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Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Spacelift 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
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th)
Spacelift
Ranking in Cloud Management
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 5.5%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spacelift is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vipin Kumar Sha - PeerSpot reviewer
Stands out with auto-scaling, auto-scheduled snapshots, and single-vendor support
The areas that could be improved include the Nutanix Move tool, which is presently used for migrating VMs from one setup to a private cloud. It can be improved by adding some other setups, such as Citrix Xen, Red Hat Virtualization, and Red Hat OpenShift. There are many other cloud products that need to be added to the Nutanix Move tool, which would be really helpful for us in India, where we use different setups such as Red Hat Virtualization, OpenShift, Citrix XenCenter, Hyper-V, and VMware. The second suggestion is regarding the different clusters in Nutanix. Although Nutanix is very user-friendly and codeless, the individual clusters cannot be logged in at the same time via Prism, which takes time and can be wasteful. We have multiple clusters within Nutanix. Prism serves as the central management interface, allowing us to access these different clusters. When we log in through Prism, it takes a certain amount of time—sometimes several minutes—to log into each individual cluster. This can be quite time-consuming. Another important issue, especially for our customers in India and other data centers, is the need for proper VM tool reports. We require detailed information such as VM names, IP addresses, CPU assignments, and CPU utilization. This data should be exported in an Excel format. For example, if a virtual machine has four CPUs, the Excel report should include entries like: VM name, IP address, 4 CPUs, and current utilization (e.g., if 2 out of 4 CPUs are being used). We also need to capture other parameters, such as memory and disk configurations (e.g., hard disk 1 and hard disk 2), whether any ISOs are mounted (like CD/DVDs), USB drives attached to the VM, storage types (like NVM), and any RDMs associated with the VM. By extracting all this information into an Excel file, we would create a handy inventory for all the engineers. This detailed VM list would be extremely beneficial for cloud engineers and managers working with Nutanix.
Moloko Mokubedi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The file server feature in Nutanix is very good, offering a solution-worthy feature that can host files, blocks, and object storage in the same cluster."
"The best feature of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is Life Cycle Manager."
"What I like the most about it is how intuitive it is to use. It's easy for users to use and provides the data we want."
"The executive dashboard is valuable and provides a complete sense of the whole infrastructure."
"The most valuable features are the compliance features and the chargebacks."
"What I appreciate about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it gives us a good, simple view that really plays effectively when we're trying to talk to other teams to show them their VM has too many resources."
"One of the solution's greatest strengths is its "Single pane of glass" feature, which allows users to access all pertinent data in one location immediately upon logging in. Additionally, the solution's ease of deployment and mobility are notable aspects that I personally find appealing."
"NCM gives us greater insight into our infrastructure because we have more reporting and alert capabilities. We can get a breakdown of VM efficiency and determine which ones are over-provisioned, constrained, or using up too many resources in an instance."
"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."
"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."
"Spacelift is like an extension of Terraform, where everything can be visibly managed."
"One key feature is the Spacelift policies, which we can attach to deployments to ensure compliance with our standards."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in making the solution easier still. If you don't know Calm, it's not so easy to use... It is a really good solution for doing simple tasks, but it's not a good solution for complex tasks."
"I think the Prism Center needs to include more functions. I know that they're including the Nutanix Era, which is the database management and disaster recovery tool. I think that Era should include everything on a single tool where you can manage everything you need inside your organization."
"In this solution, it is difficult to organize the VM folders and subfolders."
"It will be better if they can extend this to non-AHV hypervisors and also non-Nutanix clusters so that people who need this feature but can not goto HCI currently can make use of this product."
"Perhaps the only point I see as an improvement would be the support of multiple languages ​​in the environment. One of the few things within which I see an improvement point could be the inclusion of multilanguage in the environment."
"I do, however, wish that the cluster would come preinstalled with the OS, as ours did not, and it took quite a bit of tinkering, trial and error, calls to Nutanix support, and an ample amount of time to figure out how to get everything up and running."
"The biggest issue we've run into is not being able to quickly share information."
"Nowadays, we see systems breaking a lot. I know that the current features of Nutanix Cloud Manager help to monitor the container world and modern applications, but as more microservices are getting deployed, more micro-management of those services needs to be done."
"Spacelift currently lacks features that can help with complex type deployments and coordination for major deployments."
"Synchronization can be difficult when using older and newer versions with Kubernetes and HashiCorp."
"In the free version, there's no straightforward way to be notified once a deployment is finished."
"The self-hosted version does not have a lot of features compared to the SaaS version, such as cloud integrations for Azure and GCP."
"If you are a small enterprise organization, below 500 people, I would not recommend it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to UCS and the NetApp storage, Nutanix is actually cheaper."
"Nutanix Cloud Manager is an expensive solution."
"In my opinion, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is expensive."
"Its acquisition and support cost is nominal. It is not too high, and it is not too low. It is within the budget, and there are no issues on that part."
"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is cheaper than VMware and other products."
"Its licensing is cheaper than VMware. However, the price for certain licenses or use cases is not clearly indicated. For example, replication of the cluster to switch from one VM to another when one is down is not included in the standard price. It requires an additional license, but it is not clearly indicated."
"The pricing is less compared to Hyper-V."
"The company frequently changes its prices, and it is not clear how the subscription-based model works."
"It is a bit expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
33%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Educational Organization
11%
Media Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 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?
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. Spa...
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.
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. Spacelift and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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