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Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Salesforce Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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
15
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
92
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 February 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 10.0%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Platform is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Vasundhara  Joshi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Yasser_Anter - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies. It has a very good performance."
"I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities."
"It supports CI/CD, and is integrated with the CI/CD very well."
"Stability is not a concern with this product."
"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"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."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"Salesforce is the best one out there."
"The solution scales extremely well."
"The solution's stability is fine. There are no issues with Salesforce's stability."
"The activities, opportunities, follow-up of the opportunities, and business tracking are valuable features. It provides everything that we need. It works pretty well."
"Salesforce provides customization that aligns with our organization's lifecycle management of opportunities. It integrates with our call records, meeting notes, and the Outlook calendar, which helps in mapping roles and managing opportunities effectively."
"We haven't had any issues with stability so far."
"The stability has been great."
"It is very user-friendly, and intuitive, it will lead you and take you to the next steps."
 

Cons

"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."
"There are no synthetic application monitoring and real-time monitoring features."
"I'd like to see a larger service offering."
"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."
"It should offer more security features."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry doesn't have certain advanced features."
"A company needs to carefully consider how they set up Salesforce in order to ensure it benefits them."
"Identification management systems integration should be easier."
"One area that could use improvement is the approval mechanism in the authenticator, which is unstable."
"In terms of features, for our business needs, we have more than enough right now. There is nothing that we are missing or would like to add. They can maybe share some best practices so that when you are starting, you can stick to a good process, and you don't have to think so much about the process that you want or your CEO or CMO wants. The process should not be based on one person in the company. Having some best practices will make it easier to get started. These best practices can be based on what has worked for others. Its basic version is pretty simple, and the customizations are up to the companies, which can make startups like ours lose a lot of time in figuring out what all stakeholders want rather than what would work."
"Reporting could be better. Reporting is Excel-based, and it has sucked since the inception of the company. That's why I was excited about the fact of them bringing MuleSoft into the fold and Tableau."
"The reporting needs improvement and the dashboard could have more components added."
"We have a lot of strategic accounts and large accounts that are tied with all the growth and acquisitions across North America, being able to tag parent-child accounts in an easier fashion would be better. This is the biggest pain point is associating parent to child and being able to align and manage it better. Overall a better parent-child relationship between accounts would be a benefit."
"The cost of data storage is an issue once the company grows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"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."
"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 is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"The licensing is on the expensive side, but most clients engage in negotiations to reach a more favorable agreement. For stand-alone or medium-sized clients, it can be relatively costly."
"The cost of this solution depends on negotiations. It is somewhere between expensive and reasonable. There is always additional costs for consulting services. It's the kind of solution that requires consulting, but it is not a licensing cost. It is a consulting cost. It is CAPEX versus OPEX."
"The price varies depending on the cloud."
"Pricing and license differ and depend on how much license you are purchasing from them."
"It is expensive. Licensing is on an annual basis."
"Salesforce charges double the rates, or almost three times, compared to its competitors. Our company does incur additional charges for maintenance and support."
"It is an expensive program."
"Salesforce does a user capacity analysis on a regular basis. For example, if you're not using certain areas, you may lose access. If you don't go in and quote and edit quotes, all of a sudden you may lose your rights to quote."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
39%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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...
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.
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.
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...
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...
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, ...
 

Also Known As

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
Salesforce1, Force.com, Salesforce App Cloud
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs. Salesforce Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.