In my previous company, we used Cloudability for a lot of purposes, including reports related to cloud costs and reports based on resources. The solution was also useful for driving through the management groups to find what the cost is for each account, so the main use of Cloudability was related to costs and tagging purposes. In my previous company, we used to check if the resources were tagged so that they would appear in Cloudability, which helped us with the creation of the cost reports accurately.
Architect- Cloud/Automation at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
A tool with an easy initial setup phase with the ability to create reports and dashboards
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to create reports and dashboards."
- "In general, I feel Cloudability wasn't able to support many resources."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to create reports and dashboards. Users can create dashboards in Cloudability by resource groups and accounts, which is very useful, especially considering its tagging features. Using tags in Cloudability, a user could create a report and dashboard if there was one account, and in that, there are multiple teams.
What needs improvement?
I don't exactly remember the problem with Cloudability. I can say that in my previous company, we could not efficiently make appropriate changes to the tags or resources in Cloudability, so we had to go for another solution, the name of which I can't remember, to help us get the aforementioned functionality. There was an area related to some cost implications that we couldn't work on with Cloudability in my previous company. In general, I feel Cloudability wasn't able to support many resources.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Cloudability for a year. I am a customer of the product.
Buyer's Guide
Cloudability
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cloudability. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have never seen any stability issues with Cloudability. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven and a half out of ten.
There are many features that Cloudability does not support. If I look at a tool like Azure Resource Health, which I know offers a dashboard for cost analysis since I currently work with Azure, I see that it offers a wide range of features. The area related to security is not supported in Cloudability, but I am not sure if it was later deployed or not. Another problem with Cloudability stemmed from the fact that in my previous company, we had to deploy multiple things or features in the product by ourselves. There should be some room in Cloudability for the support of resources, indicating how many resource types it supports. Another area of concern in Cloudability is related to its ability to directly trigger action since its users couldn't directly trigger actions from Cloudability, though I am unsure if the latest version of the tool has that feature.
Only eight to ten people in my previous organization were using Cloudability, and later, we tried to get everyone in the company to use it. When we saw that we had to share the product's links and passwords with multiple users in my previous company, we decided that only the cloud governance team and managers should use Cloudability.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase was easy.
What other advice do I have?
There are multiple features coming up in the dashboards provided by Azure for cost analysis. People can also consider other options like CloudHealth and CloudZero. I think that some features related to security are missing in Cloudability.
I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Software Engineer at Ancestry.com
It easily saves my team money. We would like them to have a linear regression, so we can be predictive for budgets and allocations.
Pros and Cons
- "The sizing recommendation will look, and say, "You are only using this at 80%," then recommend a better fit for you."
- "We would like them to have a linear regression, so we can be predictive for budgets, allocations, and the year's follow ups. We also want to have a longer window of analytics with better certainty that our workload will fit the model, not just in a two week window."
What is our primary use case?
We mostly use it to see stack utilization. Corporate uses it for its break down of teams, who is being charged what, but there are a lot of holes in this.
For the most part, it is used to determine if the machine is using the rightsizing, etc.
What is most valuable?
The sizing recommendation will look, and say, "You are only using this at 80%," then recommend a better fit for you.
What needs improvement?
The sizing recommendations should be done in longer than two week windows. They should be looking at a whole year's worth of information because we get spikes, and once you are out of that window, it doesn't account for it. It will say that you can save money, but the reality is that it wasn't estimated with a longer running cycle and time slice. Also, if you were able to have a year long look at it, then it would be able to do some type of a linear regression model along with some predictive analytics, and say, "You spent this much this year, so we estimate with your growth rate that this is where you will need to be next year without any new features. Right now, I don't think that they do good predictions at all. Some of their competitor's do offer these predictions, so this is an area for improvement.
Therefore, we would like them to have a linear regression, so we can be predictive for budgets, allocations, and the year's follow ups. We also want to have a longer window of analytics with better certainty that our workload will fit the model, not just in a two week window.
With containers, corporate doesn't look at a container level to charge adequately, because things get masked.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is average. Everybody knows when it is down, which is a good thing.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is average. It is not terrible, but it is not great. Sometimes things take a while to load, but any analytics that haven't ran in a while need to reboot all their stuff.
We are very big. I don't even know how many EC2 types that we have. As an example, they want us to save $12 million USD a year on budget, and I don't even know what that computes to in compute power.
How is customer service and technical support?
I have not used technical support.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the integration and configuration of the product.
What was our ROI?
My team is one of the most expensive teams, and we look at it quite a bit. We have probably easily saved around $400,000 USD a year.
What other advice do I have?
The product is probably not valuable until you are over a certain threshold in compute power. While I don't know what the actual cost is, if you were to say, "We could save you X amount and that would offset the cost of their product, then it is probably starting to be in the realm of being worth it."
