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Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Nutanix Cloud Manager boosts ROI by enhancing IT performance, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and improving infrastructure stability.
Sentiment score
4.6
Umbrella achieved a 231% ROI over three years, boosting productivity and security despite high setup costs.
Anything that reduces bandwidth and reduces the brain work that our teams have to do to maintain systems across all environments is time-saving and cost-saving.
Vice President at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Quantifying to a 425% three-year return on investment, a 21% higher developer productivity, and 88% less planned downtime.
Global Group CIO, CTO, Cdo & CISO at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees
The biggest return on investment for me when using this product is the fast deployment and the rapid integration and migration without impacting our operations during the migration.
IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGER
The platform has helped reduce security risk by proactively blocking malicious websites, phishing attempts, and other threats at the DNS layer before they reach the end users.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
We have seen a significant return on investment, which I mentioned earlier in the data.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
We have seen an approximate ROI of around 231% over three years.
Soc For Ddi at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Manager support is praised for quick responses, knowledgeable staff, proactive troubleshooting, and high customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
5.1
Cisco's customer service is highly praised for its responsiveness, effectiveness, and user-friendly support portal, ensuring no end-user complaints.
There is a feature that allows you to escalate the call.
Team Lead, IT Infrastructure at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
The handoff with support and the knowledge of the support engineer is significantly better than experience with other vendors.
Citrix & IT Operations Manager, Cloud at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Even when a node goes down, it doesn't impact our infrastructure because it gets load-balanced between the available nodes.
Technology Lead at Thomson Reuters
I can reach them anytime for any problem I am having in my environment, and they provide great support with minimum downtime for any problem I may have.
Soc For Ddi at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco Umbrella's customer support is very good, and the product itself is supported by strong customer service.
Cyber Security Engineer at CNS Engineering
I rate the customer support of Umbrella 10 out of 10.
Product Manager at Frontier Business systems
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Nutanix Cloud Manager offers scalable, efficient workload management and centralized control for organizations of all sizes without performance issues.
Sentiment score
5.5
Umbrella offers scalable, cloud-based security, allowing seamless expansion for businesses of any size with minimal infrastructure changes.
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) scales well.
Citrix & IT Operations Manager, Cloud at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
The key aspects include mix-match hardware and hyper-converged infrastructure, combining compute, storage, and network in a single platform.
Senior Information Technology Advisor at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
With that, you can do it without any downtime or affecting your current setup.
Assistant Consultant ( Technical Lead) at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Since it is a cloud-delivered service, it can support a growing number of users, devices, and locations without requiring significant on-premises infrastructure.
Data Security Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Umbrella has definitely handled our organizational growth perfectly.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella's scalability is very much flexible as you just buy a license and you can scale as much as you want.
Product Manager at Frontier Business systems
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Manager receives mixed feedback on stability, with praise for reliability and criticism for occasional issues like memory leaks.
Sentiment score
8.2
Umbrella offers high stability, quick issue resolution, blocks harmful URLs, and is favored for its dependable performance in various conditions.
We've never had any downtime related to the Nutanix product itself.
Sr. Network Systems Administrator at Moda Health
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
Sr System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The stability and reliability of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) have been excellent.
Director, Information Technology at a government with 201-500 employees
Umbrella is definitely a scalable and stable solution.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella has taken action by preventing and blocking access.
specialty cybersecurity at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
To my knowledge, everything went well when I was using that technology.
Field on-site engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Nutanix Cloud Manager needs user-friendly design improvements, better pricing clarity, enhanced features, and improved multi-cloud integration.
Umbrella faces challenges in features, costs, integration, reporting, AI transparency, Linux support, migration, deployment, and user experience.
It supports different hardware types without vendor lock-in, which is an advantage over Azure Stack HCI, which may only work with specific vendors such as HP or Dell.
Technology Lead at Thomson Reuters
Our primary reason for choosing Nutanix was for mission-critical applications and Kubernetes.
Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Implementing MFA would enhance security and usability.
Manager (cyber security) at Yotta datacenter pvt ltd
There is no downtime or challenges.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella's strong DNS layer security helps block malware, phishing, ransomware, and malicious domains through centralized policy management.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
If Cisco can enhance integration breadth and policy flexibility, it would alleviate frustrations for teams managing a hybrid multi-vendor environment.
Network Security Engineer at Syndicateinfo solution
 

