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AWS Savings Plans vs Spot comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 8, 2025

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

IBM Turbonomic
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
205
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (5th), Cloud Management (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (4th), IT Financial Management (1st), IT Operations Analytics (4th), Cloud Analytics (1st), AIOps (5th)
AWS Savings Plans
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
8th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Spot
Ranking in Cloud Cost Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (28th), Server Virtualization Software (14th), Cloud Operations Analytics (3rd), Cloud Analytics (3rd), Compute Service (9th), Containers as a Service (CaaS) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Cloud Cost Management category, the mindshare of IBM Turbonomic is 14.2%, up from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Savings Plans is 1.2%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spot is 4.1%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Cost Management
 

Featured Reviews

Keldric Emery - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves time and costs while reducing performance degradation
It's been a very good solution. The reporting has been very, very valuable as, with a very large environment, it's very hard to get your hands on the environment. Turbonomic does that work for you and really shows you where some of the cost savings can be done. It also helps you with the reporting side. Me being able to see that this machine hasn't been used for a very long time, or seeing that a machine is overused and that it might need more RAM or CPU, et cetera, helps me understand my infrastructure. The cost savings are drastic in the cloud feature in Azure and in AWS. In some of those other areas, I'm able to see what we're using, what we're not using, and how we can change to better fit what we have. It gives us the ability for applications and teams to see the hardware and how it's being used versus how they've been told it's being used. The reporting really helps with that. It shows which application is really using how many resources or the least amount of resources. Some of the gaps between an infrastructure person like myself and an application are filled. It allows us to come to terms by seeing the raw data. This aspect is very important. In the past, it was me saying "I don't think that this application is using that many resources" or "I think this needs more resources." I now have concrete evidence as well as reporting and some different analytics that I can show. It gives me the evidence that I would need to show my application owners proof of what I'm talking about. In terms of the downtime, meantime, and resolution that Turbonomic has been able to show in reports, it has given me an idea of things before things happen. That is important as I would really like to see a machine that needs resources, and get resources to it before we have a problem where we have contention and aspects of that nature. It's been helpful in that regard. Turbonomic has helped us understand where performance risks exist. Turbonomic looks at my environment and at the servers and even at the different hosts and how they're handling traffic and the number of machines that are on them. I can analyze it and it can show me which server or which host needs resources, CPU, or RAM. Even in Azure, in the cloud, I'm able to see which resources are not being used to full capacity and understand where I could scale down some in order to save cost. It is very, very helpful in assessing performance risk by navigating underlying causes and actions. The reason why it's helpful is because if there's a machine that's overrunning the CPU, I can run reports every week to get an idea of machines that would need CPU, RAM, or additional resources. Those resources could be added by Turbonomic - not so much by me - on a scheduled basis. I personally don't have to do it. It actually gives me a little bit of my life back. It helps me to get resources added without me physically having to touch each and every resource myself. Turbonomic has helped to reduce performance degradation in the same way as it's able to see the resources and see what it needs and add them before a problem occurs. It follows the trends. It sees the trends of what's happening and it's able to add or take away those resources. For example, we discuss when we need to do certain disaster recovery tests. Over the years, Turbo will be able to see, for example, around this time of year that certain people ramp up certain resources in an environment, and then it will add the resources as required. Another time of year, it will realize these resources are not being used as much, and it takes those resources away. In this way, it saves money and time while letting us know where we are. We've saved a great deal of time using this product when I consider how I'd have to multiply myself and people like me who would have to add resources to devices or take resources away. We've saved hundreds of hours. Most of the time those hours would have to be after hours as well, which are more valuable to me as that's my personal time. Those saved hours are across months, not years. I would consider the number of resources that Turbonomic is adding and taking away and the placement (if I had to do it all myself) would end up being hundreds of hours monthly that would be added without the help of Turbonomic. It helps us to meet SLAs mainly due to the fact that we're able to keep the servers going and to keep the servers in an environment, to keep them to where (if we need to add resources) we can add them at any given time. It will keep our SLAs where they need to be. If we were to have downtime due to the fact that we had to add resources or take resources away and it was an emergency, then that would prevent us from meeting our SLAs. We also use it to monitor Azure and to monitor our machines in terms of the resources that are out there and the cost involved. In a lot of cases, it does a better job of giving us cost information than Azure itself does. We're able to see the cost per machine. We're able to see the unattached volume and storage that we are paying for. It gives us a great level of insight. Turbonomic gives us the time to be able to focus on innovation and ongoing modernization. Some of the tasks that it does are tasks that I would not necessarily have to do. It's very helpful in that I know that the resources are there where they need to be and it gives me an idea of what changes need to be made or what suggestions it's making. Even if I don't take them, I'm able to get a good idea of some best practices through Turbonomic. One of the ways that Turbonomic does to help bring new resources to market is that we are now able to see the resources (or at least monitor the resources) before they get out to the general public within our environment. We saw immediate value from the product in the test environment. We set it up in a small test environment and we started with just placement and we could tell that the placement was being handled more efficiently than what VMware was doing. There was value for us in placement alone. Then, after we left the placement, we began to look at the resources and there were resources. We immediately began to see a change in the environment. It has made the application and performance better, mainly due to the fact that we are able to give resources and take resources away based on what the need is. Our expenses, definitely, have been in a better place based on the savings that we've been able to make in the cloud and on-prem. Turbonomic has been very helpful in that regard. We've been able to see the savings easily based on the reports in Turbonomic. That, and just seeing the machines that are not being used to capacity allows us to set everything up so it runs a bit more efficiently.
Raul G. Cortina - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible and a good solution for user with different environments
The setup was generally easy. The most complex aspect was configuring the VPN. While not overly difficult, it was more challenging compared to setting up other VPNs. However, once we resolved the initial VPN configuration issue, everything has been smooth sailing. It's a matter of familiarity. Initially, the technology is unfamiliar, but with experience, configuration becomes easier. Deployment time: We didn't have any problems. We determined the implementation date, considered the transition for ourselves and our users, and it went smoothly. Maintenance: There isn't much required. If the stability, resolution, and capacity planning are correct for our needs, or if we need to expand storage, then maintenance is mostly handled by our banking team.
Manpreet_Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to manage Kubernetes infrastructure, but it doesn't have support from OCI
Spot Ocean is deployed on the cloud in our organization. I would recommend the solution to other users. You need to have an experience with Kubernetes, or else this product is of no use. It is not difficult to learn to use Spot Ocean. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The system automatically sizes and moves resources based on the needs of the applications."
"Using this product helps us to reduce performance risk because it shows us where resources are needed but not yet allocated."
"Turbonomic helps us right-size virtual machines to utilize the available infrastructure components available and suggest where resources should exist. We also use the predictive tool to forecast what will happen when we add additional compute-demanding virtual machines or something to the environment. It shows us how that would impact existing resources. All of that frees up time that would otherwise be spent on manual calculation."
"The solution has a good optimization feature."
"We have VM placement in Automated mode and currently have all other metrics in Recommend mode."
"It is a good holistic platform that is easy to use. It works pretty well."
"It helps us get a consolidated view of all customer spending into a single dashboard, allowing us to identify opportunities to improve their current spending."
"The ability to monitor and automate both the right-sizing of VMs as well as to automate the vMotion of VMs across ESXi hosts."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"AWS is consistently innovating and releasing new products and features."
"The most valuable feature of AWS Savings Plans is we can discuss budgets briefly during our confirmation process since we are aware of our usual consumption patterns. Creating budgets in this regard would be beneficial, as it would allow us to consume only what we need, without including reserve instances that do not serve our purpose."
"The solution helps us to manage and scale automatically whenever there is a limit to the increase in the application workflow."
"The solution offers both block access and file access, making it a nice solution for customers."
 

