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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
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Cloud Management
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Event Monitoring (1st), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (9th), AIOps (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 ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 1.8%, down from 1.9% 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.
PriyankaBachu - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides templates which reduces duplications in rule configuration
Currently, we are integrating LogicMonitor with ServiceNow IT Operations Management to manage IT event management and auto-ticketing for alerts from the monitoring tool to ServiceNow The solution is saving time by providing templates, reducing duplication in rule configuration, and offering…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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.."
"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."
"The platform is very simple to scale-out.​"
"The initial implementation process was quite good."
"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."
"Everything in CloudStack works effectively."
"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 solution allows you to subscribe to the features you need and utilize CMDB, ITSM, and discovery on the same platform."
"ITOM communicates information about incidents and maintains them. It handles tickets change, manages service networks, and reduces IT service downtime for the organization."
"I like the solution due to the fact that it's scalable."
"The way this solution has helped us is that it improved our communication."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. A person just needs to join a team to access the network and that's all."
"Has service mapping, impact management, metric intelligence and health of analytics."
"Our ROI since implementing ServiceNow ITOM has been significant."
"The solution is easy to use and has great orchestration and automation capabilities."
 

Cons

"It is not widely used so Google does not help very much when you are troubleshooting, and the CloudStack forum is not very active."
"It would be a good to have more specific error messages within administration processes (e.g. problem with creating new instance)."
"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."
"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."
"From time to time there is a bug in calculating limits of resources for customer domain/account. Maybe it’s a problem with 4.9.2."
"The numerous, multi-layered drill-down menus make it difficult to find one simple knob to turn."
"The area of improvement could be the regionalization aspect. For example, managing multiple regions or HubStack deployments together was not thought out thoroughly in the versions I used. We faced issues around managing the global infrastructure and had to develop around it."
"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."
"It should have better integrations with other solutions."
"At times, it got cumbersome from the project management perspective. It could have been because of the way we were using it. I found Microsoft Project to be more extensive and robust than ITOM."
"My managers would say that the price is too high. We wanted to also have the visibility version of it, but it's too expensive for us. Going for visibility would have doubled up the price."
"I would like more manual issues to have automated report-facing options."
"Regarding ServiceNow, there is room for improvement in terms of customization, particularly in the area of self-customization."
"There are some limitations with Discovery; some areas are not available in the installation. I would like the solution to be able to discover more devices. That will remove the need to have multiple tools."
"If you are new to using the solution, you will find the setup complex."
"ServiceNow's pricing is expensive. A more streamlined configuration process tailored to use cases and industry would be beneficial."
 

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."
"CloudStack is an open-source product."
"The solution is open-source and free."
"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."
"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."
"​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
"This solution offers good value but comes at a very high premium. Pricing could be reduced by 10 to 20%."
"The cost of ServiceNow is much higher."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"The pricing is high and may be excluding the small to medium-sized enterprise businesses."
"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"My customers pay for the ServiceNow IT Operations Management license annually. I'd rate the pricing based on value. ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a premium product as it has better features than competitors."
"It has different subscription models."
"We obtained discovery licenses at about seven dollars Australian per unit, which we found to be reasonable and competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

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 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?
ServiceNow's pricing is expensive. We consider it a Tier 1 product, but it requires significant investment.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
ServiceNow ( /products/servicenow-reviews )'s pricing is expensive. A more streamlined configuration process tailored to use cases and industry would be beneficial. We needed some external help to ...
 

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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.