We only use the AWS version.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Cloudability
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cloudability. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Our clients are able to get a better insight into their AWS accounts. The technical support is terrible and only available via email.
Pros and Cons
- "Each user can have their own dashboard that they want to consume. Instead of having to share one dashboard for multiple users, you can create individual views for each user to view, and that view will contain only their own accounts, which allows for separation of data."
- "The API is not well-documented. It is not straightforward and difficult to use. This needs to be improved, as it is very difficult for our developers to develop automation around it."
What is our primary use case?
- Cost optimization
- Billing reports
How has it helped my organization?
Our clients are now able to get a better insight into their AWS accounts. In this case, they get their own view and can control who has access to that view themselves. It is self-service. It has also given us some capability to do some automation around it during configuration. Therefore, we don't have to manually go and add accounts.
What is most valuable?
The ability to generate different types of dashboards and being able to make those dashboards available to customers (our users). So each user can have their own dashboard that they want to consume. Instead of having to share one dashboard for multiple users, you can create individual views for each user to view, and that view will contain only their own accounts, which allows for separation of data.
What needs improvement?
The API is not well-documented. It is not straightforward and difficult to use. This needs to be improved, as it is very difficult for our developers to develop automation around it.
They need to improve their billing data. It seems that sometimes it is not accurate. We have had customers complain that the data they see on the AWS billing dashboard is not reflected (or is very different) from the data that they see in the product. So, there is some discrepancy in the billing reports. I don't know why, but that is one complaint that we see.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three to five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is fine. It can handle the reports.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have hundreds upon hundreds of accounts, and it is able to handle that.
We don't have any performance issues. Its scalability is fine. I don't have an issue with it.
How is customer service and technical support?
The technical support is terrible. You can't pick up the phone and talk to somebody. They don't have online chat support. Everything is by email, which is not good.
How was the initial setup?
The integration and configuration of this product in our AWS was pretty straightforward. AWS has provided their partners with a better way to integrate within their environment. I don't see any issues with it. All you have to do is create an IAM role with a trust policy, and it works.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also considered Cloud Help. We did not choose it because it was expensive and some of the features that came with it were not what we needed.
We chose Cloudability because of the cost. Another reason was because it supported multiple cloud providers. Based on our evaluation, we also realized that it was easy for our users to consume it and login, because it is integrated it with an identity provider Active Directory. It has single sign-on to our directory.
What other advice do I have?
It is a standalone product, but it does integrate for identity with our other directory. This is pretty straightforward, and it works.
AWS doesn't have a version of this product. Cloudability is a billing and reporting tool. AWS does have capability to provide billing data, but the report and analytics portion of it is not provided by AWS. AWS just provides the data and cloud ability to ingest the data and do the reports.
If you are heavy on automation, then this might not be a good product because the API is not very well-documented. If you need accuracy in your data at the moment, there is some discrepancy in the billing data. So, you should factor that into in your decision.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Infrastructure Engineer at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The integration with our AWS environment was super easy to do. However, it is difficult for first time users to set up particular reports or dashboards.
Pros and Cons
- "It provides us visibility, then we can turn around and can give the leadership team more information, which we could not previously give them."
- "We have dealt with a few technical support people where we ask for one thing and they might not deliver straightaway. It seems like they are a stretched across multiple customers."
What is our primary use case?
Cloudability helps us with analyzing a lot of our AWS costs, then seeing those different costs with types of business costs. This helps us get a full understanding of where we are spending our money. It also helps us with reserved instances along with recommendations on them.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides us visibility, then we can turn around and can give the leadership team more information, which we could not previously give them.
What is most valuable?
- The Reserved Instance Planner is quite valuable.
- It is a SaaS platform that looks at your whole AWS environment.
What needs improvement?
Cloudability needs to be simplified a bit. It can be quite difficult and daunting when some of my colleagues login for the first time. It is difficult to get their particular reports or dashboards set up.
It would be interesting if they sort of expanded their rightsizing model. It's doing a good job at the moment, but it doesn't necessarily take into account a lot of edge cases. Thus, if they spent more time on the development of the rightsizing, it would be quite useful.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I've had absolutely no issues with stability.
We put minimal stress on it compared to a lot of other companies. We don't use it quite extensively throughout the whole business. We have only a few different users.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a SaaS product. So, we don't have any issues with how it can scale.
We are in three different regions. We have two environments: sound and production. We have 120,000 monthly active users.
How is customer service and technical support?
We are enterprise customers, so we have a dedicated technical account manager (TAM).
The technical support has been good, but it is not consistent. Previously, their technical support was very good. They would come in and help with sessions internally. But now, we have dealt with a few people where we ask for one thing and they might not deliver straightaway. It seems like they are a stretched across multiple customers.
How was the initial setup?
