Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs OpenNebula comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Nutanix and OpenNebula are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Nutanix is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while OpenNebula is ranked #27 with an average rating of 7.0. Nutanix holds a 2.4% mindshare in CM, compared to OpenNebula’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Nutanix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of OpenNebula users who would recommend it.

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Read 126 Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) reviews

14,894 Views
7,149 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

OpenNebula

Read 15 OpenNebula reviews

3,789 Views
3,486 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

OpenNebula

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

OpenNebula and Nutanix Cloud Manager compete in cloud management solutions. OpenNebula excels in pricing and support, making it cost-effective and responsive, while Nutanix Cloud Manager offers a comprehensive feature set and perceived value, supporting its higher cost.

Features: OpenNebula features efficient resource management, lightweight deployment, and open-source flexibility. Nutanix Cloud Manager offers robust hyper-convergence capabilities, strong security features, and flexible multi-cloud management.

Room for Improvement: OpenNebula could enhance its feature sets, provide more robust security capabilities, and offer deeper integration with large-scale enterprise environments. Nutanix Cloud Manager may benefit from reducing its complexity, decreasing initial setup time, and simplifying customer education efforts.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpenNebula provides straightforward deployment and consistent support, ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Nutanix Cloud Manager offers a sophisticated deployment model with extensive customization options but may require more initial setup and customer education. Customer service is known for its proactive support and tailored solutions.

Pricing and ROI: OpenNebula is known for low setup cost and attractive ROI, particularly appealing to cost-sensitive organizations. Its open-source nature helps reduce upfront expenses. Nutanix Cloud Manager requires higher initial investment but offers substantial long-term ROI due to its advanced features, making it a favorable choice for companies seeking high performance over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula

November 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 921,028 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

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Ranking in Cloud Management

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

126

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (5th), Virtualization Management Tools (1st), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (10th)

OpenNebula

Ranking in Cloud Management

27th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 2.4%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenNebula is 1.5%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)	2.4%
OpenNebula	1.5%
Other	96.1%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

Vijaykumar Talreja

Global Group CIO, CTO, Cdo & CISO at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees

Centralized multi-cloud management has simplified automation and boosted operational efficiency

Some downsides of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are that it has very high cost and licensing complexity, particularly for smaller environments, making it more suited for larger environments. On the learning curve and support, while Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is user-friendly in some areas, the initial setup is complex and sometimes requires very specialized expertise, creating a steep learning curve. There is also limited third-party integration, as it has very limited non-native integrations compared to competitors. The documentation has gaps, particularly for advanced features, requiring some improvement, and certain advanced configurations and troubleshooting still require heavy reliance on the command-line interface rather than having a GUI.

Read full review

Andy Brauer

CTO at Encha

A highly scalable solution that gives good value for money, but it does not have payment gateways

OpenNebula's templates are weak, and it could do something to make template creation a lot easier to use. The solution has a template for every single VM you create, which is not clever. You should be able to use a template for many different virtual machines. There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula.

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

"The capacity planning, forecasting, and Runways are worth their weight in gold and NCM has saved us time in IT, and that's money."

"One of the biggest outcomes from using Nutanix Cloud Manager is operational efficiency."

"We have been very happy with it."

"Everything about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is good, and this is a very good solution."

"It has cut down our maintenance time significantly and simplified our processes for backups."

"It saves time since it is a single pane of glass. Our efficiency has increased because of that. We don't have to log into multiple servers when we do upgrades. We can do it on one console. This saves us eight to 10 hours a month. Upgrade activity on servers, which was offloaded to the Nutanix platform, used to take hours on our Legacy platform."

"The convergence between the network and the storage is valuable."

"Una vez más, menciono que es un producto 100% recomendado."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pros

"OpenNebula has given us tremendous knowledge about cloud computing and about Cloud Management platforms, commonly known as CMP."

"The most valuable feature of OpenNebula is that it scales very well."

"With a single click, we could set things up and initiate them."

"It is quite easy to deploy."

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

"For our use case, we found the solution to be the best fit when dealing with infrastructure services."

"OpenNebula freed my customer from doing the maintenance operations of the servers because now that can be done by his clients."

"I'll definitely recommend OpenNebula because it's an open-source solution that's effortless to set up, and the total cost of ownership is low."

More OpenNebula pros

Cons

"One thing that comes directly to mind is how they manage version control. I would love to see Calm create a built-in source control feature, one that we could tie into a repository and it would self-manage changes in versions. All the version control is built within Calm right now. I would love to see that integrated with an external repository and make it easy to tie it into GitHub or Git repositories."

"We have some Oracle systems. The licensing is a big challenge over here because it will be very costly if we go with Nutanix."

"One thing that comes directly to mind is how they manage version control."

"We'd like the demos to be longer - maybe two to three months. Some clients need much more time for a POC."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) can be improved as the NKP product needs to mature a little more."

"It is important to mention that while Nutanix claims improvements in licensing over the past couple of years, I find it a bit annoying, as it still does not work as intended."

"In Nutanix Cloud Manager, areas that can be improved are AI and cost."

"NCM's pricing structure is confusing and difficult to understand."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) cons

"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."

"The UI, monitoring, and alerting could benefit from further improvements."

"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."

"I would like to see OpenNebula add more integration with REST API. XML-RPC API is good, but it becomes a pain to form a resting output."

"As with all enterprise software licensing, the pricing is not intuitive and must be negotiated; grandfathered contracts are better than anything offered today."

