The Forrester Wave™: Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions, Q3 2024

Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions Vendor Product Comparisons 2024

Key features and pros and cons of top Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions products:

Broadcom - Leaders

Pros:

Superior access and permissions with FlexOrgs capabilities
Depth in reporting and monitoring
Ability to send reports tailored to specific personas and groups

Cons:

Needs to improve breadth in optimization recommendations
Slowed innovation in recent years
Broadcom's reputation threatens stunted innovation
Increased customer attrition and uncertain future under Broadcom
Lacks feature parity across all major cloud providers

Flexera - Leaders

Pros:

Excels in pricing flexibility and transparency
Superior billing administration
Superior resource discovery
Superior integration capabilities
Flexibility in data filtering and segregation

Cons:

Needs improvement in vision and innovation beyond integrated ITAM CCMO solution
Narrow roadmap that doesn't account for semi-DIY approaches
Needs improvements in cost planning and assessment
Customers would like to see more transparency in updates

IBM - Leaders

Pros:

Most complete full-stack CCMO solution combining Cloudability and Turbonomic
Superior optimization recommendations
Superior remediation capabilities
Superior cloud platform placement
Superior usage policies capabilities
Breadth of capabilities

Cons:

Needs to improve access and permissions, specifically ability to customize prebuilt personas
High prices with mandatory purchase of consulting services for all tiers
Ambitious roadmap to integrate Cloudability and Turbonomic has not yet come to fruition
Customers desire more granular permission customization and lower pricing thresholds

CloudBolt Software - Strong Performers

Pros:

Differentiates with bidirectional integration
Superior access and permissions
Superior usage policies
Superior capacity planning (an area that is normally a gap for most CCMO solutions)
Seamless management across on-premises and public cloud environments
Excellent product vision reflecting understanding of key growth areas

Cons:

Needs improvement in cloud platform placement recommendations
Needs improvement in monitoring
Lacks any prebuilt integration with third-party monitoring solutions
Needs to build stronger partner ecosystem
Customers would like to see more feature parity across major cloud providers
Remains to see whether it can deliver on future promises

CloudZero - Strong Performers

Pros:

Superior API integrations with AnyCost feature
Broadest set of cost ingestion support
Led the charge with shift-left and cloud unit cost economics efforts
Technical account manager provides strong support
Widespread cost ingestion support and cloud unit economics capabilities

Cons:

Lags in billing administration and democratization by relying on external finance systems
Needs to improve partner ecosystem
Needs to build better go-to-market strategy through channel sales
Roadmap lacks detail beyond aligning engineering and finance teams
Customers desire transparency in logic behind error alerts

Harness - Strong Performers

Pros:

Market-leading innovation with auto-stopping and cluster cost breakdown features
Superior admin portal usability and experience
Continues to gain differentiation with roadmap
Dashboards provide financial data and analytics lens

Cons:

Lacks depth on commodity capabilities
Lacks cloud platform placement recommendations
Lags in cost planning and assessments
Needs to focus on building out breadth in basic optimization
Customers would like better permissions, controls, and stronger forecasting feature

Morpheus Data - Strong Performers

Pros:

Leads in multicloud management
Pricing flexibility and incremental pricing thresholds
Superior resource discovery
Superior recommendations
Superior capacity planning and assessment (a gap for most CCMO solutions)
Strong multicloud management capabilities

Cons:

Product vision for dedicated cloud cost management remains immature
Needs improvement in reporting and cost planning and assessment
Cloud cost management features are early in launch
Customers waiting to see proof of ability to manage cloud costs

OpenText - Contenders

Pros:

Superior partner ecosystem leveraging long-established partnerships
Superior on-premises and automation capabilities
Rightsizing recommendations come with orchestration workflow implementations

Cons:

Needs improvement in product vision, currently lags behind competitors
Provides less than commoditized features
Roadmap in reactive stance rather than pushing forward market-leading capabilities
Lags in cloud platform support with lack of Google Cloud optimization and billing
Lags in reporting
Customers would like to see more AI/ML capabilities such as anomaly detection

Kion - Challengers

Pros:

One of the only on-premises CCMO solutions
Enables customers to meet FedRAMP, SOC 2, and other NIST-based security standards
Strong in billing administration, cloud platform support, and usage policies
On-premises offering and ability to meet FedRAMP requirements
On-par pricing flexibility and transparency

Cons:

Lacks capacity planning and assessment
Needs improvement in cloud platform support with lack of Google Cloud optimization
Needs improvement in billing democratization and cost planning and assessment
Needs improvement across innovation and partner ecosystem
Customers desire improvement in security granularity and exception handling and anomaly detection capability

NetApp - Challengers

Pros:

Strong basic CCMO solution through CloudCheckr and Spot acquisitions
Deep channel presence
Strong in channel presence
White-label features

Cons:

Massively delayed in delivering unified portal (promised since 2022)
Slow to deliver on roadmap
Lags in roadmap deliveries
Lags in providing Google Cloud billing and optimization (now considered basic capability)
Plans remain unclear for market-leading position
Customers would like to see multi-account views
Declined to participate in full Forrester Wave evaluation process

Nutanix - Challengers

Pros:

Market-leading customer support with NPS score of 92
Strong plans to deliver combined security and cloud management solution
Pivoted to focusing on hybrid cloud management and CCMO consultancy

Cons:

Lags in roadmap delivery with only incremental innovation since 2020
New capabilities will not be added to CCMO solution (only maintaining current offering)
Weak in roadmap delivery
Customers desire broader support across cloud providers
Declined to participate in full Forrester Wave evaluation process

Virtana - Challengers

Pros:

Excels in hybrid observability
Strong partner program
Predictable pricing with flat-rate offerings

Cons:

Lags in table-stakes CCMO capabilities
Lags in most CCMO capabilities including resource discovery, billing, and cost planning and assessment
Needs improvement in vision and roadmap delivery
Focus mainly on hybrid cloud infrastructure makes it weaker in pure public cloud cost management
Customers would like to see greater depth in product as a whole
Declined to participate in full Forrester Wave evaluation process

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2024?

A: Broadcom, Flexera, IBM

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

A: Leaders in the Forrester Wave are vendors that demonstrate the strongest current offerings and strategies in the cloud cost management and optimization market. They show superior capabilities across key criteria including visibility, optimization recommendations, remediation, cloud platform placement, and usage policies. Leaders have strong market presence, ambitious and credible roadmaps, and provide comprehensive solutions that meet or exceed the commoditized requirements for multi-cloud support. They are positioned to help enterprises achieve visibility, optimization, unit cost economics, and automation - the capabilities that matter most in this market.

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

A: https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions in 2024

Cloud Cost Management And Optimization Solutions Vendor Product Comparisons 2024

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2024?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

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