Apptio One vs IBM Turbonomic comparison

Apptio and IBM are both solutions in the IT Financial Management category. Apptio is ranked #2, while IBM is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0. Apptio holds a 40.1% mindshare in IFM, compared to IBM’s 20.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Apptio users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Apptio One

Read 3 Apptio One reviews

939 Views
188 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Turbonomic

Read 205 IBM Turbonomic reviews

6,311 Views
189 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Apptio One

IBM Turbonomic

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 2, 2025

Apptio One and IBM Turbonomic compete in IT financial management and operations. Apptio One has an advantage with its intuitive pricing model and strong support, whereas IBM Turbonomic appears superior due to its powerful features justifying its cost.

Features: Apptio One provides cost transparency, decision support, and comprehensive financial insights into IT investments. IBM Turbonomic focuses on resource optimization, application performance, and offers dynamic automated resource management, enhancing efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Apptio One has a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support, simplifying its integration. IBM Turbonomic is recognized for diverse adaptable deployment models supporting various IT environments, despite a more complex setup.

Pricing and ROI: Apptio One offers a clear pricing structure with a moderate initial setup cost, generating ROI through better financial management and cost reductions. IBM Turbonomic requires a higher initial investment, promising ROI via resource efficiency and operational improvements.

To learn more, read our detailed Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 881,282 peers since 2012

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

Apptio One

Ranking in IT Financial Management

2nd

Ranking in Cloud Cost Management

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Turbonomic

Ranking in IT Financial Management

1st

Ranking in Cloud Cost Management

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

205

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (6th), Cloud Management (5th), Virtualization Management Tools (4th), IT Operations Analytics (5th), Cloud Analytics (1st), AIOps (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Financial Management category, the mindshare of Apptio One is 40.1%, down from 45.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 20.3%, down from 37.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Financial Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Turbonomic	20.3%
Apptio One	40.1%
Other	39.599999999999994%

IT Financial Management

Featured Reviews

Neil Anson

Global IT Financial Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

A highly stable and scalable solution that provides good out-of-the-box reporting

I am using the latest version of Apptio One. Apptio One is deployed on-cloud in our organization. Apptio One's maintenance involves validating the model and the monthly data loads. I would recommend Apptio One to other users. Before choosing Apptio One, users should ensure they align their use cases to achieve specific and measurable targets. Overall, I rate Apptio One ten out of ten.

Read full review

Dan Ambrose

Infrastructure Engineer 4 at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Helps visibility, bridges the data gap, and frees up time

We use IBM Turbonomic in a hybrid cloud environment. Although it supports multi-cloud capabilities, we currently operate in a single-cloud setting. Turbonomic offers visibility into our environment's performance, spanning across applications, underlying infrastructure, and protection resources. The visibility and analytics help to bridge the data gap between disparate IT teams such as applications and infrastructure. This is important for awareness collaboration, cost saving, and helping to design and improve our application. Enhanced visibility and data analytics have contributed to a significant reduction in our mean time to resolve. Tools like Turbonomic provide crucial visualization and insights, empowering us to make data-driven decisions instead of relying on assumptions as we did before. This newfound transparency translates to a massive improvement, going from complete darkness to having a clear 100 percent view of the situation. Although our applications are not optimized for the cloud we have seen some improvement in response time. IBM Turbonomic empowers us to achieve more with fewer people thanks to automation. Previously, customers frequently contacted us requesting resource increases to resolve issues. Now, we have a tool that allows us to objectively assess their needs, leading to a deeper understanding of our applications. This solution also generates significant cost savings in the cloud and optimizes hardware utilization within our data centers. Its AI algorithm intelligently allocates servers on hosts, maximizing efficiency without compromising performance. By fine-tuning resource allocation without causing performance bottlenecks, Turbonomic extends the lifespan of existing hardware, postponing the need for new purchases. This effectively stretches our capital expenditure budget. We started to see the benefits of IBM Turbonomic within the first 60 days. IBM is a fantastic partner. Their tech support has been outstanding, and the product itself is excellent - a very solid offering. By automating resource management with Turbonomic, our engineers are freed up to focus on more strategic initiatives like innovation and ongoing organizational projects. Previously, manually adding resources was a time-consuming process that interrupted workflows. Now, automation handles scaling efficiently, saving us thousands of man-hours and significant costs. It has illuminated the need for SetOps. It has highlighted areas of overspending, and the actions we've taken have demonstrated significant cost savings. IBM Turbonomic has positively impacted our overall application performance. IBM Turbonomic has helped reduce both CAPEX and OPEX. It has also significantly reduced cloud build times.

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 TBM model and the out-of-the-box reporting are the most valuable features of Apptio One."

"Its most significant value lies in its ease of use which extends to both configuration and the subsequent deployment of additional components."

