OpenNebula vs VMware Cloud Director comparison

OpenNebula and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. OpenNebula is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.5, while Broadcom is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.8. OpenNebula holds a 3.7% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 3.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of OpenNebula users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

OpenNebula

Read 15 OpenNebula reviews

2,852 Views
2,738 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware Cloud Director

Read 69 VMware Cloud Director reviews

2,803 Views
2,298 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

OpenNebula

VMware Cloud Director

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

VMware Cloud Director and OpenNebula operate in the cloud infrastructure platform market, with VMware Cloud Director being more suited for enterprise-level deployments due to its comprehensive service offerings, scalability, and advanced features. OpenNebula, on the other hand, appeals to smaller operations because of its open-source nature and ease of use.

Features: VMware Cloud Director is known for extensive cloud service offerings, multi-tenancy, and integration abilities with VMware’s suite, making it robust for enterprise use. OpenNebula is appreciated for its lightweight nature, simple deployment, and support for multiple hypervisors, offering flexibility as a cloud management platform.

Room for Improvement: VMware Cloud Director could enhance its public cloud integration, simplify user experiences, and improve HTML5 support. Users seek better alignment with AWS or Azure. OpenNebula requires stronger community support, better template management capabilities, and advanced cloud features to compete effectively with rivals.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware Cloud Director offers flexible deployment options across various cloud environments, though setup can be complex. Its customer support receives mixed reviews concerning timeliness. Conversely, OpenNebula is praised for straightforward deployment in on-premises setups and customer service simplicity.

Pricing and ROI: VMware Cloud Director's high costs may not suit budget-constrained projects, although its benefits can lead to substantial ROI over time due to enhanced service delivery. OpenNebula, with its cost-effective approach, especially for open-source users, presents an attractive pricing model, delivering quick ROI through low initial investments and operational savings.

To learn more, read our detailed OpenNebula vs. VMware Cloud Director Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula vs. VMware Cloud Director

December 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

OpenNebula

Ranking in Cloud Management

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Cloud Director

Ranking in Cloud Management

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of OpenNebula is 3.7%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Director is 3.8%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware Cloud Director	3.8%
OpenNebula	3.7%
Other	92.5%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

Thomas Bennett

Manager, DevOps System Engineering team at MX

Robust with great CLI tools and UI

I've found OpenNebula upgrades to be more complex than those of some of the competitors and the support to be mediocre. I would also like to see more and better ancillary tools related to OpenNebula, for example, more robust tools for backups, user support, etc. The support knows their software stack reasonably well. However, OpenNebula depends on so many open-source projects that they lack expertise. As with all enterprise software licensing, the pricing is not intuitive and must be negotiated; grandfathered contracts are better than anything offered today.

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KuldeepSingh4

Technical Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Experienced users benefit from resource isolation and valuable self-service portal while seeing potential in enhanced infrastructure visibility

VMware is not going further with VMware Cloud Director. They are integrating the VMware Cloud Director feature with Aria Automation only for the upcoming versions, primarily with the VCF 9, and slowly they are integrating some of the parts they have already integrated, and they might not continue with VMware Cloud Director in the future. They can make it more granular to ensure hardware-level segregation, the underlying infrastructure level of segregation for the end user, and a separate security boundary where users can access the end-to-end layer. End-to-end layer means my software layer along with the hardware layer. If they want to do a certain level of troubleshooting primarily on the ESXi part, that is what I feel is lacking for now because for an end user accessing the SSP, the underlying infrastructure is a kind of black box for them. For VMware Cloud Director, it can be more comprehensive if we enable public cloud integration as well. In today's date, customers are adopting a multi-cloud environment where VMware Cloud Director is much feasible to leverage the underlying VMware backend architecture. If VMware Cloud Director could be made to have more integration with the public cloud and do the day one, day two jobs for public cloud interface as well, that would be beneficial. Additionally, I recommend leveraging the VMware Cloud Director layer if a customer has a multi-cloud environment and is planning some cross-cloud migration capability. Cross-cloud migration refers to if a customer has something on Azure, wanting to bring it up on VMware or maybe from VMware to AWS, vice versa. In that case, VMware Cloud Director should provide some cross-cloud migration capability as well.

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

"OpenNebula is lightweight, stable, and easy to customize."

"It's easy to integrate OpenNebula with our IT systems."

"It is quite easy to deploy."

"OpenNebula is easy to deploy and manage compared to other solutions like OpenStack."

"For the entire data center, as a private cloud, I believe that user management, expert management, and the virtual data center is completely magic for the users."

