Google Cloud vs vCloud Air comparison

Google and Virtustream are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Google is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6, while Virtustream is ranked #22. Google holds a 4.0% mindshare in ISI, compared to Virtustream’s 0.9% 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 79 Google Cloud reviews

8,383 Views
5,365 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

vCloud Air

Read 3 vCloud Air reviews

939 Views
610 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Cloud

vCloud Air

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

vCloud Air and Google Cloud are competing cloud services in the cloud infrastructure category. Google Cloud appears to have an edge with comprehensive features and a robust infrastructure, making it appealing despite its premium pricing.

Features: vCloud Air is valued for its seamless integration with VMware environments, facilitating hybrid cloud strategies. Google Cloud offers cutting-edge data analysis and machine learning tools along with an extensive global network. Google's advanced infrastructure supports data-driven and scalable applications more effectively than vCloud Air.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Cloud offers ease of deployment with automated features and a multitude of tools simplifying the process. vCloud Air is user-friendly for VMware customers but lacks the automated capabilities of Google Cloud. vCloud Air provides personalized support, whereas Google Cloud benefits from comprehensive documentation and community resources that enhance the deployment experience.

Pricing and ROI: vCloud Air offers competitive pricing, focusing on integrating existing VMware investments to provide ROI, appealing to enterprises in this ecosystem. Google Cloud involves a higher initial setup cost but offers substantial ROI through its innovative capabilities and global reach. While vCloud Air provides a cost-effective solution for specific environments, Google Cloud's long-term value is driven by its rich feature ecosystem.

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

Buyer's Guide

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 886,576 peers since 2012

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 (4th)

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) (21st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Google Cloud is 4.0%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCloud Air is 0.9%, up from 0.3% 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	4.0%
vCloud Air	0.9%
Other	95.1%

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Saurav Singh

Technology Manager at Publicis Sapient

Integration with Kubernetes and flexibility improve our application deployment process

The logging could be improved; there's currently no intuitive way to filter logs on the Google console, especially for individuals who are not familiar with query languages. Our non-technical users find it difficult to access logs. Additionally, the user interface could be more user-friendly and intuitive compared to our previous experience with AWS.

Read full review

Saurabh Chandratre

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My customers appreciate all the features that Google Cloud has to offer. They are looking for solutions for computing engines, storage, web hosting, and various other needs. The most useful feature depends on their specific requirements and how they plan to utilize Google Cloud. Each customer has their own unique set of needs and the Google Cloud provides a range of options to meet those needs."

"Google Cloud is a good alternative solution. I think it's a better fit for Mac operating systems than Windows. If you're utilizing Google Cloud for something like big data, then their big query is decent."

"The speed, security, and performance of Google Cloud are excellent."

"Regarding Google Cloud's data analytics features, I find the presentation of information and the ability to move and transform data to be the most valuable. As for machine learning capabilities, they are helpful, especially in detecting anomalies or outliers in our data. For instance, Google Cloud can identify unusual network behavior and provide recommendations on how to address or leverage these findings effectively."

"We use Google Cloud for storage, infrastructure, and services, providing file storage and infrastructure for deploying virtual machines, Kubernetes, or Dockers, as well as Google services that can be accessed by other software."

"We worked with Google Cloud to ensure HIPAA compliance approval in health insurance companies."

"The tool's most valuable feature is encryption. Google Cloud has reduced our operational costs and increased efficiency. For example, deploying production applications traditionally took about a month, but with Google Cloud, it now takes only a day or two. This also extends to monitoring, allowing us to identify and address issues faster than on-premises solutions."

"The scalability is awesome, we don't have to do the heavy lifting of maintaining the infrastructure or anything, as everything is bundled up by Google."

More Google Cloud pros

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

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

"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."

Cons

"The solution could improve by being less expensive."

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

"The storage available for this solution could be improved, especially compared to a solution like Microsoft which offers 1 TB of storage. Google cloud offers only 30 GB."

"I would like to see more code generation features that enable you to take user input in simple English and automatically convert it to code."

"An area of improvement would be in the managing of accounts in terms of what we are using for memory, availability, and monitoring."

"I cannot recall coming across any missing features."

"The initial setup is somewhat more complicated than competing products."

"The user interface could be a bit better."

More Google Cloud cons

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Google Cloud should be divided into modules so that users can buy which module will satisfy them. The overall price of Google Cloud should be reduced, Microsoft is a little bit cheaper. However, if Google divided the cloud offering it would be better. For example, if someone wants to use only for OneDrive they should be able to purchase the service separately, it would reduce the price. There is a license required to use this solution for enterprises. There is a free account, which the users can increase the size of the space. Google cloud is used in most Android Mobile device operating systems."

"The price of Google Cloud is affordable compared to others services. I pay monthly for the service."

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

"Google cloud is less expensive than other comparable solutions."

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

"The cost might be $10 a month per user, which is about $300 a month in total."

"I don't pay for the license. For me, it's completely free."

