License & Deployment Mix: 31 tools – 12 OSS, 0 SaaS. (OSS and SaaS counts can overlap when an open-source tool also offers a vendor-hosted edition.)
What Is Cloud & Virtualization Infrastructure?
Cloud and virtualization infrastructure encompasses the platforms that provide compute, storage, and networking resources – whether as public cloud IaaS, on-premises hypervisors, cloud orchestration layers, container orchestration systems, bare metal services, or multi-cloud management tools.
These platforms are infrastructure targets: management and monitoring layers run resources on them and integrate with their APIs rather than replacing them. This evaluation maps that landscape of platforms.
Enterprise cloud and virtualization infrastructure provides:
- On-demand compute – provision virtual machines, containers, or bare metal servers within minutes; scale horizontally or vertically based on workload demand; pay-per-use or capacity reservation models
- Software-defined storage – block volumes, object stores, and file systems abstracted from physical hardware; snapshots, replication, and tiered storage; persistent storage for stateful workloads
- Software-defined networking – virtual private clouds, VLANs, overlay networks, load balancers, firewalls, and security groups; programmable network topologies; cross-region connectivity
- Hypervisor isolation – hardware-level virtualization (Type 1 hypervisors) or hosted virtualization (Type 2) providing resource isolation, live migration, and hardware independence
- Container orchestration – automated deployment, scaling, networking, and lifecycle management of containerized workloads; service discovery, rolling updates, and self-healing
- Infrastructure APIs – programmatic control over all resources via REST APIs, SDKs, and CLI tools; Terraform/OpenTofu providers for infrastructure-as-code; Ansible modules for configuration management
- Multi-cloud management – unified control plane across multiple providers; cost optimization, policy enforcement, and resource governance across heterogeneous infrastructure
The information on these pages was researched by a combination of human review and large language models. To suggest an addition or correction, please contact us. Prepared by Rhodium Systems Inc., author of the ResorsIT platform — a unified IT operations management platform for IT teams and MSPs that integrates a curated suite of open-source, commercial, and SaaS applications into a single system with shared identity, single sign-on, access control, and a common audit trail. Use this catalogue only as a starting point for your own research, and review any tool carefully against your own requirements before relying on it. Catalogue data version 2026.197.
Comparison
Platform Overview
| Tool | Type | License/Model | Founded | Compute | Storage | Networking | Global Regions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2006 | EC2, Lambda, ECS, EKS | S3, EBS, EFS | VPC, ELB, Route 53 | 33 regions, 105 AZs |
| GCP | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2008 | GCE, Cloud Run, GKE | Cloud Storage, PD, Filestore | VPC, Cloud LB, Cloud DNS | 40+ regions, 121 zones |
| Azure | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2010 | VMs, AKS, App Service | Blob, Managed Disks, Azure Files | VNet, Azure LB, Azure DNS | 60+ regions, 300+ DCs |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2016 | Compute, OKE | Block, Object, File Storage | VCN, LB, DNS | 41+ regions |
| IBM Cloud | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2013 | Virtual Servers, OpenShift | Block, Object, File | VPC, LB, DNS | 19 MZRs, 12 single-zone DCs |
| DigitalOcean | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2011 | Droplets, App Platform, DOKS | Spaces (S3), Volumes | VPC, LB, DNS | 15 data centers |
| Linode (Akamai) | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2003 | Linodes, LKE | Block, Object | VLAN, NodeBalancers | 25+ data centers |
| Vultr | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2014 | Cloud Compute, VKE | Block, Object | VPC 2.0, LB | 32 locations |
| Hetzner Cloud | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 2018 | Cloud Servers | Volumes | Networks, LB | 5 locations (DE, FI, US, SG) |
| OVHcloud | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 1999 | Public Cloud, Bare Metal Cloud | Object, Block, NAS | vRack, LB | 38 data centers globally |
| Scaleway | Public Cloud | Pay-per-use | 1999 | Instances, Kapsule (K8s) | Block, Object | VPC, LB | 3 AZs (Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw) |
| Proxmox VE | Hypervisor | AGPL-3.0 | 2008 | KVM VMs, LXC containers | Ceph, ZFS, LVM | Linux Bridge, OVS | N/A (on-prem) |
| VMware vSphere | Hypervisor | Proprietary (subscription) | 1998 | ESXi VMs | vSAN, VMFS, vVols | vDS, NSX | N/A (on-prem) |
| XCP-ng | Hypervisor | GPL-2.0 | 2018 | Xen VMs | Local, NFS, iSCSI, Ceph | OVS, Linux Bridge | N/A (on-prem) |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Hypervisor | Included (Windows Server) | 2008 | Hyper-V VMs | CSV, SMB, S2D | Hyper-V Virtual Switch | N/A (on-prem) |
| KVM/libvirt | Hypervisor | GPL-2.0 / LGPL-2.1 | 2006 | KVM VMs | Local, Ceph, NFS, iSCSI | Linux Bridge, OVS, macvtap | N/A (on-prem) |
| Nutanix AHV | Hypervisor | Proprietary | 2009 | AHV VMs | Nutanix Storage | AHV networking, Flow | N/A (on-prem) |
| oVirt | Hypervisor | Apache-2.0 | 2012 | KVM VMs | GlusterFS, NFS, iSCSI, FC | OVN, Linux Bridge | N/A (on-prem) |
| Incus | Hypervisor | Apache-2.0 | 2023 | LXC system containers + KVM VMs | ZFS, Btrfs, LVM, Ceph RBD, CephFS, dir | Linux Bridge, OVN | N/A (on-prem) |
| OpenStack | Cloud Orchestration | Apache-2.0 | 2010 | Nova (KVM, Xen, VMware) | Cinder (block), Swift (object) | Neutron (SDN) | N/A (on-prem / hosted) |
| Apache CloudStack | Cloud Orchestration | Apache-2.0 | 2010 | KVM, VMware, Xen VMs | Primary + Secondary storage | Basic / Advanced networking | N/A (on-prem) |
| Harvester (SUSE) | Cloud Orchestration | Apache-2.0 | 2020 | KubeVirt VMs + containers | Longhorn | Multus CNI | N/A (on-prem) |
