No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Salesforce Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
97
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Development Platforms (3rd), Rapid Application Development Software (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 5.1%, down from 9.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 3.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Platform3.7%
Pivotal Cloud Foundry5.1%
Other91.2%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2263239 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
PCF allows for fine-grained configuration, especially regarding scaling but routing limitations
Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice. A few things, such as what OpenShift does better are cluster management. Like, you can manage the entire thing together. Currently, it's possible to manage all the clusters, especially when it comes to cluster management using straightforward configuration. As of now, we have to handle each application instance individually, which means servicing them one by one. It would be better if we could perform these actions as a group or in a more streamlined manner. One more downside is actually the cost of this environment. So, major downside of Pivotal, it's the cost. So, the runtime running costs are very high. Extremely high.
Sharmila-K - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Transformations and Infrastructure Delivery Manager at a university with 10,001+ employees
Integration processes improve but scripting requires effort
The updates, pricing part, and upgrades to the products are some of the most valuable features with the Salesforce Platform.With the Salesforce Platform, I have minimal experience of approximately one and a half years. I get minimal exposure, once every three or two months, especially during holidays. The Salesforce Platform is connected to the cloud, which is beneficial. When it is integrated with different tools such as Microsoft BI Analytics, it helps us analyze much better. Currently, the integration itself is tricky as we have to use extensive scripting. It should be more of a plug-in and use solution. That is the only issue I see, but otherwise, I appreciate it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"The solution is stable, and we have not experienced any infrastructure issues, so it is very good and captures a few metrics, onboarding to App Dynamics."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."
"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies, and it has very good performance."
"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."
"Compared to other CRM applications, Salesforce is very good and you can set it up in the cloud."
"The Salesforce Platform's most valuable features are everything in one place, perfect reporting, highly customizable, and easy to receive information you need."
"The solution has plenty of features that are useful."
"With Salesforce Platform, we are able to focus on business outcomes and we need not worry about infrastructure at all."
"From a capability standpoint, Salesforce has really met our needs."
"The stability has been great."
"When compared to Siebel, the Salesforce Platform is easier to use."
"The most valuable aspect is that all data is stored in one place, making it easy to find what is needed and to report on it."
 

Cons

"Scalability is terrible. So far we have not been able to scale it up."
"The initial setup was not easy, it was a bit complex."
"I would prefer to use Amazon AWS or Google Cloud Platform rather than Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve the documentation. They are good, but they could improve more. Additionally, it would be beneficial if there were more use case examples."
"Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice."
"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is not scalable, infinitely, because when you install it on a set of virtual machines it is very hard to scale. It's easy to scale on an application level, but not it is not similar to if you were using Amazon. Amazon you can scale thousands of applications."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology, it is a bit complex."
"Customer Service: A three out of 10. Technical Support: A two out of 10."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"Salesforce is a pretty cumbersome product. It's a product that you need to spend quite a bit of time customizing to your unique business model. Unless you have somebody in house that knows it really well, you're better off spending money with a consultant to get what you need."
"Salesforce Platform could improve by having better integration with Microsoft Azure. For development, we use Microsoft Azure and there was proper integration between the two solutions. We had issues with the customer and they were logged into the Salesforce Platform. We did not have any good way of integrating those issues into the R&D. The R&D mainly uses Microsoft Azure."
"Getting reports in Salesforce is sometimes a little bit difficult. You need to do a lot of things to get detailed reports. This feature can be improved. Its price can also be improved. It is currently expensive."
"In terms of features, for our business needs, we have more than enough right now. There is nothing that we are missing or would like to add. They can maybe share some best practices so that when you are starting, you can stick to a good process, and you don't have to think so much about the process that you want or your CEO or CMO wants. The process should not be based on one person in the company. Having some best practices will make it easier to get started. These best practices can be based on what has worked for others. Its basic version is pretty simple, and the customizations are up to the companies, which can make startups like ours lose a lot of time in figuring out what all stakeholders want rather than what would work."
"It may be slow, but that is relative. When compared to Siebel CRM, which was large, clunky, and extremely slow, Salesforce seemed fast to me."
"Its documentation and price should be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI."
"I don't know anything about its cost, but I'm sure it has got a nice little price tag that goes along with it."
"Salesforce charges double the rates, or almost three times, compared to its competitors. Our company does incur additional charges for maintenance and support."
"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."
"I haven't had to buy Salesforce, however, I have heard it's $1500 a user."
"The price of Salesforce Platform is very expensive. There are other solutions that are similar that cost a quarter of what Salesforce Platform does, such as HubSpot."
"It is expensive."
"The cost of this solution depends on negotiations. It is somewhere between expensive and reasonable. There is always additional costs for consulting services. It's the kind of solution that requires consulting, but it is not a licensing cost. It is a consulting cost. It is CAPEX versus OPEX."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which PaaS Clouds solutions are best for your needs.
904,680 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
34%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Consumer Goods Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?
I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...
How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?
Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...
Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?
At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...
 

Also Known As

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank
ADP
Find out what your peers are saying about Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
904,680 professionals have used our research since 2012.