CloudStack vs OpenStack

Kickin’ in the front seat

Sittin’ in the back seat

Gotta make my mind up

Which seat can I take? 

Rebecca Black, Friday

Two years ago, comparing OpenStack and CloudStack, Robert Paulson wrote that: “Cloud computing is very much like sex in high school. Everyone's talking about it and few people are actually doing it”.

It is 2013 and things have changed. Cloud computing moved from high school to Uni. Everyone’s doing it, but only few people are doing it in the right way (Cloudreach is amongst those few, of course).

Many fine articles can be found on the Internet which compare CloudStack, Openstack, and other private/hybrid cloud platforms. Most of them just go through feature lists from OpenStack and CloudStack websites, mention that there is more buzz around OpenStack, and conclude that both platforms are great and it is up to you to decide. So at the end of the day, techie guys still have to spend valuable time installing and evaluating both platforms.

This blogpost is an attempt to point out most notable differences between OpenStack and CloudStack which have attracted our attention. We start from obvious things like popularity and size of surrounding communities, move to more pleasurable features like VPNs and conclude that both platforms are fine. As a matter of fact, they are, trust me.