| OpenNebula | Cloud Orchestration | Apache-2.0 | 2008 | KVM, LXC, Firecracker, VMware | Ceph, NFS, local | 802.1Q, Open vSwitch | N/A (on-prem / edge) |
| Kubernetes | Container Orchestration | Apache-2.0 | 2014 | Pods (containers) | CSI drivers (any backend) | CNI plugins, Services, Ingress | N/A (any infra) |
| Red Hat OpenShift | Container Orchestration | Proprietary | 2011 | Pods + Operators | CSI, ODF (Ceph) | OVN-Kubernetes, Multus | On-prem + managed (ROSA, ARO) |
| HashiCorp Nomad | Container Orchestration | BSL 1.1 | 2015 | Containers, VMs, binaries | CSI drivers | Consul Connect (service mesh) | N/A (any infra) |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Container Orchestration | Apache-2.0 | 2014 | Multi-cluster K8s | Longhorn | Canal, Calico, Cilium | N/A (multi-cluster) |
| Equinix Metal | Bare Metal | Pay-per-use | 2014 | Bare metal servers | N/A (BYO storage) | BGP, VLAN, VRF | 30+ metros globally |
| Hetzner Dedicated | Bare Metal | Pay-per-use | 1997 | Dedicated servers | Local disks, NVMe | vSwitch, Firewall | 4 DCs (Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Ashburn) |
| Morpheus Data | Multi-Cloud Mgmt | Proprietary | 2014 | Provisions on 20+ clouds | Cloud-native storage | Cloud-native networking | N/A (management plane) |
| CloudBolt | Multi-Cloud Mgmt | Proprietary | 2012 | Provisions on multiple clouds | Cloud-native storage | Cloud-native networking | N/A (management plane) |
Compute Capabilities
| Tool | VM/Instance | Containers | Bare Metal | GPU/AI | Auto-scaling | Live Migration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | EC2 (700+ types) | ECS, EKS, Fargate | EC2 Bare Metal (i3.metal, etc.) | P5, G5, Inf2, Trn1 | Auto Scaling Groups, Karpenter | N/A (cloud managed) |
| GCP | GCE (300+ types) | GKE, Cloud Run | Sole-tenant nodes | A3, G2, TPU v5 | Managed Instance Groups, GKE Autopilot | Live migration (default on) |
| Azure | VMs (700+ sizes) | AKS, Container Apps | Dedicated Host | NC, ND, NV series | VMSS, AKS cluster autoscaler | Live migration (automatic) |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | Compute (flexible shapes) | OKE | Bare Metal | GPU.A100, GPU.H100 | Autoscaling configs | Live migration (infrastructure maintenance) |
| IBM Cloud | Virtual Servers | OpenShift, IKS | Bare Metal Servers | NVIDIA GPUs | Auto Scale groups | Live migration (select profiles) |
| DigitalOcean | Droplets (basic, premium) | DOKS (managed K8s) | N/A | GPU Droplets (limited) | Droplet autoscaling (via LB) | N/A |
| Linode (Akamai) | Linodes (shared, dedicated) | LKE (managed K8s) | N/A | GPU instances | N/A (manual scaling) | N/A |
| Vultr | Cloud Compute, HFC, HPC | VKE (managed K8s) | Bare Metal | NVIDIA A100, A40, L40S | N/A (manual scaling) | N/A |
| Hetzner Cloud | Cloud Servers (shared, dedicated) | N/A (BYO K8s) | N/A (see Dedicated) | N/A | N/A (API-driven) | N/A |
| OVHcloud | Public Cloud instances | Managed K8s | Bare Metal servers | NVIDIA T4, A100 | Auto Scaling | Live migration |
| Scaleway | Instances (DEV1, GP1, POP2) | Kapsule, Kosmos | Elastic Metal | GPU (RENDER, L4) | N/A (API-driven) | N/A |
| Proxmox VE | KVM VMs, LXC containers | LXC (system containers) | N/A (runs on bare metal) | GPU passthrough (VFIO) | N/A | Yes (live, offline, HA) |
| VMware vSphere | ESXi VMs | Tanzu (K8s) | N/A (runs on bare metal) | GPU passthrough, vGPU (NVIDIA GRID) | DRS (auto-placement) | Yes (vMotion, Storage vMotion) |
| XCP-ng | Xen VMs | N/A | N/A (runs on bare metal) | GPU passthrough | N/A | Yes (live, storage migration) |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Hyper-V VMs | Windows containers | N/A (runs on bare metal) | DDA (GPU passthrough) | N/A (SCVMM for placement) | Yes (live, storage, shared-nothing) |
| KVM/libvirt | KVM VMs | N/A | N/A (runs on bare metal) | GPU passthrough (VFIO) | N/A | Yes (live, offline, storage) |
| Nutanix AHV | AHV VMs | Nutanix Kubernetes Engine | N/A (HCI appliance) | GPU passthrough | N/A (Prism capacity planning) | Yes (live migration, HA) |
| oVirt | KVM VMs | N/A | N/A (runs on bare metal) | N/A | N/A | Yes (live, offline, storage) |
| Incus | KVM VMs, LXC system containers | LXC (system containers), OCI app containers | N/A (runs on bare metal) | GPU passthrough (VFIO), SR-IOV | N/A | Yes (live VM migration; CRIU-based for containers) |
| OpenStack | Nova VMs (any hypervisor) | Magnum (K8s), Zun | Ironic (bare metal provisioning) | GPU passthrough, vGPU | Heat auto-scaling | Yes (live, block, shared storage) |
| Apache CloudStack | VMs (KVM, VMware, Xen) | Docker via plugins | N/A | GPU passthrough (KVM) | Auto-scaling (VR) | Yes (live, storage) |
| Harvester (SUSE) | KubeVirt VMs | Native K8s pods | N/A (HCI) | GPU passthrough | K8s HPA | Yes (live migration via KubeVirt) |
| OpenNebula | VMs (KVM, LXC, Firecracker) | LXC, Firecracker microVMs | N/A | GPU passthrough | N/A | Yes (live, cold) |
| Kubernetes | Pods (containers) | Native | N/A | NVIDIA device plugin, GPU Operator | HPA, VPA, Cluster Autoscaler, Karpenter | Pod rescheduling (not live) |
| Red Hat OpenShift | Pods + OpenShift Virtualization | Native (OCI containers) | N/A | NVIDIA GPU Operator | HPA, VPA, Cluster Autoscaler | VM live migration (OpenShift Virt) |
| HashiCorp Nomad | Docker, Podman, exec, QEMU | Docker, Podman, containerd | exec driver (raw process) | NVIDIA device plugin | Auto-scaling (external) | Task rescheduling (not live) |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Manages K8s clusters | Via managed K8s | N/A | Via K8s GPU Operator | Via K8s autoscalers | Via K8s (management plane) |
| Equinix Metal | N/A (bare metal only) | BYO (K8s on bare metal) | Yes (primary offering) | NVIDIA A100, H100 | N/A (API provisioning) | N/A (physical servers) |
| Hetzner Dedicated | N/A (bare metal only) | BYO (K8s on bare metal) | Yes (primary offering) | N/A | N/A (Robot API) | N/A (physical servers) |
