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Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs OpenNebula comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 10, 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

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Cloud Management
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (3rd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th)
OpenNebula
Ranking in Cloud Management
8th
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 January 2026, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 3.9%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenNebula is 3.7%, down from 8.1% 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)3.9%
OpenNebula3.7%
Other92.4%
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.
Thomas Bennett - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, DevOps System Engineering team at MX
Robust with great CLI tools and UI
I've found OpenNebula upgrades to be more complex than those of some of the competitors and the support to be mediocre. I would also like to see more and better ancillary tools related to OpenNebula, for example, more robust tools for backups, user support, etc. The support knows their software stack reasonably well. However, OpenNebula depends on so many open-source projects that they lack expertise. As with all enterprise software licensing, the pricing is not intuitive and must be negotiated; grandfathered contracts are better than anything offered today.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to set up."
"The self-service capabilities allow us to orchestrate our deployments without writing code, and they also use artificial intelligence to improve our security posture."
"Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) does the best with the architecture of the CVM because one CVM for each node makes it more distributed and improves usability, offering more technical improvement compared to other vendors."
"I really like the Nutanix Marketplace a lot. We publish standard workloads there and that, in combination with the Projects, allows for self-service, which is the most powerful feature of Calm."
"Nutanix Cloud Manager's interface offers valuable insight, providing me with the comfort of knowing everything is functioning optimally and can be upgraded with a single click."
"The best features of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) start with the combination of cost and what is really under the hood, and it basically does the same thing that VMware does."
"The Nutanix technical support is very, very good."
"The most valuable feature is definitely the disaster recovery portion, which they call Xi Leap. It's included in the licensing. Before, we were on a solution that charged extra for DR software. And with Prism Pro, not only can we manage all of our other infrastructure in addition to our DR, in the same console, but we can set up recovery points. We can also set up scripts to run, so it gives us everything we need to have a solid DR plan in place."
"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."
"OpenNebula is lightweight, stable, and easy to customize."
"OpenNebula has very good integration with SAP Storage."
"The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often."
"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."
"It's easy to integrate OpenNebula with our IT systems."
"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."
"It makes maintenance very easy and stress-free for our teams."
 

Cons

"There have been bugs. We've seen what looked like some storage inefficiencies in reports and, when we went in to look, we found they were false alarms. That was something they corrected on the fly."
"Our current challenge with Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is the overwhelming amount of VMs being shown as over-provisioned. For example, out of approximately 1,000 VMs on the platform, 800 of them are indicating over-provisioning."
"In the first couple of months of deploying Nutanix, we had an issue with certain nodes that were rebooting automatically. Nothing went down, but it was concerning. Within a week of having the problem, we had a dedicated support person who worked with us for about a month and a half while they found the bug and developed a new patch for it. We tested it for them, then once it was working, everything was good."
"We need to get more training and achieve much more consistent training. There is training, and there are courses, but in local terms, we are missing something that would allow us to have a more widespread training program."
"Nowadays, we see systems breaking a lot. I know that the current features of Nutanix Cloud Manager help to monitor the container world and modern applications, but as more microservices are getting deployed, more micro-management of those services needs to be done."
"The interoperability with different clouds can be better so that one can even integrate the infrastructure of different clouds. They can interoperate better with other clouds because currently, you have to buy Nutanix resources in the cloud."
"The product could be more flexible with plugins. Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial."
"The support provided after office hours could use some improvement."
"Most of the competitors are offering some sort of billing software to transform their installation to work as a small-sized public cloud, but those offerings from OpenNebula are still missing."
"The storage feature that they have is a bit confusing."
"Backup features are only available in the enterprise edition. The community version lacks a good solution for making backups."
"They should add more features like object storage."
"There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula."
"The front-facing API can be improved to support lots of requests when the platform is huge with lots of virtual resources."
"As with all enterprise software licensing, the pricing is not intuitive and must be negotiated; grandfathered contracts are better than anything offered today."
"Hosting platforms are limited so the deployment process needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its cost is reasonable. The features are very good."
"I was not involved in purchasing Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM), so I have no information on its pricing or cost. I do feel that it's fair that Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is a product sold as one but with multiple tiers, though you need to make sure it isn't oversold in terms of client needs."
"On a scale from one to ten, if one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the solution's pricing a six."
"We primarily work with mid-level customers in India rather than enterprise clients. These mid-level customers are interested in services that are priced more moderately. In comparison, Nutanix's pricing is significantly higher than that of other setups. As a result, we have approximately 3,000 customers using VMware, while Nutanix has around 1,800 customers."
"It's cost-effective. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's also not inordinately expensive. It comes down to how much you use it to offset some of the costs."
"While the product may seem to be more expensive at first, it ultimately pays for itself within a short time frame due to the hours saved on maintenance."
"The five-year term for NCM's license cost and support was around five million."
"I think it can be more cost-effective."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"OpenNebula gives good value for money."
"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."
"We use the Community Edition, rather than the Enterprise Edition."
"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Computer Software Company
16%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise64
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 do you like most about OpenNebula?
The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often.
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...
 

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: December 2025.
879,443 professionals have used our research since 2012.