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Red Hat CloudForms vs VMware Cloud Director 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

Red Hat CloudForms
Ranking in Cloud Management
29th
Average Rating
6.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
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
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Red Hat CloudForms is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Director is 5.4%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Cloud Director5.4%
Red Hat CloudForms1.5%
Other93.1%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ilhami Arikan - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution that helps to provision servers
We use the solution to provision servers.  I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs.   The solution's provisioning engine needs to be improved.  I would rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.  I would rate the product's scalability a seven out of ten and…
KuldeepSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The optimization of the solution is quite interesting."
"I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs."
"I am impressed with the product's reports."
"They are a very mature product."
"The most valuable features of Red Hat CloudForms are the benefit of the collective functionality."
"The solution is compatible and integrates with various infrastructures or providers."
"The multi-tenancy feature has been very helpful for our clients. It has been working fine and seamlessly for them. Its interface is also very simplified, and it is also an open and easy-to-scale solution."
"Red Hat CloudForms is stable once it is up and running."
"The orchestration and automation are very valuable."
"The product allows us to add or remove features."
"The solution has more capabilities than OpenStack and integrates well with NSX and vCenter."
"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."
"vCloud Director has improved our organization in so far as it is an easy solution to sell. I believe this is the case due to the fact that it is an easy tool to manage and to configure."
"Working with VMware has supported us especially in terms of building a very powerful cloud for our customers."
"VMware Cloud Director is quite scalable; I would rate it nine out of ten."
"This solution has helped us make money and provision our clients faster."
 

Cons

"The problem is that the platform requires it to be maintained and updated. Also, a few cases are still pending with the Red Hat support team since they are not closed yet."
"Red Hat CloudForms could improve by allowing more customization of reports. We have to do a lot of coding to accomplish what we want. Additionally, the compatibility with the multi-cloud could improve. The latter versions of the solution removed Google support and the cost comparison between other clouds was high."
"The solution's provisioning engine needs to be improved."
"I have issues with the solution's permissions. Unlike VMware, the product doesn't allow folder-type permissions."
"Our clients had challenges or issues with the updates. Its updates should be better managed. They should provide quicker and more stable updates. Its stability can also be better. We initially faced ease-of-use and compatibility issues while integrating it. We had a lot of compatibility issues with other products. Our clients are concerned about whether it is under IBM or it is still Red Hat. Clients are not very clear about the support, and they're not really happy with it. Currently, they're getting support from Red Hat, but going forward, they're not really clear about what would be the life cycle of the product, which is a concern for them."
"It is difficult to create a complete dashboard that includes all the needed features or catalogs."
"Because the solution needs to integrate with other products that surround it, there is a lot of configuration required, and this can be quite complex. It's not as easy as it is with, for example, VMware."
"The complexity of the solution is a bit high in comparison to VMware."
"In version 6.7, compatibility to migrate VMs from a vCenter to vCloud Director had a problem. However, this has been solved in the newest version."
"Database services need to go beyond what they are currently doing."
"The initial setup is not straightforward; it can be complicated. The deployment can take one to two weeks."
"What could be improved in vCloud Director, particularly from the networking side, is its integration with other network devices. It also needs a more simplified installation because the process is a little bit complicated."
"The integration between components could be improved."
"If you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution."
"This solution could improve by adding root cause analysis."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's licensing is based on the number of servers."
"It is definitely cheaper than VMware. Everything is included. There is no challenge there."
"The price of Red Hat CloudForms was not competitive, it was expensive."
"Red Hat CloudForms is a bit expensive."
"Red Hat CloudForms has a subscript-based pricing model. The cost is approximately $20,000 annually which allows you to use as many users as you want."
"It enables us to provision new clients more quickly."
"The licensing costs are pretty high, but it might depend on the size of the company."
"The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage."
"We are able to provision new clients faster. Every month, we take on more customers."
"If ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as a four out of ten."
"I believe the pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"We are paying around $ 15,000 per month for vCloud Director, and it would be nice if it could be made cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
16%
University
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise36
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vCloud Director
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cox Automotive, Penn State, FICO, G-ABLE, Seneca College, ITandTEL, The Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS), MyRepublic, Macquarie, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, CBTS, Network Data Solutions (NDS)
MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat CloudForms vs. VMware Cloud Director and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.