IBM Public Cloud vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry comparison

IBM and VMware are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 6.3, while VMware is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 3.3% mindshare in PSP, compared to VMware’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of VMware users who would recommend it.

IBM Public Cloud

Read 17 IBM Public Cloud reviews

3,902 Views
2,933 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Read 15 Pivotal Cloud Foundry reviews

7,551 Views
6,345 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

IBM Public Cloud

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

IBM Public Cloud and Pivotal Cloud Foundry are competing in the cloud services market. IBM Public Cloud often has an upper hand in pricing and support service, while Pivotal Cloud Foundry is strong in offering cloud-native features.

Features: IBM Public Cloud is noted for its compute resources, data management tools, and AI capabilities with a wide range of integration options. Pivotal Cloud Foundry focuses on rapid application development, its CI/CD integration, and platform reliability, offering a strong developer-centric experience for agile development environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM Public Cloud could improve in speed and flexibility of service customization. Some users suggest enhancing user experience and further developing the analytics interface. Enhancing AI tool accessibility could also be beneficial. Pivotal Cloud Foundry might need to address initial deployment complexity, focus on performance optimization in non-Java applications, and improve initial cost management to appeal to more budget-conscious organizations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Public Cloud offers a unified deployment interface that simplifies integration across different IT environments, supported by proactive customer support. Pivotal Cloud Foundry emphasizes straightforward deployment focused on microservices architecture, providing a productive developer experience. While IBM focuses on integrating diverse tools, Pivotal emphasizes rapid deployment efficiency and robust developer support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Public Cloud provides flexible pricing models targeting cost-effectiveness and favorable ROI for large enterprises. Pivotal Cloud Foundry may have higher initial costs due to its comprehensive feature set but offers significant ROI through efficient resource use and reduced time-to-market, contrasting IBM's cost-effective models with Pivotal's focus on enhanced developer productivity for long-term savings.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Public Cloud vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

April 2025

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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 Public Cloud

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IoT Platforms (6th)

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

8th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.3%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 10.3%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Shivakumar Kuppannan

Founder & CEO at Star Systems India Private Limited

No hidden charges, 100% stable, and allows us to have bare metal servers for dedicated workload

It pretty much has all the features. There are many applications and features, and because of that, we need to walk through or study all the material and do hands-on. We need clear documentation or support for using IBM Public Cloud. The UI is fine, and everything else in terms of usability and configuring the cloud is also fine. The only thing is that when we're stuck or get an error, we need some technical support. Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud.

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Vasundhara Joshi

Senior Software Engineer at Wells Fargo

Seamlessly scalable since applications written in Java and .NET do not create issues for its users

Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry. However, if we go for Azure or some other cloud, we can get a lot of information. I believe there is not much information for Pivotal Cloud Foundry since it may be some license issue. If you go for Azure, the migration process is straightforward. Since we have been given 10 GB of space in the public cloud, we are utilizing it in our company. So, we are trying to deploy our application on the cloud, and for us, it is like a trial process for now. From our total application rate, I can say that only two to three percent is on Pivotal Cloud Foundry. Currently, half of the code is in the shell script, which is causing issues. Also, most people in my organization have worked on Java-related code. For most of the applications, they are using the same, that is, shell script and AUTOsist, and so we haven't migrated yet. So that is the reason that we are planning to opt for a hybrid model so that we don't have to migrate completely to Pivotal Cloud Foundry.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The price of IBM Cloud is most valuable for us. The service is personable and gives us a good rapport. I can't say it's the best, but it was enough for our needs."

"It provides robust analytics and management tools to give customers complete visibility into their environment and infrastructure."

"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."

"It is easy to deploy what you need for the initial setup"

"This is a predictable and dependable service."

"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."

"I've found the stability to be excellent. The performance is good."

"It's straightforward, has a good environment and is cost-effective."

More IBM Public Cloud pros

"We find its stability and scalability valuable."

"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very robust, especially for building Java."

"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is auto-healing and the plenty of other features that are provided."

"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."

"The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line interface has the ability to push instances to the cloud easily."

"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."

"Stability is not a concern with this product."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry pros

Cons

"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."

"Normally, for any cloud, we get a lot of information on the web, but that is missing in the case of IBM Public Cloud. We need some technical support documents. That is the only thing missing in IBM Public Cloud."

"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."

"Maybe performance enhancers and reports could be better improved. If they do so, it would be better. Of all the drawbacks I saw, this would be the biggest enhancement."

"The initial setup and the pricing are areas that need improvement."

"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."

"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

More IBM Public Cloud cons

"Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve on the technology it is a bit complex."

"There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Pivotal Cloud Foundry."

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry doesn't have certain advanced features."

"It should offer more security features."

"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features."

"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."

"It is not straightforward to setup."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."

"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."

"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."

"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."

"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."

"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."

"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."

More IBM Public Cloud pricing and cost advice

"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."

"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."

"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."

"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

39%

Manufacturing Company

19%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?

IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud?

The front end is not pervasive, so it is very difficult get the status of your current services or account from a mobile device.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?

The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.

See all answers

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...

See all answers

What do you like most about Pivotal Cloud Foundry?

I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pivotal Cloud Foundry?

I would say it is around a nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. Just short of Oracle. It's sort of Oracle cloud.

See all answers

Comparisons

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 35% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 34% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Dell ECS vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Google Cloud vs IBM Public Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Public Cloud Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 32% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 31% of the time

Google Cloud vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 11% of the time

Heroku vs Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Compared 5% of the time

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud

April 2025

Download IBM Public Cloud product report

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

March 2025

Download Pivotal Cloud Foundry product report

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)

Overview

IBM Cloud is a full-stack cloud platform that spans public, private and hybrid environments. Build with a robust suite of advanced data and AI tools, and draw on deep industry expertise to help you on your journey to the cloud.

IBM

Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) is the leading enterprise PaaS, powered by Cloud Foundry. PCF provides a cloud-native application platform that allows you to continuously deliver any app to every major private and public cloud with a single platform. PCF is proven to accelerate feature delivery with higher developer productivity and a 200:1 developer to operator ratio. PCF's built-in security and self-healing capabilities reduce risk in your app portfolio while maintaining high-availability at scale to keep customer facing systems online even in the most challenging circumstances. pivotal.io

VMware

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County

Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank

Buyer's Guide

IBM Public Cloud vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Public Cloud vs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry

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