The integration with our AWS environment was super easy to do.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI with the reserved instances, and having the ability to predict what reserved instances you can get. We can save tens of thousands of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. Having the ability to have those recommendations and buy those purchases helps. If we didn't have Cloudability, we'd still be doing this, and AWS now has their own reserved instance planner. So, we use both. Therefore, we'd still be getting savings without Cloudability, but it is definitely helping us at the moment.
What other advice do I have?
The product is quite interesting. Where we receive a benefit from Cloudability, we now see it more with the AWS offering. They have AWS Cost Explorer, along with the features we like having comprehensive support through AWS. Therefore, Cloudability needs to stay one step ahead of the curve. However, there are a few different parts of Cloudability that we are not fully utilizing yet which we will be utilizing in the future. This means that we are picking up a few more of their features and user adoption in our company will be much greater.
Define what you really want out of your AWS Cost Explorer, then evaluate all the different options. So, evaluate AWS Cost Explorer first, then determine if you want to use Cloudability.
We use the AWS version of the product. I'm quite happy with most of the product.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Cloud Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It is fast in terms of pulling up data and displaying it
Pros and Cons
- "It has already given us insight into how to optimize. So, we are now ramping up steadily its usage."
- "There is always room for improvement in education and training. We are not that mature in terms of our automation. It could help us identify where we could optimize in terms of build."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use is for billing management software. It not only provides detailed billing of everything, but it also provides insight into how to optimize our infrastructure. It tells us where the overruns are and where there are places for optimization.
How has it helped my organization?
It has already given us insight into how to optimize. So, we are now ramping up steadily its usage.
What is most valuable?
It is fast in terms of pulling up data and displaying it.
Cloud Optimization runs through the system, then tells you, "You could've used these resources. This resource was running, but not utilized that much." It gives you metrics of how the whole infrastructure is used. It ties the metrics to building, in some cases saying, "You paid for something that you didn't use that much."
What needs improvement?
There is always room for improvement in education and training. We are not that mature in terms of our automation. It could help us identify where we could optimize in terms of build.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't seen any stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We're using a SaaS environment. The SaaS environment has an SLA which automatically scales up depending on our needs, so we don't have to worry about scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have heard that the technical support is very receptive to providing additional capabilities to whatever the customers needs may be.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to have Tableau before, but it is not a building software. We would have to pull the data into Tableau on top of it. Tableau is nice, but the whole process was slow. With Cloudability, the process is few seconds and you can get what it would have taken several hours for it to download the data in Tableau, then you can massage it and get it up and running.
We chose Cloudability as a solution because it satisfied some of the critical needs of what we wanted:
- We wanted LDAP integration.
- In terms of core functionality, we wanted to be able to easily slice and dice to be able to see the details of all the charges, which Cloudablity made it very easy to do.
- The clinching factor was the insight it provided to optimize resources. This was pretty impressive.
How was the initial setup?
It integrated seamlessly.
What was our ROI?
It is a little too soon to discuss ROI.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Cloudability to other people. If you are looking for a seamless, simple to use, and in-depth, cloud, building analysis tooll, Cloudablity serves all these purposes. It manages all my needs.
We are using the AWS SaaS version.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Cloud Architect, Oracle ACE, Oracle DBA at Pythian
Transparency and visibility allow teams to see their cloud spend, promoting efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "Transparency and visibility are the key features."
- "The dashboard needs to include more graphs per team to show what individual teams are spending in a given time period."
What is our primary use case?
Our client wanted a transparent and visible view of financials in the cloud and that's why we opted for Cloudability Optimization Platform. We are using the solution on AWS.
How has it helped my organization?
One of our clients has used Cloudability to get help with rising monthly costs and promote accountability and awareness of cloud spend throughout the different areas of the business. Teams were virtually clueless about how much it was costing to test and develop their respective products. With Cloudability everything is there to see so things can be managed efficiently, saving money and resources.
What is most valuable?
Transparency and visibility are the key features.
Regarding integration and configuration of this product in our AWS environment, it fits in naturally and enhances the overall value as it's "native" to AWS.
We are also able to export data from it and put it in Excel sheets for some of the reporting.
What needs improvement?
More documentation with more use case scenarios would be nice. Also, the dashboard needs to include more graphs per team to show what individual teams are spending in a given time period.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's quite mature and stable. We did extensive testing before putting it into production.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As it's in the cloud, scalability is not an issue at all. The environment consists of dozens of VMs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It justifies the cost and is worth it.
We loved the experience of purchasing this solution through AWS Marketplace. It's very intuitive and cost-efficient. We bought it there because that's where it's available.
What other advice do I have?
I rate it a nine out of ten, as it provides a holistic view of financials and is an enabling technology.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cloudability Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Product Categories
Cloud Cost ManagementPopular Comparisons
IBM Turbonomic
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
VMWare Tanzu CloudHealth
Azure Cost Management
Harness
CloudCheckr
Densify
Spot by NetApp
Apptio One
AWS Savings Plans
CAST AI
Cloud Cruiser
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cloudability Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.