"It makes maintenance very easy and stress-free for our teams."

"The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often."

More OpenNebula pros

"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director is the scaling architecture that they have built."

"The stability of the product is better than just 'good.'"

"What I found most valuable in vCloud Director is the multi-tenancy."

"This is the go-to tool for anyone looking for standard out-of-the-box capabilities in a fully multitenant public cloud software that they can leverage to offer services to their customers."

"vCloud Director requires less knowledge to get into in the first place. Therefore, when we bring in new members of staff, we can always give them the customer experience straightaway, and they can pick it up quite easily."

"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director for me is its user-friendly UI, which is much easier compared to other platforms."

"Working with VMware has supported us especially in terms of building a very powerful cloud for our customers."

"The self-service portal is the most valuable. We are acting as a service provider, so our customers can take care of their virtual data centers with the self-service portal. Therefore, we don't need staff for it."

More VMware Cloud Director pros

Cons

"There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula."

"They have been saying for the past two and a half years that they would develop a feature to hot-add RAM and CPU, but it does not work."

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

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

"The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement."

"Hosting platforms are limited so the deployment process needs improvement."

"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."

"Most of the competitors are offering some sort of billing software to transform their installation to work as a small-sized public cloud, but those offerings from OpenNebula are still missing."

More OpenNebula cons

"The solution's installation is difficult, and you need somebody with the solution's knowledge to do the installation."

"Cloud Director has room for improvement in many areas. One critical thing that comes to mind is the hyperscalers. They could be more seamlessly integrated into the hybrid cloud."

"There are new updates every quarter, so we need to purchase new support deployment services and some new products."

"Improvements could be made in the building feature since there isn't a real building feature associated with the product. We require a building feature to integrate with other solutions."

"This is very simple in OpenShift. We are happy with vCloud in terms of the virtualization but not for redundancy and distribution."

"VMware should simplify the whole solution as it comprises many different components, making management hard."

"Lacking additional services reduces the level of cloud integration companies just love with Amazon and Azure."

"vCloud Director isn't cheap."

More VMware Cloud Director cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."

"OpenNebula gives good value for money."

"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."

"It's a costly product. The licenses may not be costly, but with every new development in their product, we need to purchase deployment services, and the deployment services are quite costly."

"If ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a four out of ten."

"vCloud Director is priced higher than other solutions, such as Nutanix."

"The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage."

"vCloud Director is a very expensive solution."

"The solution is expensive so pricing is rated a four out of ten."

"In certain cases, the price of Cloud Director is quite high, especially with the load balancing and other features they've introduced. That seems quite costly. Overall, for VSPP programming, I think it's okay. However, features like enterprise load balancing and all these other things are very costly."

"The licensing cost is high for vCloud Director. It is mostly a perpetual license."

More VMware Cloud Director pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	36

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about OpenNebula?

The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often.

See all answers

What needs improvement with OpenNebula?

The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement. Another area for improvement is the integration with hardware to manage the lower layer of the n...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for OpenNebula?

Previously, we were using VMware, but recently, we've started using OpenNebula for cloud management. As a big cloud provider, it helps give customers increased control over their clusters. We use L...

See all answers

Would you change anything about VMware vCloud Director if you could?

VMware vCloud Director works very well and there are not many things that I would like to see changed. However, a single thing comes to mind when I think of improvements and that is integration. In...

See all answers

What is the biggest improvement you saw at your company after you started using VMware vCloud Director?

For my company, VMware vCloud Director noticeably increased operational efficiency. When I started working here a few years ago, my organization was using another cloud management tool. We switched...

See all answers

Is vCloud Director convenient for building applications?

When it comes to building applications, vCloud Director offers you various methods to create cloud-ready ones. For example: Your DevOps team is supported through Infrastructure as Code services w...

See all answers

Comparisons

CloudStack vs OpenNebula

Compared 38% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs OpenNebula

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs OpenNebula

Compared 8% of the time

Morpheus vs OpenNebula

Compared 7% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs OpenNebula

Compared 5% of the time

More OpenNebula Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 18% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 12% of the time

Morpheus vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 9% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 8% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware Cloud Director Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula

December 2025

Download OpenNebula product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Cloud Director

December 2025

Download VMware Cloud Director product report

Also Known As

No data available

vCloud Director

Overview

OpenNebula provides the most simple but feature-rich and flexible solution for the comprehensive management of virtualized data centers to enable private, public and hybrid IaaS clouds. OpenNebula interoperability makes cloud an evolution by leveraging existing IT assets, protecting your investments, and avoiding vendor lock-in.

