Nutanix Central vs OpenNebula comparison

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Nutanix Central

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 10, 2025

OpenNebula and Nutanix Central are cloud management platforms competing in the infrastructure solutions category. OpenNebula has an upper hand in pricing and customer support, while Nutanix Central offers a wider range of features and performance considered worth the investment.

Features: OpenNebula offers open-source flexibility, hybrid cloud capabilities, and simple management tools. Nutanix Central is known for its robust architecture, seamless integration, and advanced data management functionalities.

Room for Improvement: OpenNebula could improve in offering more advanced integration features, enhancing scalability possibilities, and expanding its template offerings. Nutanix Central could look at improving its pricing model, offering more customizable options, and expanding the user interface simplicity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpenNebula provides a straightforward, flexible deployment approach, making it suitable for open-source environment enthusiasts. Nutanix Central offers a streamlined deployment process and strong customer support, helping businesses that need comprehensive assistance.

Pricing and ROI: OpenNebula stands out with its cost-effectiveness, offering low setup costs and quick ROI, appealing to budget-conscious companies. Nutanix Central, while more expensive, is seen as providing significant ROI through its advanced features and enhanced performance.

To learn more, read our detailed Nutanix Central vs. OpenNebula Report (Updated: July 2025).

Nutanix Central vs. OpenNebula

July 2025

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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

Nutanix Central

Ranking in Cloud Management

18th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Virtualization Management Tools (6th), Data Center Infrastructure Management (7th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (8th)

OpenNebula

Ranking in Cloud Management

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

reviewer2703777

S30290139 Infrastructure Administrator II at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees

Helps us get ahead of potential problems, and their support has been phenomenal

I don't think there's much improvement needed in Nutanix Central. Maybe there are different tools I haven't discovered yet that may bring everyone on the same page. I am still in the process of researching them and providing feedback to Nutanix. For what we use it for, it runs efficiently. What I think is missing in Nutanix Central to make it the best product ever is compatibility with our backups. One of the biggest challenges we have with Nutanix currently is that our Rubrik backups do not work with the Nutanix API. That would be great to resolve, as it would reduce the time spent resolving the issue.

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FOURES Jean-Philippe

Products Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Reliable, simple to manage, and offers great technical support

The support of VXLAN fits with our network management. Thanks to this we can propose mixed solutions using virtual resources on OpenNebula and bare metal servers hosted in our facilities linked to each other on the sale network. This use case is very useful when some applications need bare metal power (Kubernetes workers, huge databases, AI models computations, et cetera). The cluster management is very useful for splitting our different clusters (mutual vs dedicated). We can manage deployments and capacity planning without pain. The API is also really simple and it helped us to develop the Terraform provider to manage OpenNebula like any other cloud infrastructure.

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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 features of Nutanix Central that I value most are primarily the hardware portion because it tells us everything available regarding BIOS upgrades and any updates that become compatible, including LCM upgrades. I enjoy troubleshooting and dealing with urgent issues."

"I would give the customer service a perfect score."

"I find the categories in Nutanix Central most valuable because they allow us to group things easily, so we don't have to deal with complications, and that's how we use our DR."

"The ability to look in one place in Nutanix Central is what I prefer the most. We can see storage but also capacity, and it gives my boss a place to look, so he doesn't ask me questions."

"The ease of use is valuable because we can manage two different clusters or several clusters with it. I appreciate the one umbrella management feel. We can run updates and get different types of analytics."

"The grouping feature in Nutanix Central is helpful because, from my perspective, it's similar to tagging that I've been using in AWS and Rubrik."

"Nutanix Central scales very effectively with our growing needs."

"We have multiple Prism Centrals - two currently, with more coming in, especially with NC2 and the public cloud. We can log into one portal, one panel, and see metrics, VMs, and perform administration tasks, all from one site."

More Nutanix Central pros

"What's best about OpenNebula that people like is that it's easy to deploy. It's also easy to manage. It's interesting because people choose OpenNebula over other solutions because of the ease of management."

"It is quite easy to deploy."

"OpenNebula is lightweight, stable, and easy to customize."

"I also like the ability to build custom functions. I can define a function where I have two types of views and configure the dependencies. The virtual data centers concept allows me to define users. If a user wants to join certain kinds of machines, the host and the other user won't see them. It gives me the flexibility to define multiple views and data centers in one place."

"It makes maintenance very easy and stress-free for our teams."

"The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often."

"The service feature appeals most to us, thus it is the most valuable."

"It's easy to integrate OpenNebula with our IT systems."

More OpenNebula pros

Cons

"There is a sense that they want to close tickets faster than always getting the resolution right."

"The API needs work. It's not specifically Central, but just the API as a whole."

"The update process in terms of using LCM or using Central is sometimes confusing, but I think they are working towards unifying that."

"What I think is missing in Nutanix Central to make it the best product ever is compatibility with our backups. One of the biggest challenges we have with Nutanix currently is that our Rubrik backups do not work with the Nutanix API. That would be great to resolve, as it would reduce the time spent resolving the issue."

