Introduction
As businesses increasingly adopt cloud-native technologies and scale their infrastructure across public and private clouds, the need for effective cloud management has become critical. Cloud management platforms help ensure seamless provisioning, governance, security and metering of cloud resources. In this blog post, we analyze and review 15 of the most popular cloud management platforms based on key evaluation criteria to help you identify the best solution for your organization’s needs.
Methods of Evaluation
We evaluated each cloud management platform based on the following conventional criteria: features, pricing, ease of use, support for multiple clouds, integrations and enterprise grade capabilities. Additionally, we also factored in non-conventional metrics like number of backlinks, average monthly search traffic and keyword trend to gauge overall market standing and maturity when ranking the platforms. This holistic evaluation approach aims to provide a balanced perspective for comparing these solutions.
1. GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions is a native continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) workflow tool from GitHub. It allows users to build, test, and deploy their projects right from GitHub. With GitHub Actions, developers can automate their entire software development workflows to rapidly iterate, release consistently, and deliver values without the cost or complexity typically associated with CI/CD tools.
Pros: Some key advantages of GitHub Actions include: Native integration directly within GitHub repositories which makes it very easy to set up and use automated workflows. Useful workflows like testing, building, deploying, etc are preconfigured out of the box. GitHub’s large community which provides an abundance of easily reusable workflows and actions.
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that GitHub Actions can only be used with GitHub repositories and code hosted on GitHub. It lacks some advanced features found in other CI/CD tools.
Pricing: GitHub Actions is offered alongside a GitHub paid plan or as part of GitHub Free which includes 1000 free minutes per month. Beyond the free usage allowance, GitHub Actions usage is billed at $0.05 per minute.
Some key stats about GitHub Actions include: It offers 1000 free minutes per month of usage. It comes pre-configured with many useful workflows out of the box to streamline common development and deployment tasks. Over 1 million developers have used GitHub Actions to automate their software development pipelines.
2. IBM Cloud Orchestrator
IBM Cloud Orchestrator helps enterprises manage their hybrid and multi-cloud environments through unified workflows, governance and automation. Originally released in 2015, IBM Cloud Orchestrator has evolved into a powerful cloud management platform.
Pros: Key advantages of IBM Cloud Orchestrator include: built for hybrid multi-cloud environments, allowing enterprises to manage their infrastructure, middleware and applications across public and private clouds in a single pane of glass; automates provisioning and lifecycle management on all major clouds through a unified interface; advanced optimization capabilities including predictive analytics, cost optimization and security recommendations.
Cons: A potential disadvantage is that the platform is tailored more for large enterprises versus small-to-medium sized businesses due to its steep on-premises deployment and support costs.
Pricing: IBM Cloud Orchestrator pricing starts at $15,000 per year for the base Enterprise plan. Additional costs include annual software maintenance and support fees as well as professional services for implementation and customization.
Some key stats about IBM Cloud Orchestrator include: supports provisioning and management on all major public clouds including AWS, Azure, GCP and IBM Cloud; over 1000 pre-built APIs, templates and actions; used by more than 3000 large enterprises worldwide.
3. vRealize Automation
VMware vRealize Automation is a cloud management platform from VMware, one of the leading virtualization and cloud computing companies. vRealize Automation allows IT teams to automate and govern infrastructure provisioning across private, public and hybrid cloud environments.
Pros: Some key advantages of vRealize Automation include: Built by a major cloud player in VMware ensuring stability and features. Provides deep integration with vSphere environments. Robust hybrid cloud capabilities allowing workload portability. Mature DevOps and governance features including approvals, quotas and chargeback.
Cons: One potential disadvantage is the higher pricing compared to some other options, as vRealize Automation is an enterprise-grade solution. The hybrid cloud capabilities may also be overkill for some purely on-premises or public cloud scenarios.
Pricing: VMware vRealize Automation pricing starts at around $5,000 per server socket per year for the Essentials edition. Additional costs apply for premium editions with more advanced features and capabilities. Contact VMware sales for an exact quote tailored to your requirements.
Some key stats about vRealize Automation include: Used by over 20,000 customers worldwide, deployed in over 100 countries. Supports all major hypervisors including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and more. Over 10 years of development and enhancements. Known for its rich catalog of blueprints and templates to quickly deploy VMs and containers.
4. TeamCity
TeamCity is a continuous integration and delivery server from JetBrains. As a Java-based build management and CI/CD server, TeamCity offers robust pipelines, integrations, and plugins for optimizing development workflows.
