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Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs OpenNebula comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Cloud Management
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (4th), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th)
OpenNebula
Ranking in Cloud Management
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 3.1%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenNebula is 2.5%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)3.1%
OpenNebula2.5%
Other94.4%
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Phani Venkata Sai BKD - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Lead at Thomson Reuters
Manages hybrid infrastructure seamlessly with flexible cluster scaling and comprehensive oversight
The most important aspect of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is that it helps us manage the infrastructure as a hyperconverged infrastructure in HCI mode. If I have different physical servers, I can map them into a cluster and manage the storage together. It provides flexibility to make use of storage in a clustered format instead of using it in an individual storage endpoint. We have the flexibility to have Nutanix-based licensing based on the core model, instead of having a specific cost on the cluster. The costing on a core model gives customers flexibility to add multiple cores to a single physical host and adjust the infrastructure accordingly, and we can scale up the cluster as needed. While other cloud providers, AWS or Azure, are mostly into cloud-based solutions, and Azure has introduced Azure Stack HCI for managing on-premises infrastructure, Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) provides flexibility from day one. We can manage both on-premises and Azure solutions using a single pane of glass, eliminating the need to navigate different windows or screens. It provides a comprehensive view of the infrastructure and highlights specific areas through alerts, giving us good visibility of infrastructure conditions.
FOURES Jean-Philippe - PeerSpot reviewer
Products Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable, simple to manage, and offers great technical support
The support of VXLAN fits with our network management. Thanks to this we can propose mixed solutions using virtual resources on OpenNebula and bare metal servers hosted in our facilities linked to each other on the sale network. This use case is very useful when some applications need bare metal power (Kubernetes workers, huge databases, AI models computations, et cetera). The cluster management is very useful for splitting our different clusters (mutual vs dedicated). We can manage deployments and capacity planning without pain. The API is also really simple and it helped us to develop the Terraform provider to manage OpenNebula like any other cloud infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The stability and reliability of the Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) platform have been excellent, as we have had zero outages."
"The design is very intuitive; it's easy to find information in the different menus and things like that. The user experience is much better compared to other products."
"The most valuable features are the compliance features and the chargebacks."
"The self-service capabilities allow us to orchestrate our deployments without writing code, and they also use artificial intelligence to improve our security posture."
"The solution's support for scripts... has reduced the man-hours it takes to deploy and support applications because we don't have to rewrite all the scripts."
"The executive dashboard is valuable and provides a complete sense of the whole infrastructure."
"The fact that these are non-technical people — they're experts in their fields but they're definitely not technical — and they can just log in to the portal and select the resource that they believe they need, and manage it themselves, speaks to the ease of use. It shows them their live costs, etc., as they're spending. The fact that they can do that without any problems, or having to engage the IT teams, is a true testament to it. There's no need for any user training at all."
"One of the solution's greatest strengths is its "Single pane of glass" feature, which allows users to access all pertinent data in one location immediately upon logging in. Additionally, the solution's ease of deployment and mobility are notable aspects that I personally find appealing."
"The solution provides templates for configurations that can easily be exchanged to VMs."
"With a single click, we could set things up and initiate them."
"The service feature appeals most to us, thus it is the most valuable."
"What's best about OpenNebula that people like is that it's easy to deploy. It's also easy to manage. It's interesting because people choose OpenNebula over other solutions because of the ease of management."
"I also like the ability to build custom functions. I can define a function where I have two types of views and configure the dependencies. The virtual data centers concept allows me to define users. If a user wants to join certain kinds of machines, the host and the other user won't see them. It gives me the flexibility to define multiple views and data centers in one place."
"The ability to use it almost like a public cloud for an organization is a big asset, as it will create a value proposition and can control costs in a great way."
"The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often."
"The most valuable feature of OpenNebula is that it scales very well."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see more cloud providers like Micro BH or local providers."
"NCM's pricing structure is confusing and difficult to understand."