Cons

"Turbonomic can modernize the look and feel, making it more user-friendly to access and obtain information."
"While the product is fairly intuitive and easy to use once you learn it, it can be quite daunting until you have undergone a bit of training."
"The GUI and policy creation have room for improvement. There should be a better view of some of the numbers that are provided and easier to access. And policy creation should have it easier to identify groups."
"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."
"I would love to see Turbonomic analyze backup data. We have had people in the past put servers into daily full backups with seven-year retention and where the disk size is two terabytes. So, every single day, there is a two terabyte snapshot put into a Blob somewhere. I would love to see Turbonomic say, "Here are all your backups along with the age of them," to help us manage the savings by not having us spend so much on the storage in Azure. That would be huge."
"I do not like Turbonomic's new licensing model. The previous model was pretty straightforward, whereas the new model incorporates what most of the vendors are doing now with cores and utilization. Our pricing under the new model will go up quite a bit. Before, it was pretty straightforward, easy to understand, and reasonable."
"There is an opportunity for improvement with some of Turbonomic's permissions internally for role-based access control. We would like the ability to come up with some customized permissions or scope permissions a bit differently than the product provides."
"The way it handles updates needs to be improved."
"In the future, it would be interesting if there could be a combination of Savings Plans and some Reserved Servers."
"The visibility of AWS Savings Plans could improve."
"The most complex aspect was configuring the VPN."
"The solution doesn't have support from OCI, and it should start working to onboard OCI."
"There are no particular areas for improvement I can identify."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"It's worth the time and money investment if you can afford it."
"Price is a big one. VMTurbo was very competitively priced."
"We see ROI in extended support agreements (ESA) for old software. Migration activities seem to be where Turbonomic has really benefited us the most. It's one click and done. We have new machines ready to go with Turbonomic, which are properly sized instead of somebody sitting there with a spreadsheet and guessing. So, my return on investment would certainly be on currency, from a software and hardware perspective."
"It is an endpoint type license, which is fine. It is not overly expensive."
"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."
"Compared to Azure or Google, the solution is much cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Turbonomic?
The implementation could be enhanced.
What is your primary use case for Turbonomic?
We use IBM Turbonomic to automate our cloud operations, including monitoring, consolidating dashboards, and reporting...
What do you like most about AWS Savings Plans?
The most valuable feature of AWS Savings Plans is we can discuss budgets briefly during our confirmation process sinc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Savings Plans?
We have a fixed cost of five thousand, plus an additional six thousand per month. So, it is about seventy-two thousan...
What needs improvement with AWS Savings Plans?
AWS make it easier to configure the VPN,
What do you like most about Spot Ocean?
The solution helps us to manage and scale automatically whenever there is a limit to the increase in the application ...
What needs improvement with Spot Ocean?
There are no particular areas for improvement I can identify.
What is your primary use case for Spot Ocean?
Spot by NetApp is primarily used for backup and also for Fiservware.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Turbonomic, VMTurbo Operations Manager
No data available
Spot Ocean, Spot Elastigroup, Spot Eco
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IBM, J.B. Hunt, BBC, The Capita Group, SulAmérica, Rabobank, PROS, ThinkON, O.C. Tanner Co.
bp, Cerner, Expedia, Finra, HESS, intuit, Kellog's, Philips, TIME, workday
Freshworks, Zalando, Red Spark, News, Trax, ETAS, Demandbase, BeesWa, Duolingo, intel, IBM, N26, Wix, EyeEm, moovit, SAMSUNG, News UK, ticketmaster
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Savings Plans vs. Spot and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.