"With Apptio One, the advantage lies in its no-code approach, eliminating the need to write scripts for data retrieval."

"In our organization, optimizing application performance is a continuous process that is beyond human scale. We would not be able to do the number of actions that Turbonomic takes on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It is humanly impossible with the little micro adjustments that it can make. That is a huge differentiator. If you just figure each action could take anywhere very conservatively from five to 10 minutes to act upon, then you multiply that out by thousands of actions every month, it is easily something where you could say, "I am saving a couple of FTEs.""

"My favorite part of the solution is the automation scheduling. Being able to choose when actions happen, and how they happen..."

"The tool provides the ability to look at the consumption utilization over a period of time and determine if we need to change that resource allocation based on the actual workload consumption, as opposed to how IT has configured it. Therefore, we have come to realize that a lot of our workloads are overprovisioned, and we are spending more money in the public cloud than we need to."

"The proactive monitoring of all our open enrollment applications has improved our organization. We have used it to size applications that we are moving to the cloud. Therefore, when we move them out there, we have them appropriately sized. We use it for reporting to current application owners, showing them where they are wasting money. There are easy things to find for an application, e.g., they decommissioned the server, but they never took care of the storage. Without a tool like this, that storage would just sit there forever, with us getting billed for it."

"The automated memory balancing, where it looks at whether it's being used in the most efficient way and adds or takes away memory, is the best part. If it didn't do that, it would be something that I would have to do. We have too many machines for one person to do that. The automation helps me in that it is done in a really efficient way and a balanced way because of the policies. It really helps."

"The solution has a good optimization feature."

"The most important feature to us is an objective measurement of VM headroom per cluster. In addition, the ability to check for the right-sizing of VMs."

"I have the ability to automate things similar to the Orchestrator stuff. I do have the ability to have it do some balancing, and if it sees some different performance metrics that I've set not being met, it'll actually move some of my virtual machines from, let's say, one host to another. It is sort of an automation tool that helps me. Basically, I specify the metric, and if I get a certain host or something being over-utilized, it'll automatically move the virtual machines around for me. It basically has to snap into my vCenter and then it can make adjustments and move my virtual machines around. It also has some very nice reporting tools built around virtual machines. It tells you how much storage, memory, or CPU is being used monthly, and then it gives you a very nice way to be able to send out billing structure to your end users who use servers within your environment."

More IBM Turbonomic pros

Cons

"Encouraging or providing more out-of-the-box solutions that cater to a wider audience could enhance the overall effectiveness of the application."

"However, a notable challenge is the requirement to obtain consistent raw data, especially when operating in multiple regions with varying data sets. Each region may have distinct field names or data setups, necessitating the standardization of data before loading it into Apptio One. In Apptio One, there are areas for improvement, particularly in addressing potential bugs. An instance of this is observed when transitioning changes from the development region to the staging or production region. In instances with larger datasets, the calculation process may experience delays. Once the calculation concludes, the process proceeds to the subsequent region, whether it be staging or production."

"The solution's reporting layer, advanced conditional formatting, and reporting features could be improved."

"We don't use Turbonomic for FinOps and part of the reason is its cost reporting. The reporting could be much more robust and, if that were the case, I could pitch it for FinOps."

"The one point is the reporting. We do have reports out of it, but they're not the level of graphical detail I would like."

"Additional interfaces would be helpful."

"There is room for improvement [with] upgrades. We have deployed the newer version, version 8 of Turbonomic. The problem is that there is no way to upgrade between major Turbonomic versions. You can upgrade minor versions without a problem, but when you go from version 6 to version 7, or version 7 to version 8, you basically have to deploy it new and let it start gathering data again. That is a problem because all of the data, all of the savings calculations that had been done on the old version, are gone. There's no way to keep track of your lifetime savings across versions."

"The deployment process is a little tricky. It wasn't hard for me because I have pretty in-depth knowledge of Kubernetes, and their software runs on Kubernetes. To deploy it or upgrade it, you have to be able to follow steps and use the Kubernetes command line, or you'll need someone to come in and do it for you."

"It can be more agnostic in terms of the solutions that it provides. It can include some other cost-saving methods for the public cloud and SaaS applications as well."

"Remove the need for special in-house knowledge and development."

"We're still evaluating the solution, so I don't know enough about what I don't know. They've done a lot over the years. I used Turbonomics six or seven years ago before IBM bought them. They've matured a lot since then."

More IBM Turbonomic cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Regarding the pricing structure for various products within Apptio, such as APE One or APE One Plus, the cost is intricately tied to the selected license. There are two distinct types of licenses available. Opting for the basic license provides access to APT1, while an alternative license, known as APL One Plus, encompasses additional features like Cloudability and other components. The specific features accessible depend on the chosen license."

"It comes with a considerable cost."

"Apptio One is an expensive solution."

