Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Salesforce Platform comparison

VMware and Salesforce are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. VMware is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.0, while Salesforce is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.2. VMware holds a 10.3% mindshare in PSP, compared to Salesforce’s 2.6% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of VMware users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 89% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Read 15 Pivotal Cloud Foundry reviews

7,551 Views
6,345 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Salesforce Platform

Read 94 Salesforce Platform reviews

2,346 Views
2,128 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Salesforce Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Salesforce Platform and Pivotal Cloud Foundry operate in the enterprise cloud solutions space. Salesforce Platform holds the edge with its quick customization and scalability.

Features: Salesforce Platform offers quick customization, robust integration capabilities, and flexibility for various business processes, making it adaptable for diverse organizational needs. Pivotal Cloud Foundry stands out for its strong Java performance, ease of application deployment, and robust deployment capabilities, especially beneficial in focusing on business services development without the technical hassles.

Room for Improvement: Salesforce Platform could enhance its reporting tools, lower pricing, and improve marketing automation integration. Pivotal Cloud Foundry faces challenges with its technological complexity, higher runtime costs, and could benefit from simplified migration processes and better security features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Salesforce Platform primarily supports deployment across hybrid cloud environments and is known for overall responsive customer service, though some find it slower with complex issues. Pivotal Cloud Foundry provides versatility in public and private cloud scenarios, with positive customer service, yet there's room for improvement in support during intricate problems.

Pricing and ROI: Salesforce Platform is seen as pricey but valuable for extensive features and integration, especially appealing to enterprise clients. Its ROI is evident through enhanced efficiency and sales growth. Pivotal Cloud Foundry, priced comparatively high, offers cost advantages due to its open-source nature. Pricing varies with cloud provider agreements but is considered manageable given its market benefits, contributing positively to agility and ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs. Salesforce Platform

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

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

Salesforce Platform

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

7th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Mobile Development Platforms (3rd), Rapid Application Development Software (7th), Low-Code Development Platforms (5th), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 10.3%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 2.6%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

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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Yasser_Anter

Independent Business Consultant at Freelance

Has customization and integration capabilities which increase efficiency

Salesforce could improve by offering AI features or functionalities to help business decision-makers analyze business history, suggest forward strategies, and participate in events. The previous version had a complicated interface where multiple pages and data entries were required, which was not pleasant for sales teams or business users. Also, deploying Salesforce took a long time, about four to five months, which is not ideal for any business.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to scale. The services that connect to the database are also very good."

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

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

"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the deployment is easier."

"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry pros

"The solution is very robust and easy to develop in."

"Salesforce offers control over the opportunities to see where we are and gives me high-level dashboards on each opportunity stage."

"Salesforce Platform is effective as it provides frameworks and pre-built components."

"What I like about the Salesforce Platform, in particular, its enterprise edition is that apart from its many features, you can have a wider view of the customers, a 360-degree view. I also enjoy managing opportunities in the Salesforce Platform a lot because it's easier and gives you a wider view, compared to HubSpot."

"The solution can scale."

"The technical support services are good."

"One of the main features of the solution is it is flexible."

"A very flexible solution."

More Salesforce Platform pros

Cons

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

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

"Something that can be done better is canary deployment. So, right now, we're using blue-green deployment. The support for canary deployment would be nice."

"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."

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

"I'd like to see a larger service offering."

"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."

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

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry cons

"Easier process to move to Lightning Components."

"I have found it takes an exceedingly long time to put opportunities or clients in the system. If I have an opportunity that I need to put in the system it could take approximately 10 minutes. This is a lot of time when you have multiple opportunities to put in. There are other tasks to do that are required by supervisors, such as forecasts. What I have done to save time is I did not input as much detail as I could have because I knew it was going to take me an hour to get five leads in."

"The cost of data storage is an issue once the company grows."

"Simplification is something it needs. Every time you get the engineers involved, they make things a little too complicated. It might be more beneficial to simplify everything for quick and easy reference."

"They should provide access to data quality tips and tricks to make it better."

"Salesforce Platform operates as a cloud system, and within our organization, numerous internal systems handle data processing. While real-time data retrieval is feasible through services, achieving real-time communication poses some challenges."

"Sometimes it would be a little bit slow, however, it's manageable."

"If you have resellers or distributors, you just need to figure out a way to set up the system in the backend. Since every company is different, it takes a little bit of time to figure that out."

More Salesforce Platform cons

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."

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

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

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

"I have heard that it is fairly priced. It offers ROI."

"The solution is a bit expensive."

"I haven't had to buy Salesforce, however, I have heard it's $1500 a user."

"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."