"I would like to see a P2V feature like Move or Xtract. The interface for migrating from one VM infrastructure to another is one of the best but going from a physical machine to a Nutanix VM is a bit too challenging."
"In this solution, it is difficult to organize the VM folders and subfolders."
"NCM's analytics could be better because we're not getting an accurate analysis of our virtual machines, and we're over-provisioning some of them."
"I would like to see a desktop application for administration of the solution. That's the thing I missed the most. Other solutions have a client that you can install on your computer. You can actually connect to and do the administration from an application instead of using a web portal, which is what Nutanix provides."
"LCM could be our second favorite feature right up there with One-Click Upgrades if it worked as smoothly but We have had a few issues with LCM but those appear to have been related to OEM hardware vendor not in sync with Nutanix software, not sure how this could be improved in the future."
"I've had some challenges with the latest versions. I think the resource requirements are a little too high. The resources that Nutanix Cloud Manager needs begin to account for a larger proportion of the resources the customers buy. In the announcement for the version they released today, they said there would be a lightweight version, so hopefully that has been addressed."
"There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula."
"The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement."
"There are small things that are hard. For example, making sure that it is going to be installable on public clouds."
"An area for improvement in OpenNebula is the number of features it has. The solution doesn't have that many cloud features compared to other solutions. You'd say, "Okay, simplicity over a rich feature list?" Some say, "No, I need a big machine or a cloud interface for my customers to manage resources. I don't have to go and do it for them." Some people do it that way, and it works, but I'd like to improve the limited features in OpenNebula."
"The front-facing API can be improved to support lots of requests when the platform is huge with lots of virtual resources."
"The UI, monitoring, and alerting could benefit from further improvements."
"The storage feature that they have is a bit confusing."
"They should add more features like object storage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Nutanix is really smart to understand that the most important fact is the value to the customer, not the price tag. While you do get some sticker shock sometimes, as soon as you show this and you prove the value, all of a sudden, it looks exceptionally affordable."
"Compared to UCS and the NetApp storage, Nutanix is actually cheaper."
"The solution’s pricing is not outrageous like other products."
"The tool is expensive."
"The price is probably right where it should be. It's not vastly expensive, and it's not too cheap. We get very good value for the price with what we're being offered with it."
"At the end of the day, the product justifies the cost, and it leads to a conversation with management over whether we actually need this feature and if there are any use cases for why we would want to keep it."
"The solution is a bit high in price for what we are receiving as features. I feel they are overcharging us at approximately 25 percent. That is something that they should change."
"Don't unlicense your Prism licensing. Pro is the strict minimum for real infrastructure. Go with at least Pro and not with the starter. Ultimate was the best choice for me."
"We use the Community Edition, rather than the Enterprise Edition."
"OpenNebula gives good value for money."
"OpenNebuoa has recently come up with a new subscription model that is economical and a lot of new customers are choosing this as it is an easy subscription model."
"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."
"The licensing for OpenNebula used to be free, but now it's no longer free. A customer contacted me asking to move to another provider because of the changes in the licensing terms for OpenNebula. I have no information on how much the OpenNebula license is because the customer pays for it, and I only do the integration."
"The solution is open source so is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise72
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?
For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...
Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?
When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...
Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?
Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...
What needs improvement with OpenNebula?
The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement. Another area for improvement is the integration with hardware to manage the lower layer of the n...
What is your primary use case for OpenNebula?
Previously, we were using VMware, but recently, we've started using OpenNebula for cloud management. As a big cloud provider, it helps give customers increased control over their clusters. We use L...
What advice do you have for others considering OpenNebula?
I recommend it, especially if you need a management interface for a small to medium private cloud. I would rate OpenNebula an eight out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central, Nutanix Software Subscription
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Akamai, BBC, Fermilab, Terradue, Surf Sara, Produban, Netways, ESA, China Mobile, BlackBerry, Deloitte, Fuze, Telefonica, Trivago, Nokia, Encore Tech, Beeks.
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs. OpenNebula and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
883,448 professionals have used our research since 2012.