Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs vCloud Air comparison

Nutanix and Virtustream are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. Nutanix is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.7, while Virtustream is ranked #23. Nutanix holds a 1.8% mindshare in ISI, compared to Virtustream’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Nutanix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Virtustream users who would recommend it.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

Read 28 Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) reviews

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1,536 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

vCloud Air

Read 3 vCloud Air reviews

722 Views
462 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

vCloud Air

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

vCloud Air and Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) compete in the cloud services market. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) seems to have an edge due to its robust features, significantly contributing to its perceived value despite vCloud Air's favorable pricing and support.

Features: vCloud Air offers reliable cloud hosting, data recovery options, and seamless integration with VMware environments. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) provides hybrid cloud capabilities, advanced data management, and scalability across multiple cloud providers. Both have strong integration capabilities, but Nutanix's versatility and scalability are standout features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: vCloud Air delivers straightforward deployment within VMware environments and offers solid customer support. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) provides flexible deployment options across different cloud infrastructures and benefits from comprehensive support, facilitating ease of configuration across varied environments. The adaptability and support of Nutanix contribute to its competitive edge.

Pricing and ROI: vCloud Air is recognized for lower initial setup costs and satisfactory ROI, appealing to budget-friendly options. Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) involves higher upfront costs, but its extensive features and flexibility suggest potential for greater ROI. Despite cost considerations, Nutanix is perceived as offering more long-term value.

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

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Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

March 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

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (8th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (2nd)

vCloud Air

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

23rd

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 March 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is 1.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of vCloud Air is 0.8%, 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 (%)
Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)	1.8%
vCloud Air	0.8%
Other	97.4%

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Jose Ybarra

Manager, Information Technology Engineers at IBC Bank

Enables us to grow at the speed of business and be ready for whatever is coming

What I admire most about Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) is its scalability; that option that everybody seems to eventually go to is cloud, and we're ready for that when we decide. This scalability feature has improved my company because we can grow at the speed of business, and that's very important. We're not limited by the hardware that we have. We allow ourselves room for growth, and we can literally grow from today to tomorrow to ensure that we're handling our growth. The scalability is critical for us, especially in the banking industry, where we just get bigger every year.

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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.

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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 most valuable features of Nutanix Clusters are Prism Central, Micro-segmentation, and cluster scaling automation."

"Its performance and speed are valuable. Its performance has helped me reduce costs."

"The most valuable feature is having the full features of my Nutanix on-premises applications in the cloud."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the redundancy on all levels."

"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) benefits my company as it reduces administration work, allowing me to spend more time away from hardware issues."

"The most valuable features of Nutanix Clusters are Prism Central, Micro-segmentation, and cluster scaling automation."

"Our previous solution was inconsistent and took a long time to recover. NC2 consistently delivers full disaster recovery in a few hours. That was a huge selling point. We need to know that our business can be up and running in hours, not days. We didn't have a real disaster recovery plan before NC2. That's a goal we've been trying to achieve, and Nutanix gives us what we need to make that a reality"

"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Clusters is its storage infrastructure."

More Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) 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."

"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."

Cons

"My impression of Nutanix's license portability is that I wish it had an easier transition from one license to license. I know in the last three to four years, the model has changed three times, making it harder for me to understand the transition from one license model to the next and what that means for me."

"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) could be improved with some more tools that could help synchronize on-prem and cloud stuff better."

"Improvement is obviously needed in pricing; I cannot pinpoint where else I would suggest improvements. The one thing that stands out is the costing, especially if you check the NCM module, where you see the cost of the VM, which is defined by the customer rather than how the calculations work if that VM is a reserved instance."

"The speed of the answers could be improved in customer service and support."

"The pricing can be better."

"There are still some things that could be improved about the product."

"Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) could be improved with some more tools that could help synchronize on-prem and cloud stuff better."

"I don't have the expertise to build a hybrid cloud. We are starting to build one and haven't tried that part yet. I want to try because that is the most critical part for us. I want to see what, if anything, could be improved. The product is fantastic locally. Now, I want to try it in the cloud. My problem is not in the infrastructure; it is in the application, a different thing."

More Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) 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

"The licensing portability can be very interesting. At the moment, I am working with Nutanix Appliances with the AHV as a hypervisor. I did not have a chance to ask for portability between platforms, but it will be good if you can have portability between multiple types of platforms."

"The licensing model of Nutanix is complex."

"The solution has been more costly at this point. We do not see any cost savings."

"The price is high."

"I feel that the prices could be improved, but the truth is that I am very happy. The license price keeps increasing, but I am confident that it is much more reasonable than other brands."

"The transition from the perpetual license to what they have now is, from a business perspective, understandable, but from an operational and cost perspective, for me, it is really expensive. However, our partners at Nutanix did work with us recently and reduced a huge licensing cost for us."

"I'm not familiar with the contracts, but I thought the process was pretty seamless. Licensing for the Nutanix part was the same as licensing something on-prem, and since it runs on bare metal EC2, there was no new process we had to go through—it fits into our existing procurement processes nicely. I appreciate Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)'s license portability."

"I am working on one configuration that is priced at $50,000 USD, whereas another one that I'm working on is estimated to cost $250,000 USD."

More Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	12

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

I'm not familiar with the contracts, but I thought the process was pretty seamless. Licensing for the Nutanix part was the same as licensing something on-prem, and since it runs on bare metal EC2, ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

From an improvement perspective, I cannot see anything at this point because I used those Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) at that moment, but I am currently not using it. The pricing could be lower.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

I use the workload migration feature between clouds, such as migrating from VMware to Nutanix. I use Nutanix Move to migrate workloads from Nutanix Move. However, in some cases with our failover cl...

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Comparisons

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AWS Outposts vs Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

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Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 32% of the time

Microsoft Azure SQL Database vs vCloud Air

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon AWS vs vCloud Air

Compared 12% of the time

Cleura vs vCloud Air

Compared 11% of the time

Interoute vs vCloud Air

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

March 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) product report

Buyer's Guide

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

March 2026

Download vCloud Air product report

Also Known As

Nutanix Clusters

No data available

Overview

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) provide scalable and cost-efficient infrastructure management across cloud and on-premises environments. With features like data portability and ease of setup, NC2 enables seamless migration without application refactoring.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) supports businesses in managing hybrid IT environments, enhancing disaster recovery, and optimizing workloads. Users value NC2 for its unified management platform and redundancy features, facilitating cloud migration and integration with major cloud providers. Challenges include pricing and initial setup complexity, as well as feature parity between different cloud services.

What are the key features of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)?

Scalability: Easily scales resources to meet business demands.
Cost Management: Controls and reduces cloud-related expenses.
Data Portability: Ensures seamless migration between environments.
Unified Management: Manages both cloud and on-premises platforms from one place.
Integration: Connects efficiently with multiple cloud providers.

What benefits and ROI should users expect?

Redundancy: Enhances disaster recovery capabilities and operational resilience.
License Portability: Simplifies license management across different environments.
Optimized Workloads: Maintains performance and reduces unnecessary costs.
Efficient Setup: Simplifies initial adjustments, ensuring quick deployment.

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) find application in industries requiring reliable infrastructure management, like finance and healthcare, to safeguard critical systems. Organizations leverage NC2 for virtual desktops, application modernization, and smooth transition to cloud operations, improving data security and replication processes.

Nutanix

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

The Home Depot, JetBlue, Hyundai, ShiftLeft

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

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