"We approached Google Cloud with certain cost assumptions but were surprised to find that our actual expenses were higher than expected. Initially, we had anticipated spending a set amount on the solution, but in reality, we ended up spending more than that. It would be helpful to have greater transparency and educational documentation on the cost-related aspects of Google Cloud."

More Google Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

University

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	32

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Google Cloud?

Better discounting and discount offers, especially for long-running servers, would be a very good option. A localized cloud in the MENA region would also be very important for us because we are ope...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Google Cloud?

We are using Google Cloud Kubernetes service. We are using Cloud Build. We are using the PostgreSQL managed service. We are hosting our software platform on Google Cloud. We are using Kubernetes to...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Google Cloud?

I'm not working with Honeycomb. Google Cloud is a cloud provider and it's still a strong option to choose. However, I would personally prefer AWS. My overall rating for Google Cloud is seven out of...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Cloud

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Google Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

More Google Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs vCloud Air

Compared 25% of the time

Amazon AWS vs vCloud Air

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs vCloud Air

Compared 11% of the time

Cleura vs vCloud Air

Compared 10% of the time

Interoute vs vCloud Air

Compared 9% of the time

More vCloud Air Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Cloud

April 2026

Download Google Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

March 2026

Download vCloud Air product report

Overview

Google Cloud is an Infrastructure as a Service Cloud (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution that provides infrastructure tools and services for building applications on top of a public cloud computing platform. As one of the leading global infrastructures, this product allows users to securely manage enterprise data, receive valuable insights, and store documents. Google Cloud provides its various services through tools and services for data warehousing, security key enforcement, application programming interface (API) management, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML).

The use cases of Google Cloud can be divided into four main categories:

Big data
Compute
Services
Storage

The solution is utilized by organizations of all sizes and industries, as it is suitable for the following purposes:

Running and building applications: Google Cloud lets businesses run and build their applications anywhere because of its commitment to open-source, hybrid, and multi-cloud. This can accelerate development time as businesses avoid vendor lock-in.
Data insight: Google Cloud provides companies with advanced ML and analytics for their data. This can facilitate business decisions and improve work processes, as every team member can have access to data reports via this solution.
Security: Utilizing Google's technology, this solution helps users protect and defend their data and applications against threats and harmful activities.
Team collaboration: Google Cloud offers companies advanced collaboration features. They can integrate email, chat, video calling, and document collaboration all in one place when using this platform.

Google Cloud Features

Google Cloud offers multiple features for its clients. Some of these include:

Big data features: The solution offers full big data services through tools such as BigQuery and Google Cloud Dataflow. These tools allow users to process large data queries as well as create, monitor, and receive reports from data processing pipelines.
Containers: The solution offers containers, which allow users to speed up deployment and scale applications.
Cloud debugger: This feature allows users to debug code during the production process. In this way, businesses are able to locate issues early in the code and fix them before deploying the application.
Cloud save: This feature provides the ability to synchronize cloud-stored data across all devices an organization is supporting. Through it, users can save and retrieve information and maintain all data copies up to date.
Cloud trace: This Google Cloud feature allows users to detect the reasons for performance bottlenecks and fix the issues. It also provides users with information on the time their product takes to process certain requests, allowing them to follow performance more closely.
Hosting features: The solution offers two hosting options. App Engine is the PaaS of Google Cloud and Computes Engine is their IaaS.
Load balancing: This feature balances the traffic of multiple compute instances across various geographic regions.
Maintenance: Users receive frequent insight into the performance of their applications and through automations, Google Cloud lets them know of any issues that need to be fixed.

Google Cloud Benefits

Google Cloud brings various benefits to its users. Some of these include the following:

The pricing model of Google Cloud allows users to pay only for the selected features and tools they wish to use, which saves their organizations money.
Users can rely on accelerated content delivery through Google Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Google Cloud offers a wide variety of tools and libraries, which assist users in the development of cloud applications.
The tool has an advanced admin control that allows users to easily add or remove new users and maintain the security of business platforms.
Google Cloud offers consulting services whereby experts provide assistance with cloud strategy development.
The platform is updated on a frequent basis, which can increase companies' productivity through consistent innovations.
Google Cloud offers remote access from anywhere at all times via Google's web applications.
The solution reduces the risks of data breaches as it offers minimal storage of offline data.
Users can expect support not only from the platform but from the growing online community as well, where their questions can be answered in a timely manner.
The product provides detailed documentation for its clients, allowing them to benefit from tutorials and other samples, in order to learn to work with it in the most efficient way.

Reviews from Real Users

Isuru P., an assistant vice president at a tech services company, likes Google Cloud because it is easy to deploy next-generation applications using it.

An IT solutions consultant at a tech services company rates Google Cloud highly because they find the solution stable with a good user experience and a straightforward setup.

Google

vCloud Air is a public cloud platform built on the trusted foundation of vSphere, compatible with your on-premises data center, that includes infrastructure, disaster recovery, and various applications as service offerings. vCloud Air allows you to extend your workloads into the cloud with ease. You can migrate existing onsite virtual machines (VMs) to the public cloud or start up new application VMs directly in the cloud.

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)

March 2026

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google and others in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS). Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) vendors.

We monitor all Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.