"The update process in terms of using LCM or using Central is sometimes confusing, but I think they are working towards unifying that."

"One of the things I'd want to see in Nutanix Central is more utility. It would be nice to go in and say, "This VM doesn't need to be in this data center, and we'd prefer to put it in this one," and have the ability to initiate the migration, even if we have to make changes to networks."

"There has been confusion regarding the initial setup of Nutanix Central."

"One area of improvement could be from the AI side, as the industry shifts and grows."

More Nutanix Central cons

"Hosting platforms are limited so the deployment process needs improvement."

"There are small things that are hard. For example, making sure that it is going to be installable on public clouds."

"The storage feature that they have is a bit confusing."

"An area for improvement in OpenNebula is the number of features it has. The solution doesn't have that many cloud features compared to other solutions. You'd say, "Okay, simplicity over a rich feature list?" Some say, "No, I need a big machine or a cloud interface for my customers to manage resources. I don't have to go and do it for them." Some people do it that way, and it works, but I'd like to improve the limited features in OpenNebula."

"There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula."

"It should have a simple REST API like most other tools. It's the industry standard format. An XML-RPC API gives you an XML document that you have to convert and then do something with that. REST API endpoint provides outputs in a JSON document. I would also like to see support for user data or heat templates, which OpenStack offers, but OpenNebula doesn't have this yet."

"Backup features are only available in the enterprise edition. The community version lacks a good solution for making backups."

"The protocol for clusterization is rough and doesn't work well."

More OpenNebula cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is limited as I don't manage that part. However, I know it has been within budget and hasn't impacted our financial planning."

"We had the benefit of already being under Ultimate and Pro for the majority of our licensing models. We do not incur additional costs for using Nutanix Central. Similar to Security Central, this is one of those tools we are adopting, integrating, and promoting because we already have access to it."

"We tie in with cost governance in Nutanix Central, which helps us identify other products and determine whether we need to increase our licensing or reduce it."

"Our experience was fine. We have no complaints."

"OpenNebuoa has recently come up with a new subscription model that is economical and a lot of new customers are choosing this as it is an easy subscription model."

"The solution is open source so is free."

"OpenNebula gives good value for money."

"The licensing for OpenNebula used to be free, but now it's no longer free. A customer contacted me asking to move to another provider because of the changes in the licensing terms for OpenNebula. I have no information on how much the OpenNebula license is because the customer pays for it, and I only do the integration."

"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."

"We use the Community Edition, rather than the Enterprise Edition."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

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Computer Software Company

20%

University

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Central?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing is limited as I don't manage that part. However, I know it has been within budget and hasn't impacted our financial planning.

What needs improvement with Nutanix Central?

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Central?

My main use cases with Nutanix Central are managing updates, including LCM updates. We also manage all of our clusters and servers with it. It tells us the hardware health, VM health, disk issues, ...

What do you like most about OpenNebula?

The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenNebula?

OpenNebula gives good value for money.

What needs improvement with OpenNebula?

The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement. Another area for improvement is the integration with hardware to manage the lower layer of the n...

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Product Reports

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Nutanix Central

August 2025

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August 2025

Overview

Nutanix Central offers a comprehensive platform for IT management, providing seamless integration and enhanced control across multi-cloud environments. It supports enterprises in scaling their digital operations efficiently and securely.

Designed for enterprise-grade deployment, Nutanix Central simplifies management tasks across different workloads with its intuitive interface. By integrating hybrid and multi-cloud operations, it allows management from a central point, making administration straightforward. This single platform is optimized for performance, helping companies reduce complexity while maintaining top-notch security protocols. With scalability at its core, Nutanix Central adapts to the changing demands of businesses, offering a reliable infrastructure for various applications.

What are the most important features?

Unified Management: Centralizes control of IT environments from a single dashboard.
Multi-cloud Integration: Supports seamless operation across public and private clouds.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs without compromising performance.
Security: Ensures data protection with robust security measures.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces operational expenses by optimizing resource use.
Enhanced Productivity: Streamlines IT management activities.
Business Agility: Enables swift response to market changes.
Reduced Complexity: Simplifies infrastructure management processes.

Industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail leverage Nutanix Central for its capability to manage distributed IT environments efficiently. In healthcare, it supports compliance and patient data security, while retail benefits from its ability to enhance customer experiences through agile IT operations. The financial sector relies on its robust security features to safeguard sensitive information, ensuring business continuity and regulatory adherence.

Nutanix

OpenNebula provides the most simple but feature-rich and flexible solution for the comprehensive management of virtualized data centers to enable private, public and hybrid IaaS clouds. OpenNebula interoperability makes cloud an evolution by leveraging existing IT assets, protecting your investments, and avoiding vendor lock-in.

OpenNebula is a turnkey enterprise-ready solution that includes all the features needed to provide an on-premises (private) cloud offering, and to offer public cloud services.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Akamai, BBC, Fermilab, Terradue, Surf Sara, Produban, Netways, ESA, China Mobile, BlackBerry, Deloitte, Fuze, Telefonica, Trivago, Nokia, Encore Tech, Beeks.