| Morpheus Data | Provisions VMs on target clouds | Via target cloud K8s | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud policies | Via target hypervisor |
| CloudBolt | Provisions VMs on target clouds | Via target cloud K8s | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud policies | Via target hypervisor |
Storage & Data Services
| Tool | Block Storage | Object Storage | File Storage | Snapshots | Backup Integration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | EBS (gp3, io2, st1) | S3 (Standard, IA, Glacier) | EFS (NFS), FSx (Lustre, Windows) | EBS snapshots (incremental, S3-backed) | AWS Backup (centralized) |
| GCP | Persistent Disk (pd-ssd, pd-balanced) | Cloud Storage (Standard, Nearline, Coldline) | Filestore (NFS) | PD snapshots (incremental) | Backup for GKE, VM backup |
| Azure | Managed Disks (Premium, Standard SSD) | Blob Storage (Hot, Cool, Archive) | Azure Files (SMB/NFS), Azure NetApp Files | Managed Disk snapshots, Azure Backup | Azure Backup (VMs, SQL, files) |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | Block Volume (higher, balanced, lower) | Object Storage (Standard, Infrequent, Archive) | File Storage (NFS) | Block volume backups (incremental) | OCI Backup service |
| IBM Cloud | Block Storage (endurance, performance) | Cloud Object Storage (S3-compatible) | File Storage (NFS) | Volume snapshots | IBM Cloud Backup |
| DigitalOcean | Volumes (SSD) | Spaces (S3-compatible) | N/A | Droplet snapshots, volume snapshots | Droplet backups (weekly) |
| Linode (Akamai) | Block Storage | Object Storage (S3-compatible) | N/A | Linode backups, images | Linode Backup Service |
| Vultr | Block Storage (NVMe) | Object Storage (S3-compatible) | N/A | Server snapshots | Automatic backups |
| Hetzner Cloud | Volumes (SSD) | N/A (via Hetzner Storage Box) | N/A | Server snapshots | N/A (BYO backup) |
| OVHcloud | Block Storage | Object Storage (S3-compatible) | NAS-HA (NFS/CIFS) | Volume snapshots | OVH Backup Storage |
| Scaleway | Block Storage (SBS) | Object Storage (S3-compatible) | N/A | Snapshots, images | N/A (BYO backup) |
| Proxmox VE | LVM, ZFS, Ceph RBD | N/A (BYO) | NFS, CIFS, CephFS | ZFS snapshots, storage snapshots | Proxmox Backup Server |
| VMware vSphere | VMFS, vVols, vSAN | N/A (BYO) | NFS datastores | VM snapshots, vSAN snapshots | Veeam, Commvault, NAKIVO |
| XCP-ng | Local LVM, NFS, iSCSI, Ceph | N/A (BYO) | NFS, SMB | VM snapshots | Xen Orchestra backup, XO Proxy |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | VHD/VHDX, CSV, S2D | N/A (BYO) | SMB 3.0 shares | Hyper-V checkpoints | DPM, Veeam, NAKIVO |
| KVM/libvirt | Raw, qcow2, LVM, Ceph RBD | N/A (BYO) | NFS, GlusterFS | qcow2 snapshots, LVM snapshots | BYO (Restic, Borg, etc.) |
| Nutanix AHV | Nutanix Distributed Storage | Nutanix Objects (S3) | Nutanix Files (NFS/SMB) | Protection domains, snapshots | Nutanix Data Protection |
| oVirt | NFS, iSCSI, FC, GlusterFS | N/A (BYO) | NFS, GlusterFS | VM snapshots | oVirt backup API |
| Incus | ZFS, Btrfs, LVM, LVM-thin, Ceph RBD | N/A (BYO) | CephFS, dir | Per-instance snapshots (atomic, scheduled) | incus export + BYO (snapshots + rsync/Restic) |
| OpenStack | Cinder (block volumes) | Swift (object storage) | Manila (file shares) | Cinder snapshots, backups | Cinder backup drivers |
| Apache CloudStack | Primary storage (NFS, iSCSI, Ceph) | Secondary storage (NFS, S3) | N/A | Volume snapshots, VM snapshots | Snapshot-based backup |
| Harvester (SUSE) | Longhorn (replicated block) | N/A (BYO) | N/A | Longhorn snapshots | Longhorn backup to S3 |
| OpenNebula | Ceph, LVM, NFS, iSCSI | N/A (BYO) | NFS, Ceph | Image snapshots | BYO backup |
| Kubernetes | CSI drivers (any backend) | N/A (BYO S3) | CSI file drivers (NFS, CephFS) | VolumeSnapshot API (CSI) | Velero, Kasten K10 |
| Red Hat OpenShift | ODF (Ceph via Rook), CSI | ODF Object (S3) | ODF File (CephFS) | VolumeSnapshot | OADP (Velero-based) |
| HashiCorp Nomad | CSI plugins | N/A (BYO) | CSI file plugins | Via CSI provider | BYO backup |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Longhorn, CSI drivers | N/A (BYO) | CSI file drivers | Longhorn snapshots | Longhorn backup |
| Equinix Metal | N/A (local disk only) | N/A (BYO) | N/A (BYO) | N/A | BYO backup |
| Hetzner Dedicated | Local HDD/NVMe | Storage Box (CIFS, FTP, SSH) | Storage Box | N/A | Storage Box + BYO |
| Morpheus Data | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud |
| CloudBolt | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud |
Networking
| Tool | VPC/VLAN | Load Balancer | Firewall/SG | VPN/Peering | DNS | IPv6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | VPC, subnets, peering | ALB, NLB, GLB | Security Groups, NACLs | Site-to-Site VPN, Direct Connect, Transit Gateway | Route 53 | Yes (dual-stack, IPv6-only) |
| GCP | VPC, subnets, peering | HTTP(S) LB, TCP/UDP LB | Firewall rules, policies | Cloud VPN, Interconnect, Cloud Router | Cloud DNS | Yes (dual-stack) |
| Azure | VNet, subnets, peering | Azure LB, App Gateway, Front Door | NSG, Azure Firewall | VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute, Virtual WAN | Azure DNS | Yes (dual-stack) |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | VCN, subnets, peering | LB, Network LB | Security Lists, NSG | Site-to-Site VPN, FastConnect | DNS Management | Yes (dual-stack) |
| IBM Cloud | VPC, subnets | VPC LB, ALB | Security Groups, ACLs | VPN Gateway, Direct Link | DNS Services | Yes (dual-stack) |
| DigitalOcean | VPC | Load Balancers | Cloud Firewalls | N/A (BYO VPN) | DNS (managed) | Yes |
| Linode (Akamai) | VLANs, VPC | NodeBalancers | Cloud Firewall | N/A (BYO VPN) | DNS Manager | Yes |
| Vultr | VPC 2.0 | Load Balancers | Firewall Groups | N/A (BYO VPN) | DNS | Yes |
| Hetzner Cloud | Networks (private) | Load Balancers | Firewalls | N/A (BYO VPN) | Hetzner DNS | Yes |
| OVHcloud | vRack (private networking) | Load Balancer | Security Groups | VPN, vRack Connect | OVH DNS | Yes |
| Scaleway | VPC, Private Networks | Load Balancers | Security Groups | VPN (IPsec) | DNS | Yes |
