CloudStack vs Red Hat CloudForms vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

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2,236 views|1,568 comparisons
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66% willing to recommend
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93% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between CloudStack, Red Hat CloudForms, and VMware Aria Automation based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management.
To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Management Report (Updated: April 2024).
767,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"You can use a single API to get things done, rather than multiple APIs on multiple modules.""When compared to OpenStack, CloudStack is also an open-source platform that is continuously improving its features and capabilities with each new version release. Having worked with CloudStack 4.7, 4.14, and most recently, 4.17, I have noticed significant enhancements in the platform's features and customer experience, such as the introduction of a new user interface in the latest release. Notably, the latest versions have made major improvements to VM live migrations, making them more efficient and effective.""It gives us the ability to manage and segregate a guest network with openvSwitch and VLAN IDs.""You can manage infrastructure with a few people, since product is monolithic. We had three engineers (storage, virtual, Linux admins) only. Also, CS supports different flavours of hypervisors.""CloudStack, by default, gives us a zone-based setup which makes it easier to manage datacenters located in different geographical areas.""Multiple types of hypervisor support, multi-zone support, and VPC are great valuable features.""It is very easy to install and manage. It has the all modules in one node, unlike other software (OpenStack). The product allows a customized look and feel, and the ability to add custom workflows.""It has become easy to deploy new devices with no or minimal hardware changes. Now, a user can be ready to use a firewall within a few minutes, as compared to the traditional physical model which involved purchase, shipping, hardware configuration, cabling, power, etc."

More CloudStack Pros →

"Red Hat CloudForms is a stable product. There is no issue with the stability.""The solution is compatible and integrates with various infrastructures or providers.""I am impressed with the product's reports.""I am impressed with the product's ability to create dynamic catalogs.""They are a very mature product.""The optimization of the solution is quite interesting.""The most valuable features of Red Hat CloudForms are the benefit of the collective functionality.""The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't had any issues with it."

More Red Hat CloudForms Pros →

"The most valuable feature is, instead of doing the VMotion manually, we have automated everything with a script, using vRealize. That means I don't need to think about things like compatibility. The system will do everything for me and just give me a report.""The blueprint functionality of the product is intuitive and user-friendly. The concept of the blueprints is visual and easy to use.""The most valuable feature is being able to deploy a virtual machine from a low level. We can automate everything including network configuration, firewall configuration, storage, storage attachment, OS deployment, middleware, and so forth.""The IT support for developers is nice as well because they are able to manage the environment themselves.""The infrastructure has helped us to greatly increase our agility.""value; It has provided my development team a pure self-service portal. We deploy thousands of machines and reclaim. So, their time to business, and their time to market has been improved exponentially.""We can connect between multiple VMs in a matter of seconds.""With the advent of the automation, we've been able to give DevOps the ability to spin up environments, give them lease times, and then have it automatically reclaim the environment."

More VMware Aria Automation Pros →

Cons
"We recognize that CloudStack is an easy-to-use cloud management platform and, in my opinion, there has been a large number of improvements in the past few years, particular when it comes to the modern UI and overall ease of management. However, I believe that CloudStack needs to grow their marketing in the commercial side. They don't have a great piece of market share right now.""The absence of the feature, deploy an instance from a snapshot, is the weak point of the platform. It is a feature that everyone needs nowadays.""I would like to see support for native VLAN, and fault-tolerance.""VPN P2S is cutting all connections except the CloudStack environment for the user when he is connected. I would like to have VPN like Cisco's AnyConnect.""This product needs a lot improvement on the development side. Every new version introduces new bugs. It lacks many features needed for NFV like DPDK, SR-IOV support, etc.""Companies need to be knowledgeable about cloud technology. It's not for novice users.""It would be great to have a couple of “external” networks for VPC and have the possibility, for each domain, to choose they type of “external” network.""The numerous, multi-layered drill-down menus make it difficult to find one simple knob to turn."

More CloudStack Cons →

"All of the areas of Red Hat CloudForms could improve. It doesn't do half of the things that it says it can do out of the box. It takes configuration to make any of it work, which is not uncommon for solutions similar to this. However, it is frustrating.""It is difficult to create a complete dashboard that includes all the needed features or catalogs.""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.""The complexity of the solution is a bit high in comparison to VMware.""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.""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."

