Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
MSP
Top 20
Aug 14, 2025
With CloudStack's Role-Based Access Controls, it is pretty handy for user management. The user experience depends on the use case. In private clouds, that's where I observe a lot of utilization of RBAC, as different departments need to control or access CloudStack with specific restrictions. I can define roles and limit what users can do or see and which parts of the cloud product they can manage. Typically, this use case is not as prevalent in public clouds, where everything is governed at the account or tenant level itself. However, RBAC is far more feature-rich when implemented in private clouds. CloudStack's APIs are very tight and useful for automating processes. They integrate flawlessly with Terraform and Ansible, the market leaders in automation technologies. I can leverage Terraform or Ansible to automate tasks as needed. The API is very feature-rich and operates on a REST-based architecture. Just to clarify, all the UI elements of CloudStack are primarily API-driven; the features I see in the UI represent only about 80% of what's available through the API. There are many more features accessible through the API, and numerous community users rely heavily on it to automate their tasks. When discussing CloudStack's orchestration capabilities, the primary function is orchestrating the VMs. I can spin up any number of VMs needed using my automation tools or the user-friendly UI. Navigating through the UI is straightforward, making it accessible for anyone starting, as they can easily find what they need on the left pane of their dashboard. The orchestration platform is extensive because it can integrate with any hypervisor I want to bring into the platform. I rate CloudStack 9 out of 10.
I give CloudStack a nine out of ten. More scalability options, drag-and-drop functionality, and dedicated documentation for different user roles could enhance the user experience.
CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 10
Feb 20, 2025
I rate CloudStack at eight and a half to nine out of ten. We are not system integrators, and our long-term use of CloudStack indicates that it works well for us. Since it is open-source, we are not tied to any partner program.
I have used the solution more than once in the past twelve months. People might want to use payment for cost control if it is a private cloud. Even enterprises would use it for cost control. It's difficult to measure a return on investment. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
My biased advice would be to use the technology only after creating a proper design. This means doing thorough research and speaking with professionals with experience in implementing similar designs. It's important to have the design peer-reviewed by someone else before ordering any necessary hardware and attempting to deploy it. Additionally, consider seeking consultancy from a company like a UK-based company named ShapeBlue. Also, it is important to note that I don't work for ShapeBlue. Spending some money on professional help can get you up and running more smoothly. Owing to the fact that when I consider the competition and available alternatives, CloudStack has proven to be an extremely reliable and durable piece of software in our company environment for over twelve years, and since I have no plans to switch to any other platform at this time, I rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Feb 14, 2023
If you are considering implementing CloudStack, there are a few questions that you should ask yourself. What are your requirements? Is it for your internal use or are you planning to offer services to end customers? The answers to these questions will depend on the size of your implementation. If you are planning to use CloudStack for your own internal environment with a small number of users, but want to manage those users within the CloudStack environment, then it could be a good fit. However, if you are planning for a larger-scale implementation with the potential to scale to a significant number of users over time, then it would be wise to consider other options as well. I rate CloudStack a seen out of ten. The primary advantage of using CloudStack is its open-source nature. Once you have a solid understanding of the underlying technologies and how the platform operates, it is relatively straightforward to deploy and maintain your own infrastructure, whether it is for your internal team or company. In most cases, you can handle maintenance on your own, unless you require significant changes to the solutions' functionality, which may necessitate dependence on the community or the involvement of Java developers to maintain your infrastructure.
I rate CloudStack eight out of 10. Make sure you have your on-premises solution for provisioning virtual machines. If you are going to do that, you must be sure that you need it because it's quite complicated. Although it works quite well, it's something really complicated.
I can recommend CloudStack because there are a lot of large companies using it in production for critical mission systems, and everything else. It's a very stable product, and compared to similar solutions it is also easier to deploy. Then there's the fact that you don't need a license, so it's obviously cheaper than most alternatives. If you seek out a company such as a consultant service to help you build the infrastructure, service cloud, orchestrator, etc., then you will find that CloudStack doesn't take much time to implement. The other solutions are a different story, and they may take up to three or four times longer to deploy. CloudStack is very intentional about keeping things simple. One final point is that with CloudStack, you don't have the vendor lock-in that you might have with OpenStack. If you're using CloudStack and you obtain support from one company and then decide to go with another company for support, it's all the same base code. Contrast this with OpenStack, where if you have Canonical OpenStack running in your infrastructure, you will have vendor lock-in because it's not that easy to move over to Red Hat OpenStack. I would rate Apache CloudStack a ten out of ten.
Architect - Cloud Serviced at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
MSP
Top 10
May 9, 2019
My advice for anybody interested in implementing this product is to do the POC, and don't just go blindly with it. You need to see what the pitfalls are and whether your team can handle it, or not. If they cannot handle it then you should look at other cloud products, such as those that have more support in the community. On the other hand, if you are looking for something small, scalable, and easy to deploy, then this is a good solution. I would rate this product a seven and a half out of ten.
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
May 23, 2018
We rate Apache CloudStack a pure 10 out of 10 for its extremely versatile environment, rich feature set that can cover even the most complex customer requirements, and the ease of management.