| Proxmox VE | Linux Bridge, OVS, VLAN | N/A (BYO) | iptables/nftables per VM | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| VMware vSphere | vDS, NSX-T | NSX LB | NSX Distributed Firewall | NSX VPN | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| XCP-ng | OVS, Linux Bridge, VLAN | N/A (BYO) | N/A (BYO) | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Hyper-V Virtual Switch, VLAN | NLB (Windows) | Windows Firewall, Hyper-V port ACLs | N/A (BYO VPN) | Windows DNS | Yes |
| KVM/libvirt | Linux Bridge, OVS, macvtap | N/A (BYO) | iptables/nftables | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| Nutanix AHV | AHV networking, VLAN | N/A (BYO) | Flow (microsegmentation) | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| oVirt | OVN, Linux Bridge, VLAN | N/A (BYO) | OVN ACLs | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| Incus | Linux Bridge, OVN, VLAN, SR-IOV | N/A (OVN load balancer for clusters) | OVN ACLs, network forwards/proxies | N/A (BYO VPN) | dnsmasq (built-in, per-network) | Yes (dual-stack, DHCPv6/SLAAC) |
| OpenStack | Neutron (SDN), VLAN, VXLAN | Octavia LB | Security Groups, FWaaS | VPNaaS | Designate DNS | Yes |
| Apache CloudStack | Basic / Advanced (VLAN, VPC) | Built-in LB (VR) | Security Groups, Network ACLs | VPN (Site-to-Site, Remote Access) | Built-in DNS (VR) | Yes (limited) |
| Harvester (SUSE) | Multus CNI, VLAN | Via K8s Ingress | NetworkPolicy | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| OpenNebula | 802.1Q VLAN, Open vSwitch | N/A (BYO) | Security Groups | N/A (BYO VPN) | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| Kubernetes | CNI plugins (Calico, Cilium, Flannel) | Service type: LoadBalancer, Ingress | NetworkPolicy, Cilium policies | N/A (BYO VPN) | CoreDNS (cluster DNS) | Yes |
| Red Hat OpenShift | OVN-Kubernetes, Multus | Routes, Ingress, MetalLB | NetworkPolicy, Egress Firewall | N/A (BYO VPN) | CoreDNS | Yes |
| HashiCorp Nomad | Consul Connect (service mesh) | Consul + Envoy | Consul intentions | Consul mesh gateway | Consul DNS | Yes |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Via managed K8s CNI | Via managed K8s | Via K8s NetworkPolicy | N/A (BYO VPN) | Via K8s CoreDNS | Yes |
| Equinix Metal | VLAN, VRF, BGP | N/A (BYO) | N/A (BYO) | Backend Transfer, Interconnect | N/A (BYO) | Yes |
| Hetzner Dedicated | vSwitch (VLAN) | N/A (BYO) | Hetzner Firewall | N/A (BYO VPN) | Hetzner DNS | Yes |
| Morpheus Data | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud |
| CloudBolt | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud | Via target cloud |
Identity & Authentication
This table covers the critical question of how a management layer authenticates to each platform. Infrastructure platforms use diverse auth mechanisms – not just web SSO.
| Tool | Local Users | API Keys | Service Accounts | OIDC/SAML | LDAP/AD | Certificate Auth | Temp Credentials | MFA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | IAM users (console + API) | Access Key ID + Secret | IAM roles for services (EC2 instance profiles, Lambda execution roles) | OIDC (IAM Identity Center, STS), SAML 2.0 | IAM Identity Center (AD Connector, AWS Managed AD) | ACM, IoT certs | STS AssumeRole, AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity | Yes (virtual MFA, U2F, TOTP) |
| GCP | Google accounts | API keys (restricted) | Service accounts (JSON key files, workload identity) | OIDC (Workload Identity Federation), SAML | Cloud Identity / Google Workspace (LDAP via GCDS) | mTLS via BeyondCorp | Workload identity tokens, short-lived SA credentials | Yes (Titan, TOTP, phone) |
| Azure | Entra ID (Azure AD) users | N/A (use service principals) | Service principals, managed identities | OIDC (federated credentials), SAML 2.0 | Entra ID (native AD, AD Connect) | Certificate-based auth (CBA) | Managed identity tokens, federated tokens | Yes (Authenticator, FIDO2, SMS) |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | IAM users (local) | API signing keys (RSA key pair) | Instance principals, resource principals | OIDC (Identity Domains federation), SAML 2.0 | Identity Domains (AD sync) | API key authentication | Session tokens, instance principal tokens | Yes (TOTP, FIDO2, push) |
| IBM Cloud | IBMid users | API keys (user or service) | Service IDs | OIDC (App ID), SAML 2.0 (enterprise SSO) | IBM Cloud Directory | N/A | IAM tokens (short-lived) | Yes (TOTP, U2F) |
| DigitalOcean | Email/password accounts | Personal Access Tokens, OAuth apps | N/A (tokens serve this role) | OIDC (limited), N/A (no SAML) | N/A | N/A | OAuth tokens | Yes (TOTP, SMS) |
| Linode (Akamai) | Email/password accounts | Personal Access Tokens | N/A | N/A (no OIDC/SAML) | N/A | N/A | OAuth tokens | Yes (TOTP) |
| Vultr | Email/password accounts | API keys (bearer token) | Sub-users with API access | N/A (no OIDC/SAML) | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP) |
| Hetzner Cloud | Hetzner account | API tokens (project-scoped) | N/A | N/A (no OIDC/SAML) | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP, U2F) |
| OVHcloud | OVHcloud account | Application keys + consumer keys | N/A | OIDC (beta), SAML (limited) | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP, U2F, SMS) |
| Scaleway | Scaleway account | API keys (access key + secret) | N/A | N/A (no OIDC/SAML) | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP) |
| Proxmox VE | PVE realm (local) | API tokens (user-scoped) | N/A | OpenID Connect (native) | LDAP, AD (native) | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP, U2F/WebAuthn) |
| VMware vSphere | vCenter SSO (local) | Session tokens (API) | N/A | OIDC (vSphere 8+), SAML 2.0 | LDAP, AD (native via vCenter SSO) | Certificate-based (VMCA) | Session tokens | Yes (RSA SecurID, smart card) |
| XCP-ng | PAM (local) | API session tokens | N/A | N/A | LDAP (via Xen Orchestra) | N/A | N/A | Limited (via XO) |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Windows/AD accounts (native) | N/A (PowerShell remoting) | gMSA (Group Managed Service Accounts) | SAML/OIDC (via AD FS) | Native AD integration | Certificate auth (AD CS) | Kerberos tickets | Yes (Windows Hello, smart card) |