Setup Cost

Nutanix Cloud Manager is valued for flexible pricing and ROI, though pricing transparency could improve for diverse needs.
Umbrella offers transparent pricing and flexible licensing with value in security, easing deployment and procurement via AWS Marketplace.
It's not cheap, but there are savings and return on investment when coming from a non-Nutanix shop.
Citrix & IT Operations Manager, Cloud at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
In comparison, Nutanix's pricing is significantly higher than that of other setups.
Cloud Engineer at CtrlS Datacenters Ltd
While VMware costs depend on ESXi hypervisor pricing, the AHV hypervisor for Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is free.
Senior Information Technology Advisor at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The cost compared to other solutions is really cheap.
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Umbrella is a high-enterprise cost product, so one should look at their budget before implementing this solution.
Soc For Ddi at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Although Umbrella may be priced higher, the security features, centralized management, threat protection, and ease of deployment provide good value for the investment.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
 

Valuable Features

Nutanix Cloud Manager offers centralized, user-friendly management, automation, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency for hybrid cloud environments with intuitive interfaces.
Umbrella enhances cybersecurity with DNS security, blocking threats while offering quick deployment, seamless integration, and cost savings.
It's easy to control resources and govern the resources, and it frees up support to focus on other things without having to help developers.
Citrix & IT Operations Manager, Cloud at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would approximate the cost savings to be in the 20% to 25% range since we can optimize our resources and avoid the need to purchase more hardware or reuse resources in the infrastructure from one implementation.
Sr. Network Systems Administrator at Moda Health
The importance of faster outcomes for their environment is significant; for example, when I delivered the Disaster Recovery solution, we included automation for auto-configuration of VMs and resizing of VMs, which replaced many tasks that were previously done manually.
Spécialiste VMware at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Umbrella has positively impacted my organization by allowing our IT team to know that our users and our remote locations are having safe traffic.
Managing Director
I am able to achieve almost net zero incidents.
Product Manager at Frontier Business systems
The platform effectively leverages threat intelligence and automated analysis to identify and block malicious domains, phishing attempts, and emergency cyber threats.
System Administrator at Relay Human Cloud
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (4th), Cloud Management (2nd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th)
Umbrella
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Cloud Cost Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Umbrella is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Cost Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)2.2%
Umbrella0.8%
Other97.0%
Cloud Cost Management
 

Featured Reviews

Phani Venkata Sai BKD - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Lead at Thomson Reuters
Manages hybrid infrastructure seamlessly with flexible cluster scaling and comprehensive oversight
The most important aspect of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it helps us manage the infrastructure as a hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. If I have different physical servers, I can map them into a cluster and manage the storage together. It provides flexibility to make use of storage in a clustered format instead of using it in an individual storage endpoint. We have the flexibility to have Nutanix-based licensing based on the core model, instead of having a specific cost on the cluster. The costing on a core model gives customers flexibility to add multiple cores to a single physical host and adjust the infrastructure accordingly, and we can scale up the cluster as needed. While other cloud providers, AWS or Azure, are mostly into cloud-based solutions, and Azure has introduced Azure Stack HCI for managing on-premises infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one. We can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens. It provides a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and highlights specific areas through alerts, giving us good visibility of infrastructure conditions.
Srivathsanr R. - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Business Finance at Zensar Technologies
Gained clearer financial governance and have improved cloud cost visibility and forecasting
I do not feel that anything needs to be changed. Umbrella is solving the purpose and is on point. The UI is intuitive and user-friendly. The learning curve is very easy. The features provided are on point. There is no downtime or challenges, and it is easy to learn and easy to use. In total, I do not feel that improvement is needed as per our organizational use case. Maybe for other organizations, they might have some suggestions, but for our organization specifically, I do not feel that they are lacking somewhere. It is already providing us the best thing. Almost everything is working as we expect. Small things we do not always point out. I feel that it works well and we do not have such problems with them specifically.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise75
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

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 Umbrella?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is neutral; it is not too good or bad, but reasonable for the market. Licensing is based on headcount in our organization, but now we need to ...
What needs improvement with Umbrella?
While Umbrella provides good visibility, reporting and dashboard customization could be improved by being more flexible, especially for management and compliance reporting. When a domain is blocked...
What is your primary use case for Umbrella?
My main use case for Umbrella involves whitelisting and blacklisting of URLs. I want to provide feedback on Umbrella as it functions. Umbrella provides strong DNS layer security and blocks maliciou...
 

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
Anodot
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Rubicon, Microsoft, Credit Karma, LivePerson, AOL, Vroom, Outfit7, Telit, NetSeer, Wix, Inneractive, EyeView, Etoro
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.