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Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Red Hat CloudForms 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

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Cloud Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (4th), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th)
Red Hat CloudForms
Ranking in Cloud Management
28th
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 6.0%, up from 5.6% 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
 

Featured Reviews

Raouf Mahfoud Silhadi - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing diverse environments has been streamlined with robust disaster recovery features and automation capabilities
The most valuable features I have found with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are related to Disaster Recovery, specifically the Nutanix Disaster Recovery solution with Prism Central, and Flow micro-segmentation. Flow micro-segmentation is part of the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) networking capabilities, and most scenarios are related to standard clusters with Disaster Recovery, including environments with both Nutanix AHV and VMware. The importance of faster outcomes for their environment is significant; for example, when I delivered the Disaster Recovery solution, we included automation for auto-configuration of VMs and resizing of VMs, which replaced many tasks that were previously done manually. The implementation of automation solutions helps free up time for their IT team, allowing them to manage more of the application part rather than the infrastructure, especially for stability and automation tasks from Nutanix.
Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to set up."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It has allowed us to easily manage multiple clusters in multiple locations through Prism. We have multiple sites that we use to manage and run VMware at which could be a bit cumbersome with Vsphere. Since we made the migration to Nutanix we now only have active servers at three locations, and we can manage them through Prism Central with ease."
"The tool is easy to use."
"Nutanix Prism Pro and Nutanix AOS have greatly improved our organization by providing a reliable and simple solution that requires little to no maintenance in order to successfully offer a stable service to our clientele, as opposed to the competitors."
"The solution is very stable...Customer support is very good."
"We haven't faced any problems because Nutanix provides an outside team. We haven't had any issues requiring L3 support, and the L1 and L2 engineers are on-site."
"The ease of use is a valuable feature. For us, it's a consistent interface. It's very easy to train our employees on it, and it's a newer generation interface. It's homogeneous, and every product and subset tie together, giving a very similar look to everything."
"The most valuable features of Red Hat CloudForms are the benefit of the collective functionality."
"They are a very mature product."
"I am impressed with the product's reports."
"Red Hat CloudForms is a stable product. There is no issue with the stability."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs."
"Red Hat CloudForms is stable once it is up and running."
"The optimization of the solution is quite interesting."
"The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't had any issues with it."
 

Cons

"We use Nutanix only for our dev and test environments. Our production environment is VMware, and that is totally separate. But we do transfer data between them. That's a challenge because we need to frequently bring the production data into our test environment and that's a big transfer. If we could do a cross-storage transfer, like a transfer from NetApp or Nimble Storage into Nutanix with automation, that would greatly help us."
"NCM's pricing structure is confusing and difficult to understand."
"I'd like them to offer a more flexible licensing model."
"Nutanix, as of today, they do not have many of the features that VMware hypervisor provides, such as the memory layer."
"Our current challenge with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the overwhelming amount of VMs being shown as over-provisioned. For example, out of approximately 1,000 VMs on the platform, 800 of them are indicating over-provisioning."
"Few systems are not business-critical, but they run 24/7."
"There have been bugs. We've seen what looked like some storage inefficiencies in reports and, when we went in to look, we found they were false alarms. That was something they corrected on the fly."
"You can set up DHCP but it's a little bit clunky. I wish they would streamline and centralize the management of DHCP."
"It is difficult to create a complete dashboard that includes all the needed features or catalogs."
"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."
"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."
"I have issues with the solution's permissions. Unlike VMware, the product doesn't allow folder-type permissions."
"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."
"The complexity of the solution is a bit high in comparison to VMware."
"The solution's provisioning engine needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's always difficult to discuss Nutanix pricing because the cost varies wildly depending on the customer and the region. Desktop virtualization is simpler because there is a defined scope. You can tell the Nutanix salesperson how many users you have. In a more traditional environment, it's always best to have NCM for monitoring because you'd be crazy not to."
"The solution is expensive."
"Nutanix Cloud Manager's pricing is fair at the moment."
"The product is very cheap."
"The solution’s pricing is not outrageous like other products."
"It is expensive when you are looking at small locations that need low-latency workloads, but for larger locations, as compared to other guys, even using VMware, it is not that expensive because if you add it all up, it is going to be pretty much the same value."
"I think it can be more cost-effective."
"While the product may seem to be more expensive at first, it ultimately pays for itself within a short time frame due to the hours saved on maintenance."
"The price of Red Hat CloudForms was not competitive, it was expensive."
"The product's licensing is based on the number of servers."
"Red Hat CloudForms is a bit 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."
"It is definitely cheaper than VMware. Everything is included. There is no challenge there."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
36%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?
For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...
Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?
When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...
Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?
Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...
What do you like most about Red Hat CloudForms?
I am impressed with the product's reports.
What needs improvement with Red Hat CloudForms?
I have issues with the solution's permissions. Unlike VMware, the product doesn't allow folder-type permissions.
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat CloudForms?
I would rate the product a four out of ten since its implementation is not as good as it sounds.
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
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)
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. Red Hat CloudForms and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
855,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.