| KVM/libvirt | PAM / polkit (local) | N/A (SSH + libvirt URI) | N/A | N/A | N/A | TLS client certificates (libvirt TLS) | N/A | Via PAM modules |
| Nutanix AHV | Local Prism users | N/A (session-based API) | N/A | SAML 2.0 (Prism Central) | LDAP, AD (native) | N/A | Session tokens | Yes (TOTP, smart card) |
| oVirt | Internal users | N/A (session-based API) | N/A | N/A | LDAP, AD (native via AAA) | N/A | Session tokens | N/A |
| Incus | Built-in identities (CLI-managed) | Trust tokens | N/A | OIDC (native), OpenFGA (external authz) | N/A (via OIDC IdP) | TLS client certificates (native) | OIDC bearer tokens, trust tokens | Via OIDC provider |
| OpenStack | Keystone local users | Application credentials | Service users | OIDC (Keystone federation), SAML 2.0 | LDAP (Keystone identity backend) | TLS client certificates | Fernet/JWT tokens (short-lived) | Yes (TOTP via Keystone) |
| Apache CloudStack | Local users | API keys (key + secret per user) | N/A | SAML 2.0 (plugin) | LDAP (native) | N/A | Session tokens | N/A (BYO via SAML IdP) |
| Harvester (SUSE) | Local users | Kubeconfig, API tokens | Kubernetes service accounts | OIDC (via Rancher) | N/A (via Rancher) | Kubernetes client certs | Service account tokens | Via Rancher |
| OpenNebula | Local users | N/A (session tokens) | N/A | OIDC (OpenID Connect driver) | LDAP (native) | X.509 certificates | Session tokens | N/A |
| Kubernetes | N/A (no built-in user DB) | N/A (use service accounts) | Service accounts (JWT tokens) | OIDC (native, –oidc-* flags) | N/A (webhook token review) | Client certificates (X.509) | Service account tokens (bound, short-lived) | Via OIDC provider |
| Red Hat OpenShift | HTPasswd, local users | OAuth tokens | Service accounts | OIDC, SAML (via OAuth providers) | LDAP (native identity provider) | Client certificates | OAuth tokens (short-lived) | Via identity provider |
| HashiCorp Nomad | ACL tokens | ACL tokens (SecretID) | N/A | OIDC (Nomad 1.5+) | N/A | mTLS (agent communication) | N/A | Via OIDC provider |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Local users | API keys (bearer tokens) | N/A | OIDC, SAML (native) | LDAP, AD (native) | N/A | Kubeconfig tokens | Yes (TOTP) |
| Equinix Metal | Email/password accounts | API keys (user-scoped, project-scoped) | N/A | N/A (no OIDC/SAML) | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP) |
| Hetzner Dedicated | Hetzner account | Robot API (user + password) | N/A | N/A (no OIDC/SAML) | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes (TOTP, U2F) |
| Morpheus Data | Local users | API tokens | N/A | OIDC, SAML 2.0 | LDAP, AD (native) | N/A | Session tokens | Yes (TOTP) |
| CloudBolt | Local users | API tokens | N/A | SAML 2.0 | LDAP, AD (native) | N/A | Session tokens | Yes (TOTP) |
Platform Authentication Notes
AWS: IAM is the central identity system. IAM users have long-lived access keys for API access. Best practice is IAM roles with STS temporary credentials. OIDC federation via IAM Identity Center (successor to AWS SSO) allows Authentik as the external IdP. Instance profiles provide automatic credentials to EC2 instances.
GCP: Service accounts are the primary automation mechanism. JSON key files are long-lived but can be replaced by Workload Identity Federation (OIDC-based, keyless). Authentik can serve as the external IdP via Workload Identity Federation.
Azure: Entra ID (Azure AD) is the identity backbone. Service principals with client secrets or certificates provide API access. Managed identities (system-assigned or user-assigned) provide automatic credentials to Azure resources. Federated credentials allow OIDC-based keyless authentication. Authentik can federate via OIDC or SAML.
Proxmox VE: Supports multiple authentication realms – PAM (Linux system users), PVE (Proxmox local users), LDAP, AD, and OpenID Connect. API tokens are scoped to users with optional privilege separation. Authentik integrates as an OpenID Connect provider.
VMware vSphere: vCenter SSO provides centralized authentication. Supports local users, LDAP/AD integration, and SAML 2.0 federation. vSphere 8+ adds OIDC support. API access uses session tokens obtained by authenticating to the vCenter REST API.
XCP-ng: Minimal native authentication (PAM). Xen Orchestra (the management UI) adds LDAP support and token-based API access.
OpenStack: Keystone is the identity service supporting local users, LDAP backends, OIDC federation, and SAML 2.0 federation. Application credentials provide scoped API access without exposing user passwords. Authentik integrates as an OIDC identity provider via Keystone federation. Fernet or JWT tokens are short-lived by default.
Kubernetes: Has no built-in user database. Authentication is delegated to external providers via OIDC, client certificates, or webhook token review. Service accounts provide in-cluster identity with bound (short-lived) tokens. Authentik serves as the OIDC provider for kubectl and API access. Kubeconfig files define cluster access configuration.
Hyper-V: Natively integrated with Active Directory. Authentication is Windows-based (Kerberos, NTLM). Management via PowerShell remoting, System Center, or Windows Admin Center.
Nutanix AHV: Prism Central supports local users, LDAP/AD integration, and SAML 2.0 for SSO. API access uses session-based authentication.
Incus: Combines TLS client certificate trust (inherited from LXD) with native OpenID Connect for human users. Authorization is fine-grained via Incus’s own RBAC (named permissions per resource, group claims from OIDC) or via OpenFGA as an external relationship- based authz backend. Trust tokens enable secure zero-credential enrolment of new clients and cluster members.
Smaller Cloud Providers (DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Hetzner, Scaleway): Typically offer only API tokens or key pairs for automation. No OIDC/SAML federation. These providers prioritize simplicity over enterprise identity federation.