Apache CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.
With CloudStack's Role-Based Access Controls, it is pretty handy for user management. The user experience depends on the use case. In private clouds, that's where I observe a lot of utilization of RBAC, as different departments need to control or access CloudStack with specific restrictions. I can define roles and limit what users can do or see and which parts of the cloud product they can manage. Typically, this use case is not as prevalent in public clouds, where everything is governed at the account or tenant level itself. However, RBAC is far more feature-rich when implemented in private clouds. CloudStack's APIs are very tight and useful for automating processes. They integrate flawlessly with Terraform and Ansible, the market leaders in automation technologies. I can leverage Terraform or Ansible to automate tasks as needed. The API is very feature-rich and operates on a REST-based architecture. Just to clarify, all the UI elements of CloudStack are primarily API-driven; the features I see in the UI represent only about 80% of what's available through the API. There are many more features accessible through the API, and numerous community users rely heavily on it to automate their tasks. When discussing CloudStack's orchestration capabilities, the primary function is orchestrating the VMs. I can spin up any number of VMs needed using my automation tools or the user-friendly UI. Navigating through the UI is straightforward, making it accessible for anyone starting, as they can easily find what they need on the left pane of their dashboard. The orchestration platform is extensive because it can integrate with any hypervisor I want to bring into the platform. I rate CloudStack 9 out of 10.
I give CloudStack a nine out of ten. More scalability options, drag-and-drop functionality, and dedicated documentation for different user roles could enhance the user experience.
I rate CloudStack at eight and a half to nine out of ten. We are not system integrators, and our long-term use of CloudStack indicates that it works well for us. Since it is open-source, we are not tied to any partner program.
I have used the solution more than once in the past twelve months. People might want to use payment for cost control if it is a private cloud. Even enterprises would use it for cost control. It's difficult to measure a return on investment. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
My biased advice would be to use the technology only after creating a proper design. This means doing thorough research and speaking with professionals with experience in implementing similar designs. It's important to have the design peer-reviewed by someone else before ordering any necessary hardware and attempting to deploy it. Additionally, consider seeking consultancy from a company like a UK-based company named ShapeBlue. Also, it is important to note that I don't work for ShapeBlue. Spending some money on professional help can get you up and running more smoothly. Owing to the fact that when I consider the competition and available alternatives, CloudStack has proven to be an extremely reliable and durable piece of software in our company environment for over twelve years, and since I have no plans to switch to any other platform at this time, I rate this solution a ten out of ten.
If you are considering implementing CloudStack, there are a few questions that you should ask yourself. What are your requirements? Is it for your internal use or are you planning to offer services to end customers? The answers to these questions will depend on the size of your implementation. If you are planning to use CloudStack for your own internal environment with a small number of users, but want to manage those users within the CloudStack environment, then it could be a good fit. However, if you are planning for a larger-scale implementation with the potential to scale to a significant number of users over time, then it would be wise to consider other options as well. I rate CloudStack a seen out of ten. The primary advantage of using CloudStack is its open-source nature. Once you have a solid understanding of the underlying technologies and how the platform operates, it is relatively straightforward to deploy and maintain your own infrastructure, whether it is for your internal team or company. In most cases, you can handle maintenance on your own, unless you require significant changes to the solutions' functionality, which may necessitate dependence on the community or the involvement of Java developers to maintain your infrastructure.
I rate CloudStack eight out of 10. Make sure you have your on-premises solution for provisioning virtual machines. If you are going to do that, you must be sure that you need it because it's quite complicated. Although it works quite well, it's something really complicated.
I can recommend CloudStack because there are a lot of large companies using it in production for critical mission systems, and everything else. It's a very stable product, and compared to similar solutions it is also easier to deploy. Then there's the fact that you don't need a license, so it's obviously cheaper than most alternatives. If you seek out a company such as a consultant service to help you build the infrastructure, service cloud, orchestrator, etc., then you will find that CloudStack doesn't take much time to implement. The other solutions are a different story, and they may take up to three or four times longer to deploy. CloudStack is very intentional about keeping things simple. One final point is that with CloudStack, you don't have the vendor lock-in that you might have with OpenStack. If you're using CloudStack and you obtain support from one company and then decide to go with another company for support, it's all the same base code. Contrast this with OpenStack, where if you have Canonical OpenStack running in your infrastructure, you will have vendor lock-in because it's not that easy to move over to Red Hat OpenStack. I would rate Apache CloudStack a ten out of ten.
My advice for anybody interested in implementing this product is to do the POC, and don't just go blindly with it. You need to see what the pitfalls are and whether your team can handle it, or not. If they cannot handle it then you should look at other cloud products, such as those that have more support in the community. On the other hand, if you are looking for something small, scalable, and easy to deploy, then this is a good solution. I would rate this product a seven and a half out of ten.
Though the framework is best in its own way, a technology upgrade is lagging.
We rate Apache CloudStack a pure 10 out of 10 for its extremely versatile environment, rich feature set that can cover even the most complex customer requirements, and the ease of management.