Google Cloud vs vCloud Air comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Google and Virtustream are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Google is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7, while Virtustream is ranked #22. Google holds a 5.1% mindshare in ISI, compared to Virtustream’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Virtustream users who would recommend it.

Google Cloud

Read 81 Google Cloud reviews

17,973 Views
12,401 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

vCloud Air

Read 3 vCloud Air reviews

2,400 Views
1,536 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Cloud

vCloud Air

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

vCloud Air and Google Cloud compete in the cloud computing solutions category. Google Cloud seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced technological offerings and comprehensive cloud services.

Features: vCloud Air emphasizes data storage solutions, networking integration, and seamless migration capabilities. Google Cloud offers extensive machine learning tools, global scalability, and a comprehensive suite for developers.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vCloud Air enables quick deployment within VMware environments and provides focused support services. Google Cloud offers a flexible deployment model and comprehensive customer service catering to diverse infrastructure needs, supported by adaptability and a strong support structure.

Pricing and ROI: vCloud Air provides cost efficiency for VMware-centric organizations. Google Cloud's scalable pricing model aligns well with broader business requirements, potentially leading to higher ROI through its diverse services.

To learn more, read our detailed Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

September 2026

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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

Google Cloud

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

PaaS Clouds (5th)

vCloud Air

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

22nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database as a Service (DBaaS) (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud is 5.1%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCloud Air is 1.2%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Google Cloud	5.1%
vCloud Air	1.2%
Other	93.7%

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

AnjaneyaVara Prasad

Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Cloud services have reduced on‑prem hardware costs and now support flexible microservices workloads

Regarding potential areas of improvement for Google Cloud, considering that they are providing 300 plus services, some services could be improved. For example, if I am facing some network troubleshooting issue in GKE in Google Cloud, I have to dig deeply and enable some special logs, such as flow logs. To enable that, it is chargeable. At least for basic services, they should give end-to-end support. In terms of end-to-end support, if I am purchasing one firewall from Google and using that firewall, all firewall-related services should be free. If I want to troubleshoot something deep and perform deep troubleshooting, you have to enable some additional logs. That is not that good. If I have to enable additional logs and want to store them into Google Cloud storage, which is similar to an S3 bucket, it is again chargeable. Those kinds of things should be given as part of the package. If you take firewall, all firewall-related logs, activities, and diagnostics everything should come as one package. If you want to do some deep analysis, you have to enable these logs, and for that you have to store them in the cloud storage, which is again chargeable. We should not have those kinds of things.Regarding additional costs, it can vary case by case. If I want to do deep analysis, I have to enable some logs, and for those logs, Google is charging. I am already paying for my virtual firewall from Google, and I am paying the cost for that. If I want to do some further troubleshooting and enable some low-level logs, they are charging for that. So these are the kinds of things I am talking about. To do very deep-level troubleshooting and enable additional logs, they will be charging. Not only Google, but all clouds are charging for this. Functionality-wise, Google Cloud is fine. In terms of virtual machine deployment or VM instance, the functionality is good.

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it_user613995

Director Solutions Architect - EMEA & APAC at Blue Medora

With the VPC, you can run your workloads in an active state, use it for development work and for hosting SQL/Exchange Servers in IaaS; RaaS/DaaS for DR activities.

All three components of the vCloud Air are equally valuable and important, i.e., IaaS, DaaS and RaaS. I like the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) offering compared to the Dedicated Cloud. It gives me the flexibility to utilize the pay-as-you-go option. You can run your workloads in an active state at reasonable prices. I have seen lots of companies use it for their development work, as well as for hosting SQL and Exchange Servers, i.e., in the active-passive mode instead of Replication (RaaS). Disaster Recovery is also a great feature that is affordable and easy to use. Disaster Recovery is a great component of the vCloud Air, where you can protect the on-premises cloud infrastructure, by providing self-service recovery options using the vSphere Replication. Some of the features that really stand out and I have used in my projects are: * Direct Connect: It provides high speed and private line connectivity. * Offline Data Transfer: For encrypted bulk data transport.

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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

"The availability has been increased."

"I have found almost everything valuable, as most cloud products are moving in this direction, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, and security."

"I like the simple features that allow me to share documents with others."

"Google Cloud can be used to share files with no need to carry them with you since it is on the cloud, and you can access it anywhere if you are traveling or if you have important documents."

"The solution's features are very good and our staff loves using them."

"Most recently, we implemented a data science agent for querying data using natural language, beyond that, it primarily relates to the cost effectiveness of data warehouse running costs versus competitors such as Snowflake."

"The solution is fairly easy to deploy."

"It is very easy to share documents."

More Google Cloud pros

"VMware Workstation has an interesting feature to manage vSphere infrastructure (and also stand-alone ESXi hosts) that is really powerful and useful, for example to avoid to install the vSphere client (or the integration plugin) just to open one VM console or to change the power status for some VM."

"The Cloud DRaaS solution provided the organization with new levels of flexibility and cost control, together with rapid expansion capability."

"This is the part that should be making admins and CIOs smile."

Cons

"We'd like the storage to be increased."

"It is complex to set up."

"To do very deep-level troubleshooting and enable additional logs, they will be charging."

"I have not seen any specific measurable benefits in terms of time-saving or manpower saving."

"The analytics that they have are very focused. It serves Google and not really the client."

"They could always offer even more storage at the base level."