API & Automation
| Tool | REST API | SDK Languages | Terraform Provider | Ansible Module | CLI Tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | Yes (per-service APIs) | Python (boto3), Go, Java, JS, .NET, Ruby, PHP, Rust | hashicorp/aws (mature) | amazon.aws collection (extensive) | aws CLI |
| GCP | Yes (per-service APIs) | Python, Go, Java, Node.js, .NET, Ruby, PHP | hashicorp/google (mature) | google.cloud collection | gcloud CLI |
| Azure | Yes (Azure Resource Manager) | Python, Go, Java, JS, .NET | hashicorp/azurerm (mature) | azure.azcollection | az CLI |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | Yes (per-service APIs) | Python, Go, Java, .NET, Ruby | oracle/oci (mature) | oracle.oci collection | oci CLI |
| IBM Cloud | Yes (per-service APIs) | Python, Go, Java, Node.js | IBM-Cloud/ibm | ibm.cloudcollection | ibmcloud CLI |
| DigitalOcean | Yes (v2 REST API) | Go (godo), Python, Ruby | digitalocean/digitalocean | community.digitalocean | doctl CLI |
| Linode (Akamai) | Yes (v4 REST API) | Python, Go | linode/linode | linode.cloud collection | linode-cli |
| Vultr | Yes (v2 REST API) | Go (govultr) | vultr/vultr | ngine_io.vultr (community) | vultr-cli |
| Hetzner Cloud | Yes (REST API) | Go (hcloud-go), Python | hetznercloud/hcloud | hetzner.hcloud collection | hcloud CLI |
| OVHcloud | Yes (REST API) | Python, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP | ovh/ovh | ovh.ovh (limited) | ovh-cli (community) |
| Scaleway | Yes (REST API) | Go (scaleway-sdk-go), Python | scaleway/scaleway | scaleway.scaleway (limited) | scw CLI |
| Proxmox VE | Yes (REST API) | Go, Python (proxmoxer), Rust | bpg/proxmox (community) | community.general.proxmox | pvesh CLI |
| VMware vSphere | Yes (vCenter REST + SOAP) | Python (pyvmomi), Go (govmomi), Java | hashicorp/vsphere (mature) | community.vmware collection | govc CLI, PowerCLI |
| XCP-ng | Yes (XAPI, JSON-RPC) | Python (XenAPI), Go | N/A (limited community) | community.general.xenserver (limited) | xe CLI |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | WMI/CIM, PowerShell | .NET, PowerShell | N/A (use hyperv community) | community.windows.win_hyperv (limited) | PowerShell cmdlets |
| KVM/libvirt | libvirt API (C, Python, Go bindings) | C, Python, Go, Java, Perl | dmacvicar/libvirt (community) | community.libvirt collection | virsh CLI |
| Nutanix AHV | Yes (Prism REST API v3) | Python, Go | nutanix/nutanix | nutanix.ncp collection | nuclei CLI |
| oVirt | Yes (REST API) | Python (ovirt-sdk), Java | ovirt/ovirt (community) | ovirt.ovirt collection | ovirt-shell (deprecated) |
| Incus | Yes (REST API, native) | Go (github.com/lxc/incus/v6/client), Python (pyincus, requests) | lxc/incus (community) | community.general.incus_*, incus connection plugin | incus CLI |
| OpenStack | Yes (per-service REST APIs) | Python (openstacksdk), Go (gophercloud) | terraform-provider-openstack/openstack | openstack.cloud collection | openstack CLI |
| Apache CloudStack | Yes (query-string API) | Python, Go, Java | cloudstack/cloudstack (community) | ngine_io.cloudstack | cmk CLI |
| Harvester (SUSE) | Yes (Kubernetes API) | Go, Python (Kubernetes client) | harvester/harvester | Via Kubernetes modules | kubectl, harvester CLI |
| OpenNebula | Yes (XML-RPC, REST) | Ruby, Java, Python, Go | OpenNebula/opennebula | community.general.one_* | onevm, onehost CLI |
| Kubernetes | Yes (Kubernetes API) | Go (client-go), Python, Java, JS, .NET | hashicorp/kubernetes (mature) | kubernetes.core collection | kubectl CLI |
| Red Hat OpenShift | Yes (Kubernetes API + OpenShift extensions) | Go, Python, Java | hashicorp/kubernetes + OpenShift resources | redhat.openshift collection | oc CLI |
| HashiCorp Nomad | Yes (HTTP API) | Go, Python | hashicorp/nomad | community.general.nomad (limited) | nomad CLI |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Yes (Rancher API v3) | Go | rancher/rancher2 | N/A (use kubectl) | rancher CLI |
| Equinix Metal | Yes (REST API) | Go, Python | equinix/equinix | equinix.metal (community) | metal CLI |
| Hetzner Dedicated | Yes (Robot API) | N/A (REST only) | N/A (Hetzner Cloud only) | N/A | Robot web panel |
| Morpheus Data | Yes (REST API) | N/A (REST only) | morpheusdata/morpheus | N/A | morpheus CLI |
| CloudBolt | Yes (REST API) | Python | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Monitoring Integration
| Tool | Telegraf Input | Prometheus Exporter | Grafana Plugin | Native Monitoring | SNMP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | cloudwatch input | CloudWatch Exporter, YACE | CloudWatch data source | CloudWatch, X-Ray | N/A (cloud) |
| GCP | stackdriver input | N/A (use Stackdriver) | Cloud Monitoring data source | Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace | N/A (cloud) |
| Azure | azure_monitor input | Azure Monitor Exporter | Azure Monitor data source | Azure Monitor, Application Insights | N/A (cloud) |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | N/A (API polling) | OCI Monitoring Exporter (community) | N/A (API) | OCI Monitoring, Logging | N/A (cloud) |
| IBM Cloud | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | IBM Cloud Monitoring (Sysdig-based) | N/A (cloud) |
| DigitalOcean | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | DigitalOcean Monitoring (built-in) | N/A (cloud) |
| Linode (Akamai) | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Linode Cloud Manager metrics | N/A (cloud) |
| Vultr | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Vultr monitoring (basic) | N/A (cloud) |
| Hetzner Cloud | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Hetzner Cloud metrics (basic) | N/A (cloud) |
| OVHcloud | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | OVH Metrics | N/A (cloud) |
| Scaleway | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Cockpit (Grafana-based) | N/A (cloud) |
| Proxmox VE | proxmox input (community) | PVE Exporter (community) | Proxmox Grafana dashboards (community) | Built-in (Proxmox UI graphs) | N/A |
| VMware vSphere | vsphere input (official) | VMware Exporter | vSphere Grafana dashboards | vCenter performance charts | N/A |
| XCP-ng | N/A (XAPI metrics via script) | Xen Exporter (community) | XCP-ng Grafana dashboards (community) | Xen Orchestra metrics | N/A |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | win_perf_counters input | WMI Exporter | Windows Grafana dashboards | System Center, Windows Admin Center | N/A |
| KVM/libvirt | libvirt input (community) | Libvirt Exporter (community) | Libvirt Grafana dashboards (community) | N/A (CLI: virsh domstats) | N/A |
| Nutanix AHV | N/A (API polling) | Nutanix Exporter (community) | Nutanix Grafana dashboards (community) | Prism (built-in monitoring) | SNMP (physical nodes) |
| oVirt | N/A (API polling) | oVirt Exporter (community) | oVirt Grafana dashboards (community) | oVirt monitoring (built-in, Grafana) | N/A |
| Incus | prometheus input (scrapes /1.0/metrics) | Built-in (/1.0/metrics OpenMetrics endpoint) | Community Incus/LXD dashboards | incus info, incus cluster, incus operation (CLI); optional incus-ui-canonical Web UI | N/A |