OpenNebula is a turnkey enterprise-ready solution that includes all the features needed to provide an on-premises (private) cloud offering, and to offer public cloud services.

OpenNebula

VMware Cloud Director, also known as vCloud Director, is a cloud management tool that offers secure, flexible, and efficient cloud resources to thousands of enterprises and IT teams across the world. The solution serves as one of the leading cloud service-delivery platforms for businesses that want to manage and operate their services effectively. By deploying this solution, companies can benefit from virtualized networking, computing, security, and storage. These benefits can be received in a timely manner, as the infrastructure of the product is operationally ready within minutes and clients do not need to install and configure physical infrastructure.

One of the biggest advantages of vCloud Director is that it allows users to build cloud-ready applications. In several ways, it facilitates the process for developers, including:

Open to DevOps: The product addresses the needs of DevOps teams by providing Infrastructure as Code services with vCD Terraform Provider. This allows developers to deliver infrastructure directly from code. Additionally, it provides capabilities from Python and vCD API as well as Object Storage API and App Launchpad APIs.
Customization: This solution is very customizable and extensible for cloud providers to deliver their own branding, themes, and services to their clients.
Dev-ready cloud: vCloud Director offers support for Tanzu Kubernetes Grid for vSphere and multicloud with a plugin for container service extension. Through these, native K8s Clusters or Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Clusters can be delivered and managed through a user interface (UI) and application programming interface (API).

vCloud Director Features

This VMware product has various features through which users can virtualize their data and benefit from quality management solutions. Among the popular capabilities of vCloud Director are:

Elastic secure virtual data centers: This vCloud Director feature provides tenants with securely isolated virtual resources, fine-grained control of their public cloud services, and independent role-based authentication.
Multi-site management: This feature allows companies to stretch data centers across sites and geographies as well as connect to existing dedicated vCenters for access and management or on-broad into VMware vCloud Director.
ISV ecosystem: This feature integrates leading cloud service vendors into the product using an open extensibility framework. Some of the partners of vCloud Director include Dell Data Protection, Veeam, Cloudian, AWS S3, and Dell ECS.
DRaaS workload protection: This feature allows users to deliver self-service tiered disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) on-premises to cloud and cloud to cloud.
Cloud migration: Part of this feature is the plugin VMware Cloud Director Availability, which enables simple migration to cloud, offering self-service cold or warm migration to users' vCloud Director clouds.
Operational visibility and insights: The product includes an accessible dashboard and a single pane of glass to provide centralized multi-tenant cloud management views.
Cloud-native applications and development: This feature makes the platform suitable for developers to sandbox or deploy apps as it natively supports Tanzu Basic, native K8s, and PKS.
Automation: Through various tools and deep integration, the solution allows users to automate complex infrastructure-as-code and tile UI-driven workflows. This allows them to deploy X-as-a-Service and maintain full access control and visibility at the same time.
Application Platform as a Service: This feature enables users to deliver their own catalog-based applications or VMware Cloud Marketplace-certified third-party cloud applications through the plugin App Launchpad VMware Cloud Director.
GPU as a Service: Utilizing Nvidia AI Enterprise, this feature provides support for GPU as a Service and delivers multi-tenant GPU services for customers who require high-performance compute for GPU-specific applications.
Secure cloud: The solution supports multiple security-centric features to deliver an enterprise-class cloud service, including NSX-T distributed firewalling, workload encryption, and integrated disaster recovery replication.

vCloud Director Benefits

VMware vCloud Director offers various benefits to its users. Some of these include:

The solution provides a highly efficient self-service model which consists of a virtual data center compute, network, storage, and security.
VMware vCloud Director offers its users multi-tenancy infrastructure with deep automation which facilitates their daily tasks.
The product is cost-efficient, as it is service-ready on its very first day and offers a high revenue from services.
Businesses can deliver services to their clients in a timely manner through this product, benefitting from its natively integrated solutions.
VMware vCloud Director provides users with high flexibility, as it allows businesses to stretch networks across virtual data centers globally.
The solution provides load-balancing capabilities, which facilitate the creation of new hybrid applications and digital transformation initiatives.

Reviews from Real Users

Ajit Y., a cloud architect at a computer software company, likes VMware vCloud Director because it is a stable, truly multitenant software and the go-to tool for infrastructure as a service.

Kashif F., a divisional engineer at National Telecom Corporatio, rates vCloud Director highly because the product can be used for infrastructure provisioning without using a platform service.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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

MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula vs. VMware Cloud Director

December 2025

Free Report: OpenNebula vs. VMware Cloud Director

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