"The pricing is in line with the other solutions that we have. It's not a bargain software, nor is it overly expensive."

"In the last year, Turbonomic has reduced our cloud costs by $94,000."

"When we have expanded our licensing, it has always been easy to make an ROI-based decision. So, it's reasonably priced. We would like to have it cheaper, but we get more benefit from it than we pay for it. At the end of the day, that's all you can hope for."

"It was an annual buy-in. You basically purchase it based on your host type stuff. The buy-in was about 20K, and the annual maintenance is about $3,000 a year."

"IBM Turbonomic is an investment that we believe will deliver positive returns."

"The pricing and licensing are fair. We purchase based on benchmark pricing, which we have been able to get. There are no surprise charges nor hidden fees."

"I have not seen Turbonomic's new pricing since IBM purchased it. When we were looking at it in my previous company before IBM's purchase, it was compatible with other tools."

"I don't know the current prices, but I like how the licensing is based on the number of instances instead of sockets, clusters, or cores. We have some VMs that are so heavy I can only fit four on one server. It's not cost-effective if we have to pay more for those. When I move around a VM SQL box with 30 cores and a half-terabyte of RAM, I'm not paying for an entire socket and cores where people assume you have at least 10 or 20 VMs on that socket for that pricing."

More IBM Turbonomic pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Financial Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

University

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	41
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	147

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Turbonomic?

It offers different scenarios. It provides more capabilities than many other tools available. Typically, its price is set as a percentage of the consumption of some of our customers' services. The ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Turbonomic?

The implementation could be enhanced.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Turbonomic?

We use IBM Turbonomic to automate our cloud operations, including monitoring, consolidating dashboards, and reporting. This helps us get a consolidated view of all customer spending into a single d...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cloudability vs Apptio One

Compared 34% of the time

Flexera Cloud Cost Management vs Apptio One

Compared 14% of the time

Yuki Snowflake Optimization Platform vs Apptio One

Compared 7% of the time

YaRKEN vs Apptio One

Compared 7% of the time

CloudCheckr vs Apptio One

Compared 6% of the time

More Apptio One Competitors

VMware Aria Operations vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 8% of the time

Densify vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 6% of the time

Spot by Flexera vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 5% of the time

Cloudability vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 4% of the time

IBM Kubecost vs IBM Turbonomic

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Turbonomic Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

Download Apptio One product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

Download IBM Turbonomic product report

Also Known As

No data available

Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Apptio

IBM

Overview

ApptioOne unifies financial and operational data into a unified model built on the industry-standard taxonomy of cost categorization. Utilizing sophisticated allocation rules along with focused metrics and KPIs, we enable organizations to answer the most strategic questions about investments and accelerate budgeting and forecasting processes. By explaining investments and variance to plan more quickly to constituencies and executive management, organizations can uncover opportunities to optimize cost structures, reduce risk, and accelerate growth.

Apptio

IBM Turbonomic offers automation, planning, and right-sizing recommendations to streamline resource management, improve efficiencies, and optimize costs across virtualized environments and cloud platforms.

IBM Turbonomic is valued for its capability to optimize resource allocation and monitor virtual environments efficiently. It facilitates automated decision-making in VM sizing, load balancing, and cost optimization for both on-premises and cloud deployments. Users can leverage insights for workload placement, ensure peak performance assurance, and effectively right-size across VMware and Azure. The ongoing transition to HTML5 aims to improve visual and navigational ease, while expanded reporting features are anticipated. Opportunities for improved training, documentation, and integrations enhance platform usability and functionality.

What Are the Key Features?

Automation: Streamlines resource allocation and VM management.
Planning Tools: Supports capacity management and growth projections.
Right-Sizing: Optimizes VM configurations for efficient resource use.
Customizable Dashboards: Provides quick insights into environment health.
Reporting Capabilities: Offers valuable data for informed decision-making.
Cloud Integration: Ensures cost-effective resource utilization.

What Benefits Should Be Looked For?

Performance Enhancement: Improves application performance efficiency.
Cost Reduction: Minimizes operational expenses through optimizations.
Infrastructure Efficiency: Maximizes use of IT infrastructure resources.

In finance, IBM Turbonomic aids in maintaining platform efficiency during market fluctuations. Healthcare organizations leverage its capability for resource optimization during high-demand periods to enhance patient care support. Retailers use it for planning in peak seasons, ensuring resources align with fluctuating demand to maintain performance continuity.

IBM

Sample Customers

Nationwide Building Society, State of Washington, Nationwide Building Society, DIRECTV, CME Group, Swiss Re, Cox Automotive

IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.

Buyer's Guide

Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic

January 2026

Free Report: Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic

Find out what your peers are saying about Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,282 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Apptio One vs. IBM Turbonomic report.

See our list of best IT Financial Management vendors and best Cloud Cost Management vendors.

We monitor all IT Financial Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.