| OpenStack | openstack input (community) | OpenStack Exporter | OpenStack Grafana dashboards | Ceilometer, Monasca | N/A |
| Apache CloudStack | N/A (API polling) | CloudStack Exporter (community) | N/A | Built-in usage/metrics | N/A |
| Harvester (SUSE) | kubernetes input | Built-in (Prometheus) | Built-in Grafana | Rancher monitoring (Prometheus + Grafana) | N/A |
| OpenNebula | N/A (API polling) | OneGate metrics (community) | N/A | Built-in (Sunstone UI) | N/A |
| Kubernetes | kubernetes, kube_inventory inputs | kube-state-metrics, node-exporter | Kubernetes Grafana dashboards (official) | Metrics Server, K8s Dashboard | N/A |
| Red Hat OpenShift | kubernetes input | Built-in (Prometheus stack) | Built-in Grafana (cluster monitoring) | OpenShift Console monitoring | N/A |
| HashiCorp Nomad | nomad input (community) | Nomad Prometheus endpoint (built-in) | Nomad Grafana dashboards | Nomad UI metrics | N/A |
| Rancher (SUSE) | kubernetes input (managed clusters) | Built-in (Prometheus via Rancher Monitoring) | Built-in Grafana (Rancher Monitoring) | Rancher UI monitoring | N/A |
| Equinix Metal | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Equinix Metal Console | SNMP (IPMI/BMC) |
| Hetzner Dedicated | N/A (agent on server) | N/A | N/A | Robot traffic graphs | SNMP (IPMI/iLO) |
| Morpheus Data | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Built-in monitoring | N/A |
| CloudBolt | N/A (API polling) | N/A | N/A | Built-in cost/usage monitoring | N/A |
Pricing Model
| Tool | Model | Free Tier | Compute Pricing | Egress Costs | Support Plans |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | Pay-per-use (hourly/second) | 12-month free tier (t2.micro, 750 hrs/mo) | $0.0058/hr (t3.nano) to $100+/hr (GPU) | $0.09/GB (first 10 TB) | Basic (free), Developer ($29/mo), Business (3%+), Enterprise (15%+) |
| GCP | Pay-per-use (per-second) | Always Free tier (e2-micro, 1 instance) | $0.0042/hr (e2-micro) to $100+/hr (GPU); sustained-use discounts | $0.12/GB (first 1 TB) | Standard (free), Enhanced ($500/mo), Premium (4%+) |
| Azure | Pay-per-use (per-second) | 12-month free tier (B1s, 750 hrs/mo) | $0.004/hr (B1ls) to $100+/hr (GPU) | $0.087/GB (first 5 GB free) | Basic (free), Developer ($29/mo), Standard ($100/mo), Professional Direct ($1K/mo) |
| Oracle Cloud (OCI) | Pay-per-use (per-second) | Always Free (A1 Flex 4 OCPU, 24 GB, permanent) | $0.015/hr (VM.Standard.E4.Flex) – very competitive | $0.0085/GB (first 10 TB) – much cheaper | Basic (free), Premier, Custom |
| IBM Cloud | Pay-per-use (hourly) | Lite tier (limited services) | Varies by profile | $0.09/GB (tiered) | Basic (free), Advanced, Premium |
| DigitalOcean | Pay-per-use (hourly, monthly cap) | $200 free credit (60 days) | $4/mo (basic Droplet) to $2,480/mo (GPU) | $0.01/GB over free allowance (varies by plan) | Free (community), Premium ($24/mo+) |
| Linode (Akamai) | Pay-per-use (hourly, monthly cap) | $100 free credit (60 days) | $5/mo (Nanode 1 GB) to $960/mo (dedicated) | Generous free transfer (1-20 TB/mo) | Standard (free), Enterprise |
| Vultr | Pay-per-use (hourly, monthly cap) | $250 free credit (30 days) | $2.50/mo (cloud compute) to $5,280/mo (bare metal) | $0.01/GB over free allowance | Standard (free), Enterprise |
| Hetzner Cloud | Pay-per-use (hourly, monthly cap) | N/A (no free tier) | EUR 3.29/mo (CX22) – exceptional value | Included (20 TB/mo free) | Standard (email), Priority (paid) |
| OVHcloud | Pay-per-use / monthly | N/A (free trial credits) | EUR 3.50/mo (d2-2) to custom bare metal | Included (generous free egress) | Standard, Premium, Enterprise |
| Scaleway | Pay-per-use (hourly) | EUR 3.00 free credit | EUR 0.006/hr (PLAY2-PICO) | EUR 0.01/GB beyond free 75 GB | Basic (free), Premium, Business |
| Proxmox VE | Open source (free) | Full product (AGPL-3.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community (free), Standard (EUR 350/yr/socket), Premium (EUR 510/yr/socket) |
| VMware vSphere | Subscription | N/A (no free tier since Broadcom) | VMware Cloud Foundation ($222/core/yr) or vSphere Foundation ($112/core/yr) | N/A | Included with subscription |
| XCP-ng | Open source (free) | Full product (GPL-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community (free), Vates Pro Support (EUR per socket/yr) |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | Included with Windows Server | Hyper-V Server (free, discontinued 2022) | Windows Server license cost ($6K+ Standard, $972+ Datacenter per 16-core) | N/A | Microsoft Premier/Unified support |
| KVM/libvirt | Open source (free) | Full product (GPL/LGPL) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community (free), RHEL support via Red Hat |
| Nutanix AHV | Included with Nutanix HCI | AHV hypervisor free (hardware + software bundle) | Nutanix NCI license per node (varies) | N/A | Nutanix Support (included) |
| oVirt | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community (free), RHEV support (discontinued) |
| Incus | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0, no CLA) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community (LinuxContainers); commercial support via Zabbly and others |
| OpenStack | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community, Canonical (per-node), Red Hat (subscription) |
| Apache CloudStack | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community, ShapeBlue (commercial support) |
| Harvester (SUSE) | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community, SUSE support (subscription) |
| OpenNebula | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community, OpenNebula Systems (subscription) |
| Kubernetes | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (BYO hardware / managed cloud) | N/A | Community, managed (EKS $0.10/hr, GKE free/Standard, AKS free/Standard) |
| Red Hat OpenShift | Subscription | N/A (OKD is the free upstream) | Per-core subscription (varies); managed: ROSA, ARO pricing | N/A / cloud egress | Red Hat support (included) |
| HashiCorp Nomad | BSL 1.1 (free for non-competitive) | Community edition (free) | N/A (BYO hardware) | N/A | Community, Enterprise (per-node subscription) |
| Rancher (SUSE) | Open source (free) | Full product (Apache-2.0) | N/A (management plane) | N/A | Community, SUSE Rancher support (subscription) |
| Equinix Metal | Pay-per-use (hourly) | N/A | $0.50/hr (c3.small.x86) to $4+/hr (GPU) | $0.05/GB | Standard, Premium, Custom |
| Hetzner Dedicated | Monthly / hourly | N/A | EUR 39/mo (auction servers) to EUR 500+/mo | 20 TB free, then EUR 1.19/TB | Standard (email), Priority |
| Morpheus Data | Subscription | N/A | Per-managed-workload pricing | N/A | Standard, Premium |
| CloudBolt | Subscription | N/A | Per-managed-workload pricing | N/A | Standard, Premium |
Tools
31 tools.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services is the world’s leading public cloud platform, commanding roughly one-third of the global IaaS market.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
Apache CloudStack
Apache CloudStack is an open-source IaaS platform designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines as a highly available, scalable cloud computing environment.
