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AWS Outposts vs VMware Cloud Foundation 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

AWS Outposts
Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Cloud Foundation
Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category, the mindshare of AWS Outposts is 15.4%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Cloud Foundation is 21.9%, down from 22.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

PraveenS - PeerSpot reviewer
Has the ability to provide interfaces for events and allows you to work both offline and online
Providing online support has proven to be quite valuable. However, it's important to note that this isn't so much an improvement, but rather a standard practice for solutions like Azure Stack or AWS Outpost. Typically, the respective companies send their engineers for installation at the customer's premises, ensuring on-site support. I recall a similar instance when we requested on-site support for one of our locations in Hyderabad, and Amazon agreed to send their engineers to set up the solution in our office environment. That said, in terms of potential improvements, it would be beneficial to have the option for capacity expansion. When customers opt for a solution like Outpost, they receive a fixed set of capacities in terms of storage, network, and hardware. As design engineers, it's crucial to consider use cases and plan for scalability and sustainability. Having the flexibility to extend these capacities could be valuable. Some engineers may not be aware of future needs, and if there's an opportunity to expand capacity without the need for additional functionality, it would be a helpful feature. This way, we can cater to various needs and ensure the solution remains adaptable in the long run.
Mangesh  Parjane - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience has improved centralized management through single console operations
There is room for improvement in how section updates are handled. The challenge lies in the difficulty of pinpointing issues when something goes wrong at a single stage. Also, each user needs deep knowledge of every aspect of virtualization, and the VMware personnel might not fully grasp aspects outside their expertise, requiring the involvement of other professionals.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspect is its ability to provide interfaces for events."
"Outposts allows you to isolate your private environment from the public cloud provider while enabling almost all the features that are available on public cloud services. That is the beauty of this service. It's an infrastructure that you can put in your data center and seamlessly connect to the public cloud."
"I think the keys to success for the solution is the easy-to-use user interface and the fact that the development team really likes the platform."
"If you compare with the full bundle of these services, you can see the difference. This is enough for these locations in private data centers. Because the main reasons why the customers want to have it on their side are for the low latency and the security of their critical data."
"AWS can manage services when deployed on customer sites due to Outposts' capability of being installed in on-premises environments."
"AWS Outposts brings native AWS services, infrastructure, and API to our on-premises data center or co-location facilities."
"The most valuable aspect is that it comes in a rack form factor which makes it incredibly easy to use and deploy various AWS services."
"With AWS, we've had seamless integration and support for many of our applications."
"The fact that it automates a lot of manual processes in a net new environment build is most valuable."
"VMware Cloud Foundation makes it easy to set up new environments. You get hosts in a pool, which you can build into a new cluster."
"You can use VMware Cloud Foundation with hyper-converge."
"We are using it for infrastructure automation."
"The stability is good."
"VMware Cloud Foundation's most valuable features are password and certificate management. The SDDC manager tool is the front tool we are using to manage the entire VCF stack. In the SDDC manager, we can able to rotate, and update the passwords of all users. Anything in the VMware portfolio, we can manage from a single dashboard and we have various data centers. We have connected everything into one Federation. From one single place, we are managing our entire virtual interactions."
"The most valuable area is the ECS environment which includes many features."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the disaster recovery software."
 

Cons

"The product is heavy to ship and can be difficult to handle logistically."
"Also, it would be beneficial if AWS allowed for more granular and customizable pricing options."
"Depending on the installation process, we have found some bugs and issues with the solution when the same platform is not used."
"It would be great if it could support Glue services."
"The platform needs to spend more time investing in strengthening its governance and information tools and consider the real needs of its customers."
"The pricing model needs improvement because right now it's very expensive. All of these solutions are very expensive and it prevents other customers or owners of data centers from buying it."
"Outposts supports elastic coordinator services, but not elastic container services, which is the native service for containers in AWS. That is something missing in this product."
"It would be beneficial to have the option for capacity expansion."
"Life cycle management is an area for improvement."
"They need to offer more support for Mac."
"The deployment is clumsy and complex. There are too many things that need to be done in order to deploy."
"The pricing could be a bit less expensive."
"The interface is good, but there are compatibility issues or issues with the certificate for the VCenter."
"There may be room for improvement in the resource allocation feature. VMware Broadcom needs to include auto resource allocation at the VM levels."
"The documentation could be easier to read"
"There may be room for improvement in the resource allocation feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of Outposts needs to be evaluated from the standpoint of what's cost-effective at your company: How are you going to use it? How much money will it save for your products or applications? Is it worth it? I would say it's probably too expensive for small or medium-sized companies. However, big companies might find it to be highly cost-effective depending on their respective cloud strategies."
"Customers should consider the high cost, which can range from $10,000 to hundreds of thousands depending on the components."
"While the longer-term pricing is suitable for enterprise contracts, it can be on the higher side, especially when organizations don't utilize all the services included in the bundles."
"AWS Outposts is a cheap solution."
"If our customer has the option to buy a server for $4,000 or $5,000, but VMware asks for two-person licensing $7,000 to $8,000, which is more than the hardware price. So sometimes, the customer cannot pay for it because it's too expensive."
"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is a bit high. However, it comes with a lot of useful features and can handle a lot of operational complexity. Overall the price can be seen as being fair for what it offers."
"The pricing of VMware Cloud Foundation could improve, it is expensive."
"The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive."
"This solutuion can be expensive for small and medium-sized companies."
"The tool's price is slightly on the higher side, but I guess you think there is no one-to-one comparison with other tools. The licensing part has become easier, while earlier, it was quite complex."
"It is quite expensive."
"VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Outposts?
With AWS, we've had seamless integration and support for many of our applications.
What needs improvement with AWS Outposts?
Outposts is not a simple solution to implement as it needs to be shipped from the US and involves high delivery costs and running costs. The product is heavy to ship and can be difficult to handle ...
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Outposts?
I rate AWS Outposts a nine out of ten, indicating room for some improvement.
What do you like most about VMware Cloud Foundation?
VMware Cloud Foundation provides us with the vSphere dashboard through which we can manage, monitor, schedule, and spin up your virtual machines. We can manage, monitor, and get reports of your inf...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Cloud Foundation?
The price is quite higher than some other vendors, however, it is a reliable solution. VMware is a pioneer in the virtualization field, and that is why we rely on VMware.
What needs improvement with VMware Cloud Foundation?
There may be room for improvement in the resource allocation feature. VMware Broadcom needs to include auto resource allocation at the VM levels.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips, Morningstar
ricoh, dell technologies, sky
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Outposts vs. VMware Cloud Foundation and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.