"There are occasionally things which are inconvenient. For example, uploading pictures or files then requires you to transfer to a different folder."

"Google Cloud could improve by having better integration with other platforms."

More Google Cloud cons

"I don’t think it is quite where EC2 is with regard to capabilities and features but VMware is investing a lot in vCloud Air."

"It’s a really good idea, but the current implementation is very limited: you can simply see your VMs and just open the VM console."

"I feel the user interface/portal can be improved further. I did experience timeout issues and the UI was performing slowly at times."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid monthly."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price as an eight."

"It has a monthly subscription. The customers pay based on the usage."

"It is not easy to calculate the price of the solution from the pricing table since they are not standard rates. However, I find the solution’s prices to be fair and reasonable."

"Google Cloud is on the expensive side for us. I don't have exact figures on the cost per year or month."

"It's not really an expensive solution, but it would be better if there were more flexibility in the pricing model."

"For commercial purposes, users need to pay for the products they use on a workload basis, not a license basis. There are two pricing models: fixed monthly and pay-as-you-go. In the pay-as-you-go model, users pay for the resources they use, while in the fixed monthly model, they have 24/7 access to resources for a set monthly fee."

"Google Cloud could be cheaper."

More Google Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	38

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Google Cloud?

I think perhaps the usability of Google Cloud could be one of the things that might get improved. In terms of not having to type the whole instruction I need to input to the system, just maybe some...

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What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?

My main use case for Google Cloud would be using the functions and the Vertex AI functionality, so mostly AI research and AI deployment. For my AI research and deployment, I use Vertex AI to extrac...

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What advice do you have for others considering Google Cloud?

On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate Google Cloud a nine. I choose nine because it combines a unique set of tools that are actually helpful and impactful on my daily work. Regarding Google Cloud's AI capa...

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Comparisons

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Cloud

Compared 25% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

More Google Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs vCloud Air

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon AWS vs vCloud Air

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon RDS vs vCloud Air

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs vCloud Air

Compared 7% of the time

Interoute vs vCloud Air

Compared 7% of the time

More vCloud Air Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud

September 2026

Download Google Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

September 2026

Download vCloud Air product report

Also Known As

GCP

No data available

Overview

Google Cloud offers a comprehensive platform renowned for cost-effectiveness, scalability, robust security, and seamless integration with tools such as Kubernetes, making it suitable for various business functions.

Google Cloud stands out for its ease of setup, stable infrastructure, and user-friendly interface. It provides essential features for AI, data analytics, and reliable storage, supporting multi-regional deployments for diverse applications. While maintaining minimal operational costs, it ensures simplified deployment and comprehensive application capabilities. However, improvements are needed in monitoring tools, customer support, documentation, and pricing options. Enhancements in stability, integration, and workload management are also required.

What are the essential features of Google Cloud?

Cost-effectiveness: Enables budget-friendly operations and reduced operational costs.
Easy Setup: Offers a straightforward and quick setup process.
Scalability: Supports growing business needs with vast resources and infrastructure.
Robust Security: Provides strong protection and compliance measures.
Seamless Integration: Effective integration with tools like Kubernetes and other applications.

What benefits and ROI can be observed?

Reduction in Operational Costs: Minimizes infrastructure and maintenance expenses.
Global Reach: Allows businesses to expand operations across multiple regions.
Flexibility: Adapts to different business models and rapid scaling needs.
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Facilitates integration with existing tools and platforms.

Industries leverage Google Cloud for infrastructure management, analytics, application hosting, and development environments. Entities utilize its cloud network, machine learning support, disaster recovery solutions, and big data handling. Many rely on Workspace tools for communication and virtual machine applications for efficient IT infrastructure deployment.

Google

vCloud Air is a robust cloud service designed to enhance scalability, flexibility, and security in diverse IT environments. It accommodates various workloads and offers seamless integration with existing infrastructure.

vCloud Air provides a dependable platform that allows businesses to extend and migrate their on-premises workloads to the cloud efficiently. Offering a broad spectrum of services like computing, disaster recovery, and data storage, it ensures enterprises can scale operations while maintaining data protection and governance. Its hybrid cloud approach enables organizations to manage resources using existing tools, thus simplifying cloud adoption for IT departments.

What are the key features of vCloud Air?

Hybrid Cloud: Seamless integration with existing infrastructure for workload migration.
Data Security: Comprehensive data protection with advanced encryption and compliance features.
Scalability: Flexible resource allocation to meet dynamic business needs.
Disaster Recovery: Rapid recovery options to minimize downtime and data loss.

What benefits and ROI can users expect from vCloud Air?

Cost Efficiency: Reduced IT expenses through optimized resource usage.
Improved Agility: Quick adaptability to changing workloads and market demands.
Enhanced Performance: Consistent service delivery and application performance.
Reliable Support: Access to expert support and cloud management resources.

In industries like finance and healthcare, vCloud Air aids in maintaining compliance and data privacy while enabling efficient data management and scalability. Its ability to streamline operations and ensure secure cloud adoption makes it suitable for businesses looking to enhance IT efficiency.

Virtustream

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Lumeta, LifeSite, Clear Tec Solutions, National Physician Services, Queens University of Charlotte, California Natural Resources Agency, Pacific Disaster Center, Seventy Seven Energy Inc., Columbia Sportswear , CSS Corp

Buyer's Guide

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

September 2026

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