Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) comparison

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Cisco and Nutanix are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Read 126 Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) reviews

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7,149 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 8, 2026

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL and Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM compete in the cloud management and enterprise OS market. Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM holds a stronger position due to its comprehensive feature set and perceived value despite Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL's appeal in certain areas.

Features: Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL offers integration capabilities with existing infrastructure, a focus on scalability, and automation. Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM provides advanced data management, self-service capabilities, and analytics for enhanced control and visibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM provides a flexible and intuitive deployment model, supported by responsive customer service, ensuring quick adoption and troubleshooting. In contrast, Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL may require more extensive support due to its complexity in transitions.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Piston Enterprise OS EOL is recognized for a cost-effective setup with potentially higher long-term ROI from its integration efficiencies. Nutanix Cloud Manager NCM commands a higher initial investment, which is offset by its extensive capabilities and lower operational costs over time, delivering a compelling ROI.

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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

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

126

Ranking in other categories

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (5th), Cloud Management (1st), Virtualization Management Tools (1st), Cloud Cost Management (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (10th)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

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Vijaykumar Talreja

Global Group CIO, CTO, Cdo & CISO at a real estate/law firm with 201-500 employees

Centralized multi-cloud management has simplified automation and boosted operational efficiency

Some downsides of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) are that it has very high cost and licensing complexity, particularly for smaller environments, making it more suited for larger environments. On the learning curve and support, while Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is user-friendly in some areas, the initial setup is complex and sometimes requires very specialized expertise, creating a steep learning curve. There is also limited third-party integration, as it has very limited non-native integrations compared to competitors. The documentation has gaps, particularly for advanced features, requiring some improvement, and certain advanced configurations and troubleshooting still require heavy reliance on the command-line interface rather than having a GUI.

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

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations has multi-cloud capability, allowing users to switch between cloud providers or vendors without incurring egress or movement fees."

"Administration of our virtual environment has been streamlined; we can go to Prism Pro and look at anything from VM performance down to our DR, customize dashboards to get what we want to look at on a daily basis, all in one place, making it like a one-stop shop to manage our entire infrastructure and cutting down on management efforts significantly, saving us about eight hours per week."

"The design is very intuitive; it's easy to find information in the different menus and things like that. The user experience is much better compared to other products."

"We used VMware, we switched just to make our life easy and work-life balance."

"It has been helpful for forecasting and planning. It has also been helpful for analytics. With the help of this solution, we can have a better understanding of how much storage we are utilizing and how many processes are currently in use. Based on this information, we get a better understanding of how much expansion we need going forward, which is very important because ultimately it saves cost. It simplifies operations and helps with more revenue and productivity. It brings stability to our production environment. With the help of forecasting and capacity planning, we can achieve all of our long-term organizational goals."

"The administration components are the most useful since, with them, we have been able to win and perform preventive measures in the administration of the hyper-converged Nutanix infrastructure."

"In the beginning, I saw the product's user manual, but when installing and managing it in a practical way, I could see that it is very friendly and reliable at the interface level, at the same time very specific, it shows characteristics of the resources never observed at least by me on similar platforms"

"utanix Prism Pro provides robust upgrading Nutanix clusters mechanism that has long been a delightful experience delivered via one-click upgrades. The one-click process hides a lot of complexity by using advanced automation and consumer-grade design experience."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"For now, my biggest problem in our corporation is the Nutanix hypervisor (AOS) is not fully operational for some things."

"The biggest issue we've run into is not being able to quickly share information. More sharing features outside of just the standard reporting, where I can export something to a PDF, would be more helpful."

"Its licensing can be better."

"We have had our fair share of issues while upgrading early on, but the process now is working flawlessly."

"However, I feel that simpler onboarding and learning curves are needed as some users find the initial setup and configuration planning requires expertise."

"I cannot say Calm is providing centralized control of all our applications because we have some legacy systems. We have IBM iSeries, which is another technology. But with Calm we can centralize all our x86 machines."

"The solution's virtualization could be even better."

