.5%
Other95.7%
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.
reviewer2755671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Significant enhancement in operations with powerful discovery and analytics, yet pricing structure poses challenges
ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides out-of-the-box dashboards. Along with the dashboard, it also provides the Operations Workspace, which is very useful for operations teams. There is a functionality called Performance Analytics, which we are also using to develop some dashboards for the senior leadership and operations team where they can perform trend analysis of alerts and events happening across the infrastructure and application landscape. These dashboards are really useful here. ServiceNow IT Operations Management's biggest plus point is that it is a platform. ITOM is just one module that ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers, but they provide seamless integration of ITOM with their other modules such as ITSM, where we can leverage the AIs for discovery, perform impact analysis, which essentially helps to enhance the overall IT operations and reduce the downtime and MTTR.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CloudStack, by default, gives us a zone-based setup which makes it easier to manage datacenters located in different geographical areas."
"It gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs."
"The back-end database design is simple and straight forward. The user interface is designed with external users in mind. Billing is relatively straightforward with this product. Not being restricted to just one hypervisor was nice."
"The APIs for automation in CloudStack are excellent; everything is API-driven, and while the API is very rich and hard to learn, you can do everything you would want to do, including everything in the user interface and more."
"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."
"The most valuable feature from my point of view is access to environment via console through separate browser window."
"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."
"The API with CloudStack made integration into various external facing web applications simple enough."
"Provides everything in one solution."
"It's easy to set up."
"I like the tool's CMBD connection with Discovery. The solution is also flexible."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It is a market leader and is very implementation-friendly. Developers have a clear understanding of how the solution works, and it is mature enough to handle different client needs."
"Feature-wise, it is a very good tool, especially when it comes to upgrades; upgrades are seamless—you will not even notice an upgrade is happening, and mostly all these upgrades happen after office hours, making it seamless."
"It is a product that is familiar for a lot of users."
"The most important features of ServiceNow IT Operations Management are the discovery service mapping and orchestration."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The installation of CloudStack can be quite challenging because you need a good understanding of the product before starting."
"The product could improve by embracing newer technologies like GPU virtualization."
"Companies need to be knowledgeable about cloud technology. It's not for novice users."
"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."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is not very affordable. It is affordable for organizations with a minimum of 5,000 users plus."
"There is room for improvement in service mapping within ServiceNow ITOM."
"The most complaints we have received from our clients are the solution's discovery aspect. I've heard a few concerns from the customers where we have to integrate with a third-party tool to make a full-fledged discovery along with ServiceNow. ServiceNow alone does not do the total capacity of the discovery. The discovery portion of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is not in-depth as what the customers are looking for. The information that it gathers from the assets is a little more limited than what other tools provide."
"There are not enough apps in the app store to expand functionality. There should be more made available."
"We are facing difficulties with service mapping of CIs from the end users, and are seeking help from third-party vendors."
"The service discovery tool should include HR automations that automatically remove an employee who is leaving."
"The solution’s licensing cost could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in service mapping within ServiceNow ITOM. When we have more time, we'll look to extend that and apply it to business-critical services like email."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
"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."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"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 solution is open-source and free."
"The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
"It is expensive. It is around 10 Euros per server per month."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a costly solution. I'd rate the price at ten, on a scale from one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest price. Some clients do have a problem with the price, but most find that the solution is worth the cost."
"The pricing is high and may be excluding the small to medium-sized enterprise businesses."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
"While not entirely sure, I believe the solution costs at least a million dollars annually."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"It has different subscription models."
"It is moderately expensive. The pricing itself and the licensing options are depending on the model and the customization."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

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 Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise27
 

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 ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
From my perspective as an asset manager, the most valuable feature of the solution is the configuration management portion, where I can actively add something to the database.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
It is definitely high-priced compared to other products available in the same domain in the market.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
We don't use the orchestration part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management here. The CMDB part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a little bit too complicated, and it is a bit slow at our co...
 

Also Known As

Vmops, Cloud.com
ServiceNow ITOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudStack vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.