Pros: Some key advantages of TeamCity include:
– Feature-rich continuous integration server from a well known IDE vendor
– Deep integrations and plugins available for JetBrains IntelliJ IDE’s
– Free tier suitable for personal or smaller professional use cases
Cons: The main disadvantage is that for larger teams or commercial use, a paid subscription is required beyond the free tier limit of 20 build configurations.
Pricing: TeamCity offers the following pricing tiers:
– Free tier for up to 20 build configurations
– Professional tier from $25/month for up to 50 configurations
– Enterprise tier starting at $50/month for unlimited configurations
Some key stats about TeamCity include:
– Free tier supports up to 20 build configurations
– Used by over 500,000 developers worldwide
– Integrates tightly with IntelliJ IDE’s via plugins
– Supports various version control systems and build tools like Git, Maven, Gradle etc.
5. Elastic APM
Elastic APM is an application performance monitoring tool developed by Elastic. It provides deep visibility into application performance, from development to production. Elastic APM helps identify and diagnose issues by providing key insights into errors and slowdowns in web and distributed applications.
Pros: Some key advantages of Elastic APM include:
– Integrated with Elasticsearch and Kibana allowing seamless search across different data sources
– Open source agent based instrumentation that requires no code changes to collect data
– Deep insights into application performance with automated error monitoring and application tracing
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that the free tier only provides limited functionality and retention. The paid tiers are required for advanced features and longer term data retention.
Pricing: Elastic APM has the following pricing tiers:
– Free – Limited to 1GB ingest per day and 7 days of retention
– Standard – $5/month per application server – Unlimited ingest and 30 days retention
– Enterprise – Contact Elastic for pricing – Dedicated support, SLA and more customization
Some key facts about Elastic APM include:
– It can monitor over 50 programming languages and frameworks out of the box including Node.js, Python, Java, .NET and Ruby.
– It integrates seamlessly with the Elastic Stack allowing users to search logs and metrics from APM alongside other data in Elasticsearch.
– It provides automatic instrumentation using open source agent based architecture so no code changes are required to collect data.
6. Jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation server which enables developers around the world to reliably build, test, and deploy their software. Originally written in Java, Jenkins can be easily installed through native packages, Docker or run standalone by any machine with the Java Runtime Environment.
Pros: Some key advantages of Jenkins include:
– Open-source and free to use with no vendor lock-in
– Rich plugin ecosystem allows for deep customization and integration with other tools
– Mature and stable platform that has been battle-tested for over 15 years
– Large community and developer support for issues
Cons: One potential disadvantage of Jenkins is that its UI can sometimes feel outdated or difficult to configure for newcomers not familiar with its internal workings. The vast array of plugin options while powerful, can also lead to complexity.
Pricing: Jenkins itself is completely open source and free to download and use. For enterprises seeking additional features and support, CloudBees offers paid CloudBees Jenkins Operations subscriptions and support contracts.
Some key stats about Jenkins include:
– Over 1.5 million installations worldwide
– Supports over 2,000 plugins
– Has been in development since 2004
– Actively maintained by owners CloudBees
7. Ansible
Ansible is an open source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool. It runs on agentsless architecture and allows IT professionals to automate apps and infrastructure through simple YAML files that can be executed on demand or on a schedule. With Ansible, complex multi-tier applications can be deployed predictably and repeatedly across multiple servers.
Pros: Some key advantages of Ansible include:
– Agentless deployment model is simple and scalable to manage thousands of servers
– Plugins extend functionality to nearly any technology through a simple API
– Templates allow for portable configurations and deployments across multiple environments
Cons: The main disadvantage of Ansible is that it requires some technical knowledge to get started with YAML syntax and writing tasks/playbooks. There is also a learning curve involved compared to traditional GUI-based tools.
Pricing: Ansible is open source and free for basic usage. For commercial support and additional features, pricing starts at $39 per managed node per year for Ansible Engine and $1,500 per year for Ansible Automation Platform.
Some key stats about Ansible include:
– Used by over 350,000 organizations worldwide including top Fortune 100 brands
– Supports over 150 different technologies including databases, load balancers, firewalls etc.
– Centralized automation commands can deploy apps across 1,000’s of servers simultaneously
– Supports Linux, Windows and network appliances
8. Flexera
Flexera is a leading provider of software monetization and cloud management solutions. Their flagship product is FlexNet Manager for Engineering which provides holistic governance and management across both on-premises and cloud environments. With FlexNet Manager, engineering teams can gain visibility, security and compliance for all their software and cloud assets.