"There is room for improvement in the remote script execution. The way logs are shown in Calm, it's not always keeping up properly. It's really the interface that needs attention there. I believe it is something being worked on at the moment by Nutanix."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"We primarily work with mid-level customers in India rather than enterprise clients. These mid-level customers are interested in services that are priced more moderately. In comparison, Nutanix's pricing is significantly higher than that of other setups. As a result, we have approximately 3,000 customers using VMware, while Nutanix has around 1,800 customers."

"The price is probably right where it should be. It's not vastly expensive, and it's not too cheap. We get very good value for the price with what we're being offered with it."

"The product is expensive...When I have to sell the tool to a customer, I would say that it is not very expensive and can be termed priceless."

"Prism Pro is a bit more upfront. It costs a bit more for some of the features that you get. We have four clusters, and two of them don't have Prism Pro because they weren't even available with what we bought. Those two clusters also run well, but they don't have all the features."

"It's always difficult to discuss Nutanix pricing because the cost varies wildly depending on the customer and the region. Desktop virtualization is simpler because there is a defined scope. You can tell the Nutanix salesperson how many users you have. In a more traditional environment, it's always best to have NCM for monitoring because you'd be crazy not to."

"Compared to UCS and the NetApp storage, Nutanix is actually cheaper."

"For Ecuador, this is a sensitive issue. It is a small economy, so the issue of budget is very sensitive. You find many small businesses and government clients who do not renew, for example, support or guarantees, which raises the risk level for them. We are always advising them that it is necessary to renew the services or infrastructure."

"I think it can be more cost-effective."

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Marketing Services Firm

13%

Construction Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	75

Questions from the Community

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Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?

For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...

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Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?

When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...

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Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?

Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

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VMware Aria Operations vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

CloudCheckr vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

October 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)

October 2026

Download Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central, Nutanix Software Subscription

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

Nutanix Cloud Manager streamlines hybrid cloud management by offering centralized control, automation, and workload optimization across platforms. It improves operational efficiency while reducing IT management complexity.

Nutanix Cloud Manager is designed for comprehensive hybrid cloud governance, providing tools for virtualization, resource allocation, and compliance. Its features include one-click upgrades, dynamic dashboards, and the seamless automation of tasks through X-Play. Users can efficiently manage virtual machines, ensure secure storage, and enhance productivity with predictive monitoring. Self-service capabilities allow users to reserve resources easily, while central management via Prism Pro and automated reports enhance oversight and decision-making. Challenges include UI simplicity, pricing transparency, and licensing efficiency, with users seeking improvements in VM organization, blueprint customization, and collaborative support for hybrid environments.

What important features define Nutanix Cloud Manager?

One-click Upgrades: Simplifies the process of updating and maintaining systems.
Intuitive Interface: Offers a user-friendly experience with a low learning curve.
Prism Pro: Central management for streamlined control over environments.
Dynamic Dashboards: Provides real-time insights and monitoring capabilities.
X-Play Automation: Facilitates seamless and efficient task automation.
Capacity Planning: Assists in optimal resource allocation and future growth planning.
Compliance Monitoring: Ensures adherence to industry standards and policies.
Efficient VM Management: Enhances control and monitoring of virtual machines.
Self-service Capabilities: Empowers users to manage and allocate resources independently.
Cost Governance: Allows organizations to maintain budgetary control and efficiency.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Nutanix Cloud Manager?

Enhanced Productivity: Streamlines tasks and improves efficiency through automation.
Predictive Monitoring: Proactively addresses potential issues before they impact operations.
Robust Disaster Recovery: Provides reliable solutions to recover data and maintain continuity.
Automated Reports: Generates timely insights for informed decision-making.
Unified Cloud Management: Offers comprehensive control across multiple environments.

Nutanix Cloud Manager finds utility in industries requiring robust hybrid cloud strategies like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. It excels in centralizing management for secure and compliant operations, optimizing workloads, and providing scalable solutions for resource allocation and compliance monitoring, thus enhancing cloud operations in diverse markets.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, Broadcom, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: October 2026.

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