"The price of Salesforce Platform is very expensive. There are other solutions that are similar that cost a quarter of what Salesforce Platform does, such as HubSpot."

"The price varies depending on the cloud."

"Salesforce is cheap."

"Costly, but it is the top product in SaaS/PaaS. Pricing is more for large to enterprise level companies."

More Salesforce Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

38%

Manufacturing Company

19%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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

How would you choose between Microsoft PowerApps and Salesforce Platform?

I think it depends on your use case. If your organization uses Microsoft Enterprise products, PowerApps will work better in your environment. Similarly, if you have a Salesforce integration in pla...

See all answers

How does Salesforce Platform compare with Azure?

Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform is not easy or intuitive to deploy. The difficulty will be impacted by the type of application that you are trying to use the platform to build. Organizations tha...

See all answers

Do you build applications using low-code or pro-code builders on Salesforce Platform?

At my organization, we have only used Salesforce Platform's low-code builder. The reason for this is not because we do not like the pro-code option, but because we do not see the need of using it, ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

More Pivotal Cloud Foundry Competitors

Appian vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 18% of the time

Oracle Application Express (APEX) vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Power Apps vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 9% of the time

ServiceNow vs Salesforce Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More Salesforce Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry

April 2025

Download Pivotal Cloud Foundry product report

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Platform

March 2025

Download Salesforce Platform product report

Also Known As

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

Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud

Overview

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

Salesforce Platform is a tool that provides application building with open application programming interfaces (APIs), integration tools, back-end services, starter templates, and developer environments. With a low-code interface, users are able to build applications and benefit from automated processes. The product helps customers to increase work productivity and save on IT costs through efficient, easy-to-understand, methods for creating applications.

Salesforce Platform allows companies to build and operate intelligent applications at scale and share them with employees and customers in real time. The tool secures companies' data while connecting and synchronizing it simultaneously across their Customer 360 accounts. The main components of the product are:

Application development: With low code, companies can build applications faster and automate their businesses.
Automation: The product can connect with Salesforce Genie, allowing employees to create seamless processes.
Security: The Shield component allows companies to secure their data and build applications.
Hyperforce: Companies have the option to scale globally and serve customers locally, providing secure, private, and agile solutions.
Einstein Intelligence: Organizations can utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to create personalized experiences for customers, potentially increasing companies’ growth.
Sandboxes: Salesforce Platform offers developers secure development environments where they can test, build, and deploy changes before rolling out final products.

Salesforce Platform Features

Also referred to as a “drag and drop app builder," this solution offers various features for customers to create intelligent applications and build personalized services for clients, partners, and employees within the apps.

Mobile feature: The mobile feature of Salesforce Platform allows users to build applications for mobile as well as turn already-made apps into mobile apps instantly.
AI: Through AI, users are able to personalize their applications, utilizing the smart assistant of the platform (called Einstein). The creation of customized services for clients can drive engagement and scale customer experience.
Vision feature: The Vision feature also utilizes Einstein Platform, where users can take advantage of Einstein Prediction Builder, Bots, Vision, and Language to create AI-powered applications.
Data protection: Salesforce Platform offers a data protection feature called Salesforce Shield. With it, companies can monitor app and data use, automate security policies, run compliance audits, and encrypt sensitive data.
Privacy and identity feature: Salesforce Customer Identity is a feature for privacy that offers user access through a single login. The feature provides a seamless user experience while maintaining a high level of security.
Community feature: The community feature of the product offers a digital experience platform where companies can create secure portals, applications, and websites.
Builder feature: The application building feature of Salesforce Platform offers various ways for users to create apps, including through low-code builders and pro-code tools.

Salesforce Platform Benefits

The benefits of using Salesforce Platform include:

Compared to manual coding products, Salesforce Platform is simpler for beginner users who want to develop a product.
The tool requires a low amount of coding, making it a quick and agile way to develop applications.
The adaptable design of the platform offers multi-layered security which maintains data accessible to users while protecting it from outside sources.
The product can be incorporated with various platforms and coding languages for application development.
The platform can be used to create applications compatible with large database systems like MySQL and Oracle.
Salesforce Platform allows collaboration between users, as it offers simultaneous access to various users at the same time.
Salesforce Platform is compatible with desktop databases such as Microsoft Access.

Reviews from Real Users

A vice president at a healthcare company values Salesforce Platform because it is flexible and user-friendly with helpful pre-built schemas.

Peter G., a senior technical consultant at a tech services company, rates Salesforce Platform highly because it is intuitive, quite easy to learn, and stores all kinds of relevant sales information.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

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

ADP

Buyer's Guide

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs. Salesforce Platform

April 2025

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