Pros: Key advantages of FlexNet Manager include:
– Holistic cloud governance for all stacks as mentioned in the reasons.
– Advanced analytics and license optimization capabilities to track spend and rightsizing opportunities across all environments.
– Robust security, access control and compliance features to enforce policies, identify vulnerabilities and produce reports.
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that FlexNet Manager is an enterprise solution and requires significant investment and resources to deploy and maintain. It may not be suitable for very small organizations with limited IT budgets.
Pricing: FlexNet Manager pricing is customized based on organization size, deployment, support required etc. However, typical pricing would be in the range of $150-$250 per user annually for software asset management capabilities.
Some key stats about FlexNet Manager include:
– Actively manages over $100 billion worth of software assets for thousands of organizations globally.
– Provides continuous governance, optimization and security for over 250 million application installs.
– Over 900 pre-built integrations to pull data from accounting systems, procurement tools, development platforms and more.
– Supports all leading public clouds like AWS, Azure, GCP and private clouds/VMs.
9. Grafana
Grafana is an open source analytics and monitoring solution developed by Grafana Labs. It allows users to query, visualize, alert on and understand metrics no matter where they are stored. Some key features include customizable dashboards, graphing, alerting and simple hosting distribution.
Pros: Some key advantages of Grafana include:
– Open source and free to use with commercial support available
– Highly customizable interactive dashboards
– Plugins extend integration to over 50 commonly used datastores and services
– Mobile responsive for accessing metrics on the go
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that as an open source solution, it does not have the same level of commercial support as paid alternatives.
Pricing: Grafana is available in both open source and commercial versions. The open source version can be downloaded and used for free. Pricing for enterprise features and support plans starts from $1500 per year.
Some key stats about Grafana include:
– Used by over 1,000,000 deployments worldwide
– Supported by over 80 community-built plugins to integrate with various data sources like Prometheus, Graphite, Elasticsearch etc.
– Has both free and paid enterprise versions
10. New Relic
New Relic is an observability platform that helps engineers monitor, debug and improve their applications and infrastructure. Founded in 2008, New Relic has headquarters in San Francisco with additional offices around the world.
Pros: Some key advantages of New Relic include:
– APM for monitoring applications’ performance in production.
– Automatic instrumentation that collects metrics and traces without code changes.
– Real user monitoring that tracks user journeys and experiences.
– Rich UI and alerting capabilities to identify and resolve issues fast.
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that New Relic is primarily software-as-a-service sold on a per-node pricing model which can get expensive for very large infrastructures or workloads.
Pricing: New Relic offers both free and paid plans. The free plan includes basic functionality for one application and up to 500 MB of data ingestion per month. Pricing starts at $50 per month for the Standard plan which includes distributed tracing and full-stack observability for one application and up to 5 GB of data ingestion.
Some key stats about New Relic include:
– Monitoring for over 50 technologies including Java, .NET, Node.js, Ruby, PHP, Python and more.
– Used by over 15,000 companies including Glitch, Tableau, Hearst and Zillow.
– Processes over 100 billion events per day from customer applications.
11. Terraform Cloud
Terraform Cloud is HashiCorp’s SaaS offering for managing infrastructure as code (IaC) using the popular open-source Terraform tool. Terraform allows you to describe and provision your infrastructure using simple configuration files and to make changes incrementally.
Pros: Some key advantages of Terraform Cloud include its excellent support for configuring cloud infrastructure across all major providers, great collaboration features that allow teams to work together on infrastructure projects, and flexible workflow integrations that simplify multi-step deployment processes.
Cons: As a paid SaaS offering, Terraform Cloud can become more expensive at scale compared to self-hosting the open-source Terraform software. It also requires an internet connection to use some advanced features.
Pricing: Terraform Cloud pricing starts at $19 per user/month for the Team plan (up to 5 users) with additional per-user pricing for larger Teams.
Terraform Cloud is used by over 50,000 organizations worldwide to manage infrastructure and deployments. It supports infrastructure provisioning across all major cloud providers like AWS, GCP, Azure and on-premise data centers.
12. Uptime Robot
Uptime Robot is a free website monitoring service that allows users to monitor HTTP/S URLs and check for downtime. It was founded in 2013 and is based in Estonia. With Uptime Robot, users can create different monitors to check websites and web services for uptime and downtime. Some key features include monitoring SSL certificates, keyword monitoring within pages, and cron job monitoring.