More Red Hat CloudForms Cons →

"I know you can spin up virtual desktops in vRA, but they're not thin-provisioned. I don't know if that's because the other product, Horizon View, is there, but it would be nice to see more integration.""Automation or scripting should be simplified so that administrators who are not experts can have a better grasp of automation.""We are migrating from vRA version 7 to 8, but the migration is really hectic and time-consuming. There are no straightforward paths to migrate. We are doing an entirely new deployment to go to vRA version 8.0, then somehow get all of the VMs to vRA 8.0. Therefore, it would have been great if VMware had some solutions to upgrade from vRA 7 to 8 seamlessly. This includes the management of all the objects or VMs from the older version. Unfortunately, it is not there.""One of the features that's a struggle today is some of the public cloud extensibility. Some of the plugins that are native to vRA and vRO, I'd like to see them come out earlier for vRO. I understand that in vRA, the plugins are a little bit more polished because the VRA is the GUI. But we'd like to see them released earlier in vRO, prior to a GUI being released. Azure, for example, is a public cloud provider but we have some instability issues with the plugin in vRO. It's okay for us if we separate the vRA from vRO plugin releases. So I'd like to see some increased stability in some of those public cloud plugins.""Stability has gotten a lot better. However, the vRO aspect, when you have a multi vRA head, is a little bit finicky still. vRO still needs to stay on one appliance and be one application, because, when you have two, you can't see runs on the other one that are happening when you're not logged into that one.""The connectivity between VMs is easy, but they can be made more effective if we have a single proof point where we can configure all the biggest data at a single point.""I don't find it to be user-friendly or intuitive because, in my case, when I have to deploy SAP systems, I need to jump between the vRA, the vRO, and the actual vCenter itself. I need to go back and forth to do different things... I wish they could make it just one application, just vRA, that does all that. There might be a way to do it but I haven't figured out how to do it yet.""I don't find it to be entirely user-friendly. There are a lot of complicated menus within menus within menus. Things move around from version to version."

More VMware Aria Automation Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The Apache CloudStack is open source, so you do not have licenses to purchase."
  • "​Give an effort to planning. If possible, contract a specialized consultant company for the initial setup and knowledge transfer.​​"
  • "As far as I know, CS is still free of charge. If you want to pay some money, Citrix Cloud Platform is based on CS, I think. As for hypervisors – everything as usual, you need to pay for VMware and vCenter. As for XenServer, recently they changed the free feature list, so you may need to pay some money to get useful features like XenMotion."
  • "There is no license, so the product is free unless you are buying professional technical support services."
  • "CloudStack is an open source solution, so you don't need to pay anything for it. When our company develops something specially for CloudStack, it is donated to the Apache Software Foundation and provided to anyone that wants to use it."
  • "The solution is open-source and free."
  • "It is a 100% open-source solution needing just an Apache license. Also, there are no hidden fees to be paid."
  • "CloudStack is an open-source product."
  • More CloudStack Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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 has a subscript-based pricing model. The cost is approximately $20,000 annually which allows you to use as many users as you want."
  • "The product's licensing is based on the number of servers."
  • "Red Hat CloudForms is a bit expensive."
  • More Red Hat CloudForms Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
  • "I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
  • "Better pricing is always handy, but I feel it's at the right price point."
  • "We have seen significant ROI. We used to have physical servers, it took 90 days to get a server, order it, buy it, and get it in. We have it down to 10 minutes, building a server with virtualization, and now that's too slow. So, we let the customer do it at their speed. Therefore, it is pretty much up in a couple of minutes and they have a server."
  • "The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
  • "There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
  • "vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
  • "As far as value is concerned, it has been essential to our environment. We have been able to deploy VMs quickly and the developers have their own sandbox, so they can spin up and destroy VMs at their own will."
  • More VMware Aria Automation Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The initial implementation process was quite good.
    Top Answer:CloudStack is an open-source product. I rate the pricing an eight out of ten. It provides good value.
    Top Answer:The product had some limitations. So, I decided to write my own stack from scratch. The product does not have an easily… more »
    Top Answer:I am impressed with the product's reports.
    Top Answer:I have issues with the solution's permissions. Unlike VMware, the product doesn't allow folder-type permissions.
    Top Answer:I would rate the product a four out of ten since its implementation is not as good as it sounds.
    Top Answer:vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you… more »
    Top Answer:When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free… more »
    Top Answer:I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of… more »
    Ranking
    12th
    out of 75 in Cloud Management
    Views
    2,236
    Comparisons
    1,568
    Reviews
    7
    Average Words per Review
    735
    Rating
    8.3
    7th
    out of 75 in Cloud Management
    Views
    4,709
    Comparisons
    4,269
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    392
    Rating
    6.2
    1st
    out of 75 in Cloud Management
    Views
    8,502
    Comparisons
    5,008
    Reviews
    15
    Average Words per Review
    599
    Rating
    7.7
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Vmops, Cloud.com
    VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite
    Learn More
    Overview
    Apache CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.

