StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Cloud Hosting
  4. Open Source Cloud
  5. Apache CloudStack vs VMware vSphere

Apache CloudStack vs VMware vSphere

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apache CloudStack
Apache CloudStack
Stacks66
Followers250
Votes95
GitHub Stars2.7K
Forks1.2K
VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere
Stacks608
Followers550
Votes30

Apache CloudStack vs VMware vSphere: What are the differences?

Key differences between Apache CloudStack and VMware vSphere

Apache CloudStack and VMware vSphere are both platforms for managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure. However, there are several key differences between these two solutions.

  1. Hypervisor support: One major difference is in the hypervisor support. Apache CloudStack offers support for a wide range of hypervisors including VMware ESXi, KVM, and Xen. On the other hand, VMware vSphere is tightly integrated with its own hypervisor, VMware ESXi.

  2. Open-source vs proprietary: Another important distinction lies in the openness of the platforms. Apache CloudStack is an open-source solution, which means that its source code is openly available for modification and customization. In contrast, VMware vSphere is a proprietary solution developed by VMware.

  3. Scalability and multi-tenancy: Apache CloudStack is known for its robust scalability and multi-tenancy capabilities. It can support large-scale deployments and enable multiple users or organizations to utilize the resources of a single cloud infrastructure. While VMware vSphere also offers some level of scalability and multi-tenancy, it may not be as flexible and powerful as CloudStack in this regard.

  4. Management and orchestration: Both CloudStack and vSphere provide management and orchestration capabilities for cloud infrastructure. However, the way they approach these aspects differs. CloudStack focuses on providing a unified management interface and a comprehensive set of APIs for managing all aspects of the cloud infrastructure. VMware vSphere, on the other hand, is known for its robust management tools and extensive ecosystem of integrated products and solutions.

  5. Cost: Cost is another differentiating factor between Apache CloudStack and VMware vSphere. As an open-source solution, CloudStack can potentially reduce the overall cost of deploying and managing a cloud infrastructure. VMware vSphere, being a proprietary solution, may involve licensing costs and can be more expensive in some cases.

  6. Community and support: Finally, the level of community involvement and support also varies between CloudStack and vSphere. Apache CloudStack benefits from a vibrant open-source community that actively contributes to its development and provides support through forums and other channels. VMware vSphere, as a proprietary solution, relies more on the support provided by VMware itself, which may come at a premium.

In summary, Apache CloudStack and VMware vSphere differ in hypervisor support, open-source vs proprietary nature, scalability and multi-tenancy capabilities, management and orchestration approach, cost, and community and support.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Detailed Comparison

Apache CloudStack
Apache CloudStack
VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere

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.

vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.

Works with hosts running KVM, XenServer/XCP-ng, VMware ESXi with vSphere and HyperV; Provides a friendly Web-based UI for managing the cloud; Provides a native API; Manages storage for instances running on the hypervisors (primary storage) as well as templates, snapshots, and ISO images (secondary storage); Orchestrates network services from the data link layer (L2) to some application layer (L7) services, such as DHCP, NAT, firewall, VPN, and so on; Accounting of network, compute, and storage resources; Multi-tenancy/account separation; User management; Supports Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible
Powerful Server Virtualization;Network Services;Efficient Storage;Consistent Automation;High Availability;Robust Security
Statistics
GitHub Stars
2.7K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.2K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
66
Stacks
608
Followers
250
Followers
550
Votes
95
Votes
30
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 15
    Apache CloudStack works
  • 13
    Multi hypervisor
  • 10
    Easy setup
  • 9
    Open architecture
  • 9
    Real open source software
Pros
  • 8
    Strong host isolation
  • 6
    Industry leader
  • 5
    Great VM management (HA,FT,...)
  • 4
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Feature rich
Cons
  • 9
    Price

What are some alternatives to Apache CloudStack, VMware vSphere?

VirtualBox

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

OpenStack

OpenStack

OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.

Proxmox VE

Proxmox VE

It is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.

KVM

KVM

KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

VirtKick

VirtKick

Software as a service platform for hosting providers.

Qemu

Qemu

When used as a machine emulator, it can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performance. When used as a virtualizer, it achieves near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. it supports virtualization when executing under the Xen hypervisor or using the KVM kernel module in Linux. When using KVM, it can virtualize x86, server and embedded PowerPC, 64-bit POWER, S390, 32-bit and 64-bit ARM, and MIPS guests.

Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence.

Parallels

Parallels

It is an application and desktop virtualization software vendor that offers management and delivery platforms for Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows desktop deployments.

VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion

It gives Mac users the power to run Windows on Mac along with hundreds of other operating systems side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting. It is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses.

OpenNebula

OpenNebula

It provides a simple but feature-rich and flexible solution for the comprehensive management of virtualized data centers to enable on-premise enterprise clouds in existing infrastructures. It can be primarily used as a virtualization tool to manage your virtual infrastructure in the data-center or cluster, which is usually referred as Private Cloud. It supports Hybrid Cloud to combine local infrastructure with public cloud-based infrastructure, enabling highly scalable hosting environments.

Related Comparisons

GitHub
Bitbucket

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs GitLab

GitHub
Bitbucket

AWS CodeCommit vs Bitbucket vs GitHub

Kubernetes
Rancher

Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes vs Rancher

gulp
Grunt

Grunt vs Webpack vs gulp

Graphite
Kibana

Grafana vs Graphite vs Kibana