Pros: Some key advantages of Uptime Robot include:
– Basic and affordable monitoring solution for small sites and side projects
– Simple UI and easy to configure monitors quickly
– Checks websites and web services for both technical uptime and keyword presence
Cons: The main disadvantage is that it only offers basic monitoring capabilities. More advanced features like custom alert thresholds, detailed reporting, and integration with other tools are limited or unavailable on the free plan.
Pricing: Uptime Robot offers a free plan for up to 50 monitors. Paid plans start at $9/month for 200 monitors and include additional features like more custom alerts, detailed reports, SLA monitoring and team collaboration tools.
Some key stats about Uptime Robot include:
– Free plan includes up to 50 monitors
– Over 500,000 users globally
– Integrates with services like Slack, PagerDuty, Discord for notifications
– Uptime checking intervals can be set from 5 minutes to 24 hours
13. Datadog
Datadog is a cloud-scale monitoring platform that helps developers, ops teams and business leaders see inside their software stacks, applications and infrastructure. With Datadog’s cloud monitoring platform, teams can monitor website performance, application dependencies, cloud infrastructure costs, and more on one unified platform.
Pros: Some key advantages of Datadog include: – Cloud-scale monitoring platform that can scale with the business – Automatic instrumentation that allows you to monitor applications without writing custom code – Integrations with major platforms and tools like AWS, GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, etc. allow end-to-end observability
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that Datadog’s paid plans start at $100+ per month which may be too expensive for some smaller teams or startups on tight budgets.
Pricing: Datadog offers a free trial and three paid tiers – Start (under 200 metrics/min), Pro (under 500,000 metrics/min), and Enterprise (over 500,000 metrics/min). Pricing is based on metrics ingestion and storage.
Some key stats about Datadog include: – Monitoring over 60 technologies including Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, GCP, etc. – Instrumentation for over 400 programming languages and frameworks – Used by over 15,000 customers including GM, Peloton, and Cisco – Processes over 1 trillion metrics per day
14. Dynatrace
Dynatrace is an AI-powered full-stack application monitoring platform. Founded in 2005, Dynatrace provides observability, security, digital experience monitoring, and APM for enterprise applications. The Dynatrace platform leverages artificial intelligence for automatic instrumentation, anomaly detection, and performance benchmarking without requiring any code changes.
Pros: Key advantages of the Dynatrace platform include full stack application monitoring across the entire technology stack, automatic instrumentation that eliminates the need to modify application code, and an integrated platform for APM, infrastructure monitoring, digital experience monitoring and application security.
Cons: A potential disadvantage is the Dynatrace platform requires a significant commitment and investment as it is an enterprise-grade APM solution. The platform also has a steeper learning curve compared to other APM tools due to its powerful but complex set of features.
Pricing: Dynatrace pricing is based on the number of nodes/hosts being monitored. There are generally three tiered plans – startup, pro and enterprise. Pricing ranges from free trials and $1,000/month for smaller implementations to $150,000+/year for large enterprise customers.
Some key stats about Dynatrace include: monitoring over 1 trillion daily application interactions, supporting over 25 billion daily events, and providing observability for customers like 3M, American Eagle Outfitters, Jaguar Land Rover, T-Mobile and more.
15. Terraform
Terraform is an open-source tool for building, changing and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Developed and maintained by HashiCorp, Terraform enables users to define and provision a datacenter infrastructure using a high-level configuration language known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL).
Pros: Some key advantages of Terraform include: – Open source tool from HashiCorp, ensuring continued development and support. – Supports multiple public clouds and on-prem infrastructure in a single configuration. – Infrastructure defined as code enables versioning, testing, and collaboration. – CLI tool makes automation and testing of infrastructure changes easy.
Cons: One potential disadvantage is that Terraform has a learning curve to understand its domain specific language and workflow. Troubleshooting errors can also sometimes be tricky for beginners.
Pricing: Terraform itself is open source and free to use. HashiCorp also offers commercial support subscriptions and a Teams offering starting at $1,000/month.
Some key stats about Terraform: – Over 43K GitHub stars and 14K contributors on GitHub. – Used by enterprises like Google, AWS, Microsoft and VMware. – Supports all major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP as well as Kubernetes and on-premise VMware infrastructure.
Conclusion
While every organization has unique requirements, we hope this review of the 15 most popular cloud management platforms based on traditional and non-traditional evaluation criteria provides valuable insights. The right cloud management platform can help maximize efficiency, optimize costs and ensure governance, security and compliance across your hybrid infrastructure. Use this analysis to shortlist the solutions that best match your workflow needs to streamline migration to the cloud.