    Manage container, virtual, private, and public cloud infrastructures

    Managing a complex, hybrid IT environment can require multiple management tools, redundant policy implementations, and extra staff to handle the operations. Red Hat® CloudForms simplifies IT, providing unified management and operations in a hybrid environment.

    As your IT infrastructure progresses from traditional virtualization toward an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model, CloudForms evolves, protecting your investments and providing consistent user experience and functionality.

    VMware Aria Automation is a cloud management tool that allows companies to simplify their cloud experience through a modern automation platform. The solution is designed to deliver self-service clouds, multi-cloud automation with governance, and DevOps-based security and infrastructure management. It helps organizations improve IT agility, efficiency, and productivity through its various features. 

    VMware Aria Automation has multiple use cases that include the following:

    • Self-service multi-cloud: VMware Aria Automation can be used to deliver consistent self-service consumption. Another use case in this area is for delivering infrastructure across VMware Clouds as well as public clouds.

    • Multi-cloud governance: The solution can be used to manage cost, performance, networking, configuration, and security at scale for multi-cloud environments. VMware Aria Automation offers all this with an everything-as-code approach.

    • DevOps for infrastructure: Through VMware Aria Automation, companies can enable a powerful infrastructure as code platform with support for iterative development and infrastructure pipelining.

    • Kubernetes automation: Users can utilize VMware Aria Automation to automate the management of Kubernetes clusters and namespaces with support for vSphere with Tanzu.

    • Security operations: VMware Aria Automation facilitates event-driven automation to deliver full-service IT system compliance enforcement and vulnerability remediation.

    VMware Aria Automation Features

    VMware Aria Automation has various features that allow users to easily perform operations. Some of the solution's capacities include:

    • VMware Cloud agnostic template: This feature allows organizations to use a single cloud template to deploy with Infrastructure as a Code. Deployment options include VMware Cloud as well as major public cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more.

    • Extensibility and customization: This VMware Aria Automation feature allows users to get full extensibility and customization. This can be achieved through Aria Automation Orchestrator, Action-Based Extensibility (ABX), and built-in integrations with common third-party tools.

    • Self-service multi-cloud: This feature enables users to request and provision infrastructure resources. It can be done across clouds using a unified and consistent Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) consumption layer, idempotent REST API, and self-service catalog.

    • Centralized policies and governance: VMware Aria Automation offers a feature for users to manage multiple clouds with templatized cloud and policy definition, automated remediation, and cloud environment visibility.

    • Configuration management: Through this feature of the product, day 1 and 2 control can be achieved for virtualized and cloud environments. This can be done with intuitive configuration automation, compliance enforcement, and vulnerability remediation.

    • Infrastructure pipelining: Through this feature, organizations can access user-friendly release automation pipelines. They can be specifically tailored for CI/CD in infrastructure use cases.

    VMware Aria Automation Benefits

    VMware Aria Automation offers its users various benefits. Some of the biggest advantages that the solution brings to companies that utilize it include:

    • VMware Aria Automation provides faster time to market for companies through offloading manual tasks with advanced workflows and agile templating.

    • The solution offers high levels of security and control.

    • This product is suitable for beginners, as it offers a self-service consumption experience for users.

    • VMware Aria Automation accelerates innovation through Infrastructure as Code and DevOps principles.

    • The product provides users with flexibility, as it is compatible with the most popular public cloud solutions.

    • The solution offers fast deployment because of all natively integrated functions.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Awais J., CTO/CEO at a tech services company, likes VMware Aria Automation because it saves a lot of time, provides more visibility, and has extensive automation capabilities.

    An IT consultant at a government rates VMware Aria Automation highly because the product gives you flexibility to analyze and consume resources.

    Sample Customers
    GreenQloud, Exoscale, TomTom, ASG, PC Extreme, ISWest, Grid'5000
    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)
    Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    University9%
    Educational Organization9%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Comms Service Provider24%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Media Company12%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Healthcare Company15%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise53%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Large Enterprise64%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise68%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business12%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise79%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise69%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cloud Management
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Nutanix, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: April 2024.
    767,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.