Nutanix Central vs Spacelift comparison

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Nutanix Central

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 10, 2025

Spacelift and Nutanix Central are key players in the cloud management landscape, each offering distinct solutions that cater to different needs. Spacelift is particularly strong in automation and developer-friendly features, making it appealing for DevOps teams, while Nutanix Central's comprehensive resource management capabilities make it a powerful choice for enterprises with complex multi-cloud requirements.

Features: Spacelift stands out with policy-as-code, strong CI/CD tool integrations, and a developer-centric approach that streamlines operations. Nutanix Central offers advanced security protocols, intuitive management interfaces, and efficient resource utilization tools, which are ideal for managing diverse cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: Spacelift can enhance its offering by improving scalability and expanding its feature set to better serve larger enterprises. Users have noted room for improvement in streamlining complex workflow configurations and enhancing user documentation. Nutanix Central could improve ease of deployment for smaller teams, enhance integrations with third-party tools, and simplify its user interface to make it more accessible for non-technical users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Spacelift excels with quick deployment and seamless integration into existing DevOps setups, supported by responsive customer service. Nutanix Central focuses on comprehensive deployment across complex environments, backed by thorough customer support that is beneficial for managing diverse cloud services.

Pricing and ROI: Spacelift offers a competitive setup cost, emphasizing accelerating DevOps workflows and providing significant ROI for small to medium-sized teams. Nutanix Central, while requiring a higher initial investment, offers extensive management capabilities and long-term cost efficiencies, resulting in substantial ROI for enterprises managing layered cloud infrastructures.

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

Nutanix Central vs. Spacelift

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)

Spacelift

Ranking in Cloud Management

20th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

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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Moloko Mokubedi

Junior DevOps Engineer at Kartoza (Pty) Ltd

The GitOps feature automatically picks up changes from my GitHub projects

There are a few areas for improvement. For instance, getting notification webhooks is not easy. In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished. Spacelift requires creating a notification policy, which involves using the open policies framework. However, this feature is not available on the free plan. Additionally, for each new project, I need to create a new IAM role, which is not optimal. It would be better if I could use a single role for all interactions with my AWS account.

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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

"One of the best features is that it provides a unified control plane, which offers single-pane-of-glass visibility for us."

"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."

"My experience has been phenomenal."

"It provided a significant increase in speed and ease of use."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Nutanix Central pros

"I appreciate that I just have to connect to my AWS account with my credentials, and Spacelift handles the rest."

"Knowing the HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL) makes it easier to use without issues."

"A valuable feature of Spacelift is that you can attach labels, and it is a modernized tool for infrastructure deployments. It is pull request-based, and you can see all the Terraform plan and apply logs on the pull request itself, which is not available across any other CI/CD tools."

"One key feature is the Spacelift policies, which we can attach to deployments to ensure compliance with our standards."

"Spacelift is like an extension of Terraform, where everything can be visibly managed."

Cons

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

"The API needs work. It's not specifically Central, but just the API as a whole. We've had a recurring issue where the API calls stack up and hang during backups from Rubrik, which has been a challenge, but Nutanix has their API version four coming out pretty soon, or it is available now, and we just can't upgrade yet. We're hoping to see some major improvements there."

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

"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."

"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."

"The permissions should be set for the highest level, more akin to cluster admin and Prism admin. There have been occasions where I needed to log into Prism Central directly to complete work due to permissions issues from Nutanix Central. They are very close to a one-for-one equivalence. While their website states it is not meant to replace Prism Element or Prism Central, I would prefer to see it reach the level where I can perform all Prism Central tasks from one location to multiple Prism Centrals."

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

More Nutanix Central cons

"In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished."

"Synchronization can be difficult when using older and newer versions with Kubernetes and HashiCorp."

"Spacelift currently lacks features that can help with complex type deployments and coordination for major deployments."

"If you are a small enterprise organization, below 500 people, I would not recommend it."

"The self-hosted version does not have a lot of features compared to the SaaS version, such as cloud integrations for Azure and GCP."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

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

"It is a bit expensive product."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

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Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Educational Organization

11%

Media Company

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Spacelift?

I've never checked the pricing because I enjoy using it for free. Besides the notification feature, I haven't needed any paid features.

What needs improvement with Spacelift?

What is your primary use case for Spacelift?

I use Spacelift to deploy my applications, particularly AWS applications and infrastructure to my personal AWS account.

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Product Reports

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Nutanix Central

August 2025

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July 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

Spacelift provides a sophisticated infrastructure management platform with key features such as Drift Detection and Terraform integration, simplifying complex deployments and enhancing user workflows through an intuitive interface.

Spacelift excels in modernizing infrastructure management by integrating smoothly with Terraform, using a pull request-based approach for visibility into logs. It automates change detection using GitOps from GitHub and supports AWS connectivity with credential management. Despite its strengths, some users find room for improvement in supporting smaller enterprises and offering more seamless cloud integrations with self-hosted versions. Handling of HashiCorp Vault secrets and cumbersome notification webhooks may require additional setup effort.

What are the most valuable features?

Drift Detection: Ensures user edits are managed effectively, reducing configuration discrepancies.
Terraform Integration: Seamless compatibility with Terraform for robust infrastructure management.
GitOps: Automates change detection from GitHub, ensuring efficient workflows.
Compliance Policies: Helps maintain infrastructure within regulatory guidelines.
Stack Execution: Enables runs with label attachments for organized operations.

What benefits or ROI can users expect?

Improved Deployment Control: Default plan prompts support structured and controlled deployments.
Streamlined Terraform Management: Enhanced visibility into logs aids in transparent and efficient operations.
Efficient AWS Interactions: Credential management simplifies connections, making operations more fluid.
Dynamic Infrastructure Handling: Supports significant projects by replacing tools like Terraform Enterprise.

In specific industries, Spacelift is primarily utilized for infrastructure management and deployment across platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP. In banking architecture, it replaces Terraform Enterprise, ensuring secure and efficient operations. Projects like Google Fiber benefit from its capability to import and manage data effectively, engaging users with HashiCorp Language and GitHub for CI/CD integration.