Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs VMware Cloud Director comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

VMware Cloud Director

Read 71 VMware Cloud Director reviews

7,298 Views
6,349 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

VMware Cloud Director

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and VMware Cloud Director based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Management Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

October 2026

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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

VMware Cloud Director

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (5th)

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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KuldeepSingh4

Technical Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Experienced users benefit from resource isolation and valuable self-service portal while seeing potential in enhanced infrastructure visibility

VMware is not going further with VMware Cloud Director. They are integrating the VMware Cloud Director feature with Aria Automation only for the upcoming versions, primarily with the VCF 9, and slowly they are integrating some of the parts they have already integrated, and they might not continue with VMware Cloud Director in the future. They can make it more granular to ensure hardware-level segregation, the underlying infrastructure level of segregation for the end user, and a separate security boundary where users can access the end-to-end layer. End-to-end layer means my software layer along with the hardware layer. If they want to do a certain level of troubleshooting primarily on the ESXi part, that is what I feel is lacking for now because for an end user accessing the SSP, the underlying infrastructure is a kind of black box for them. For VMware Cloud Director, it can be more comprehensive if we enable public cloud integration as well. In today's date, customers are adopting a multi-cloud environment where VMware Cloud Director is much feasible to leverage the underlying VMware backend architecture. If VMware Cloud Director could be made to have more integration with the public cloud and do the day one, day two jobs for public cloud interface as well, that would be beneficial. Additionally, I recommend leveraging the VMware Cloud Director layer if a customer has a multi-cloud environment and is planning some cross-cloud migration capability. Cross-cloud migration refers to if a customer has something on Azure, wanting to bring it up on VMware or maybe from VMware to AWS, vice versa. In that case, VMware Cloud Director should provide some cross-cloud migration capability as well.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center."

"It has been working flawlessly for the last ten years and we have been very happy with it."

"Stability in solutions is fantastic."

"You can't go wrong with VMware."

"Overall, we are happy with the product."

"The most valuable feature of vCloud Director for me is its user-friendly UI, which is much easier compared to other platforms."

"Customer Service: Excellent. Technical Support: Excellent."

"The most valuable features are: Remote console (ability to control booting and OS installation process), support for Windows desktop OS's (mostly used as test machines for software development companies), and the resource pool payment model (pay for resources instead of paying for hourly use)."

More VMware Cloud Director pros

Cons

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

"We have had very minor problems with it when we've been upgrading."

"Platform maturity and interoperability required"

"It would be great if Microsoft and VMware come together and become a common tool."

"Choosing VMware in general, is best in terms of functionality, but it is not necessarily cost effective, as their licensing and setup cost are too high."

"There didn't seem to be any type of integrated path on how to do the initial setup. There seemed to be different bits of paperwork or instructions available from various places. We always had to go looking for what to do next."

"Database services need to go beyond what they are currently doing."

"vCloud Director should include better billing options for businesses like mine or more options for customers to see their usage and billing situation regarding the usage of vCloud Director."

"The integration between components could be improved."

More VMware Cloud Director cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"The licensing cost is high for vCloud Director. It is mostly a perpetual license."

"The product is inexpensive compared to other vendors."

"The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage."

"The solution is expensive so pricing is rated a four out of ten."

"My company has no problems with the pricing of the product as we got good discounts from VMware."

"This is an expensive solution."

"vCloud Director is an expensive solution."

More VMware Cloud Director pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Outsourcing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Construction Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	13
Large Enterprise	39

Questions from the Community

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Would you change anything about VMware vCloud Director if you could?

VMware vCloud Director works very well and there are not many things that I would like to see changed. However, a single thing comes to mind when I think of improvements and that is integration. In...

See all answers

What is the biggest improvement you saw at your company after you started using VMware vCloud Director?

For my company, VMware vCloud Director noticeably increased operational efficiency. When I started working here a few years ago, my organization was using another cloud management tool. We switched...

See all answers

Is vCloud Director convenient for building applications?

When it comes to building applications, vCloud Director offers you various methods to create cloud-ready ones. For example: Your DevOps team is supported through Infrastructure as Code services w...

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Comparisons

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

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Aria Operations vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Competitors

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 10% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 8% of the time

CloudCheckr vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs VMware Cloud Director

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware Cloud Director Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

October 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Cloud Director

October 2026

Download VMware Cloud Director product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

vCloud Director

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

VMware Cloud Director is a versatile platform renowned for its multi-tenancy, automation capabilities, and ease of use. It integrates with platforms like Amazon and Azure, enabling networking flexibility, scalability, and efficient virtual data center deployment with a resilient and intuitive interface.

VMware Cloud Director empowers organizations by offering a self-service portal for independent resource management, robust security features, and efficient orchestration. Its integration with Amazon and Azure enhances cloud functionality, while scalability allows seamless addition of resources. Despite its strengths, there is a need for improved integration with AWS and Azure, a more intuitive UI, better private cloud support, advanced automation, simplified installation, and competitive pricing. Users seek built-in billing, seamless networking, stable updates, detailed documentation, robust technical support, and open-source compatibility.

What are the key features of VMware Cloud Director?

Multi-tenancy: Supports multiple tenants with resource isolation.
Automation: Enables automated deployment and management of resources.
Integration: Compatible with platforms like Amazon and Azure.
Security: Offers robust security features to protect data.
Self-service portal: Empowers users to manage resources independently.
Networking flexibility: Facilitates efficient network management.
Scalability: Allows easy resource expansion.

What benefits or ROI should users expect from VMware Cloud Director?

Resilience: Ensures reliable cloud infrastructure management.
Clear dashboarding: Provides transparent oversight of resources.
Service extension: Expands capabilities to enhance customer satisfaction.
Resource optimization: Maximizes resource utilization and efficiency.

In industries such as cloud infrastructure hosting, VMware Cloud Director supports the creation and management of virtual data centers. Organizations leverage it for delivering public and private cloud services, enabling the deployment and management of applications. Service providers utilize its capabilities to streamline customer onboarding and foster infrastructure segregation, catering to diverse cloud requirements.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.

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

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