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

"There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula."

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

More OpenNebula cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nutanix Cloud Manager is an expensive solution."

"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."

"Some people say that Nutanix is a bit more expensive. However, when we were looking at Nutanix versus Cisco and NetApp before deploying this solution, the prices were very similar. Being a government entity, we got a bit more of a discount on Nutanix so it was a bit cheaper. The time savings after the fact has been really worth it."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is cheaper than VMware and other products."

"Compared to UCS and the NetApp storage, Nutanix is actually cheaper."

"For Ecuador, this is a sensitive issue. It is a small economy, so the issue of budget is very sensitive. You find many small businesses and government clients who do not renew, for example, support or guarantees, which raises the risk level for them. We are always advising them that it is necessary to renew the services or infrastructure."

"The solution’s pricing is not outrageous like other products."

"I rate Cost Governance an eight out of 10 for pricing. There are different plans, so you can pay monthly or yearly. You can also sign a three-year contract. It's quite flexible. I can't give it a perfect 10, because customers always want a cheaper solution."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pricing and cost advice

"The solution is open source so is free."

"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."

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

"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."

"OpenNebula gives good value for money."

"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Marketing Services Firm

13%

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	75

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	3

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

Comparisons

VMware Aria Operations vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 5% of the time

CloudCheckr vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Competitors

CloudStack vs OpenNebula

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs OpenNebula

Compared 8% of the time

BMC Helix Cloud Security vs OpenNebula

Compared 5% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs OpenNebula

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco UCS Director vs OpenNebula

Compared 4% of the time

More OpenNebula Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

October 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) product report

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula

October 2026

Download OpenNebula product report

Also Known As

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central, Nutanix Software Subscription

No data available

Overview

Nutanix Cloud Manager streamlines hybrid cloud management by offering centralized control, automation, and workload optimization across platforms. It improves operational efficiency while reducing IT management complexity.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is designed for comprehensive hybrid cloud governance, providing tools for virtualization, resource allocation, and compliance. Its features include one-click upgrades, dynamic dashboards, and the seamless automation of tasks through X-Play. Users can efficiently manage virtual machines, ensure secure storage, and enhance productivity with predictive monitoring. Self-service capabilities allow users to reserve resources easily, while central management via Prism Pro and automated reports enhance oversight and decision-making. Challenges include UI simplicity, pricing transparency, and licensing efficiency, with users seeking improvements in VM organization, blueprint customization, and collaborative support for hybrid environments.

What important features define Nutanix Cloud Manager?

One-click Upgrades: Simplifies the process of updating and maintaining systems.
Intuitive Interface: Offers a user-friendly experience with a low learning curve.
Prism Pro: Central management for streamlined control over environments.
Dynamic Dashboards: Provides real-time insights and monitoring capabilities.
X-Play Automation: Facilitates seamless and efficient task automation.
Capacity Planning: Assists in optimal resource allocation and future growth planning.
Compliance Monitoring: Ensures adherence to industry standards and policies.
Efficient VM Management: Enhances control and monitoring of virtual machines.
Self-service Capabilities: Empowers users to manage and allocate resources independently.
Cost Governance: Allows organizations to maintain budgetary control and efficiency.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Nutanix Cloud Manager?

Enhanced Productivity: Streamlines tasks and improves efficiency through automation.
Predictive Monitoring: Proactively addresses potential issues before they impact operations.
Robust Disaster Recovery: Provides reliable solutions to recover data and maintain continuity.
Automated Reports: Generates timely insights for informed decision-making.
Unified Cloud Management: Offers comprehensive control across multiple environments.

Nutanix Cloud Manager finds utility in industries requiring robust hybrid cloud strategies like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. It excels in centralizing management for secure and compliant operations, optimizing workloads, and providing scalable solutions for resource allocation and compliance monitoring, thus enhancing cloud operations in diverse markets.

Nutanix

OpenNebula offers scalability, ease of deployment, and integration capabilities that enhance cloud management for enterprises. It supports both virtual and bare metal resources, providing a versatile cloud management experience.

OpenNebula provides a robust platform for building, managing, and automating private and public clouds. Its compatibility with platforms like VMware, KVM, and containers makes it ideal for businesses hosting virtual private clouds and deploying Kubernetes clusters. OpenNebula's API and SDK facilitate automation and integration, allowing organizations to connect with IT systems effectively. Despite its strengths, improvements in object storage, REST API integration, and UI enhancements are needed. The documentation can be disorganized, and users encounter challenges with upgrades and community support.

What are key OpenNebula features?

Scalability: Easily manage resources for growing cloud environments.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies cloud management tasks.
Integration: Connects seamlessly with IT systems using robust API and SDK.
Hypervisor Support: Works with multiple hypervisors and container platforms.

What benefits do users find in OpenNebula?

Efficiency: Streamlines cloud operations, reducing management complexities.
Versatility: Offers support for both virtual and bare metal resources.
Community and Documentation: Though needing improvement, provides valuable resources for users.
Cost-Effectiveness: Lightweight nature minimizes resource expenditure.

OpenNebula implementation spans industries where cloud automation and management are critical. Companies utilize OpenNebula for deploying private clouds and managing infrastructure. Its support for Kubernetes clusters is beneficial in tech-driven sectors, highlighting OpenNebula's adaptability to different operational needs.

OpenNebula

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

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

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula

November 2026

Free Report: Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula

Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula report.

See our list of best Cloud Management vendors.

We monitor all Cloud Management 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.