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, package · SSO: none
CloudBolt
CloudBolt is a hybrid cloud management platform that provides self-service provisioning, cost optimization, and compliance governance across multi-cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, appliance · SSO: none
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean is a developer-focused cloud platform known for its simplicity, predictable pricing, and excellent documentation.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, docker, k8s · SSO: none
Equinix Metal
Equinix Metal (formerly Packet, acquired by Equinix in 2020) provides automated bare metal server provisioning through a fully API-driven platform.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: OIDC, SAML
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Google Cloud Platform is the third-largest public cloud provider, known for its strengths in data analytics, machine learning, and Kubernetes.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
Harvester
Harvester is an open-source hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solution built on Kubernetes and KubeVirt that allows organizations to run virtual machines alongside containers on the same platform.
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, k8s · SSO: none
HashiCorp Nomad
HashiCorp Nomad is a flexible workload orchestrator that deploys and manages containers, VMs, binaries, and batch jobs across on-premises and cloud infrastructure.
License: MPL-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, docker, native, k8s, package · SSO: none
Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud is a German cloud provider offering exceptional price-to-performance ratios, often 3-5x cheaper than equivalent AWS or Azure configurations.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
Hetzner Dedicated Servers
Hetzner Online is a German hosting provider established in 1997, renowned for offering dedicated servers at exceptional price-to-performance ratios.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud is an enterprise-focused public cloud platform differentiated by its support for IBM Power Systems (AIX, IBM i, Linux on Power), mainframe (z/OS via Wazi aaS), Watson AI services, and strong compliance posture.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s, appliance · SSO: none
Incus
Incus is a modern manager for system containers and virtual machines on Linux. It was created in August 2023 as a community fork of Canonical’s LXD after Canonical relicensed LXD contributions under a CLA and moved the project from the Linu…
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: docker, k8s, package · SSO: none
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source, CNCF-graduated container orchestration platform that automates deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications across clusters using a declarative model.
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, k8s, package · SSO: none
KVM / libvirt
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is the virtualization infrastructure built into the Linux kernel. It turns Linux into a Type-1 hypervisor by leveraging hardware virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x, AMD-V).
License: GPL-2.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, package · SSO: none
Linode (Akamai Connected Cloud)
Linode is a veteran cloud platform founded in 2003, now part of Akamai Technologies following its 2022 acquisition.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is the second-largest public cloud platform, holding roughly 25% of the global IaaS market.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
Microsoft Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V is a Type-1 hypervisor built into Windows Server, providing hardware virtualization for Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD guests with live migration, failover clustering, and VM replication.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none
Morpheus Data
Morpheus Data is a unified multi-cloud management and orchestration platform designed to provide a single pane of glass across heterogeneous infrastructure environments.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: native, appliance · SSO: none
Nutanix AHV
Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) is the built-in hypervisor included with the Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) platform.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, appliance · SSO: none
OpenNebula
OpenNebula is an open-source cloud and edge computing platform that provides a simple yet powerful framework for building private, public, and hybrid cloud infrastructure.
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, appliance, package · SSO: none
OpenStack
OpenStack is a modular open-source cloud operating system that provides a comprehensive set of services for building and managing public and private cloud infrastructure.
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is Oracle’s second- generation cloud platform, rebuilt from the ground up after Oracle’s initial cloud efforts failed to gain traction.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
OVHcloud
OVHcloud is a French cloud provider and one of Europe’s largest hosting companies, operating 43 data centers across 4 continents.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
oVirt
oVirt is an open-source virtualization management platform that serves as the upstream project for Red Hat Virtualization (RHV / RHEV).
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas · SSO: none
Proxmox Virtual Environment
Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source server virtualization management platform built on Debian GNU/Linux.
License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, package · SSO: none
Rancher
Rancher is an open-source multi-cluster Kubernetes management platform that provides a unified control plane for deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters across any infrastructure – on-premises, cloud, and edge.
License: Apache-2.0 (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, docker, native, k8s · SSO: none
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift is an enterprise Kubernetes platform that extends upstream Kubernetes with developer tools, built-in CI/CD, an integrated container registry, operator-based lifecycle management, and enterprise support.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
Scaleway (Iliad Group)
Scaleway is a French public cloud provider (Iliad Group) offering compute instances, managed Kubernetes, serverless containers and functions, object storage, and databases from European data centers.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, native, k8s · SSO: none
VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere is the industry-standard enterprise virtualization platform, consisting of the ESXi bare- metal hypervisor and vCenter Server for centralized management.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, appliance · SSO: none
Vultr
Vultr is a cloud infrastructure provider known for competitive pricing, a wide geographic footprint (32 data center locations), and a strong bare metal offering.
License: Proprietary (proprietary) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, docker, native, k8s · SSO: none
XCP-ng
XCP-ng (Xen Cloud Platform - Next Generation) is an open-source virtualization platform based on the Xen hypervisor. It was forked from Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer) in 2018 after Citrix restricted features behind paid licenses.
License: AGPL-3.0-only (OSS) · Kind: web · Deploy: saas, appliance · SSO: none
