Cloudify

Cloudify is an open-source platform for orchestrating infrastructure, cloud-native services, and distributed edge resources across multiple clouds. Its service-composition DSL models services spanning Cloudify and other orchestration domains. Cloudify Manager maintains blueprints and deployments, runs workflows, and presents application topology, metrics, and logs. Official plugins cover Docker, Helm, Kubernetes, and Terraform; documented integrations include AWS, Azure, Ansible, and Jenkins. CI/CD integrations are also documented for Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and CircleCI. The feature overview describes secret storage, encrypted internal communication, multi-tenancy, and role-based access control; Cloudify 6.2 release notes state ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certifications. Community and Premium can be deployed in a Docker container, a VM, or Kubernetes using a Helm chart, while SaaS is hosted. Community is free with no time limit, but requires Docker or a VM and cloud-provider access for workloads. Premium's free 60-day trial requires Docker, cloud-provider access, and a valid activation license; trial functionality ceases when the license expires.

Cloudify offers orchestration across cloud and edge resources, with deployment options ranging from local infrastructure to hosted SaaS. Community has no time limit, while the Premium trial depends on an activation license that expires.

Cloudify suits organizations moving to public cloud or cloud-native architecture and automating infrastructure and edge resources. Teams should consider its setup requirements and, for Premium trial use, the expiring activation license.

Cloudify is an open-source platform for orchestrating infrastructure, cloud-native services and distributed edge resources. It is best suited to organizations moving toward public cloud or cloud-native architecture that need automation across environments. Its breadth is a strength, but Community gives up several access-control and availability features included in Premium and SaaS.

Overview

Cloudify uses YAML or JSON to model composite services across its own services and other orchestration domains. Cloudify Manager maintains blueprints and deployments, runs workflows, and displays application topology, metrics and logs. That combination makes it useful for coordinating connected deployments, rather than managing each resource in isolation.

Support for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and OpenStack, along with policy as code, drift detection, resource import and both state management modes, gives Cloudify a broad infrastructure-automation role. It is a better fit for teams coordinating across clouds and edge resources than for those seeking a narrowly focused platform for one environment.

Key features

• Service composition and workflows: The DSL models composite services across Cloudify and other orchestration domains, while Manager executes workflows. This suits deployments whose components span different systems.
• Integrations: Official plugins cover Docker, Helm, Kubernetes and Terraform; documented integrations also include AWS, Azure, Ansible and Jenkins. CI/CD integrations with Jenkins, GitHub Actions and CircleCI help teams connect orchestration with their delivery pipelines.
• Security controls: Cloudify describes secret storage, encrypted internal communication, multi-tenancy and role-based access control. It is ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certified. The comparison matrix places users, groups, tenants, RBAC, AD/Okta/SAML, snapshots and high availability in Premium and SaaS, not Community—an important distinction for organizations that need those controls.

Pricing

Cloudify Community: free, with no time limit. It requires Docker or VM setup and access to a cloud provider to run workloads. This is the clearest option for teams prepared to manage their own deployment without the access and availability features assigned to paid tiers.

Cloudify Premium trial: free for a 60-day trial. It requires Docker setup and cloud-provider access for workloads. A valid activation license is required, and trial functionality stops when that license expires, so it is not an indefinite free alternative.

Cloudify as a Service trial: Custom pricing; a trial account request is required. The hosted service avoids self-hosted setup, but still requires access to a cloud provider to run workloads.

Platforms

Community and Premium can run in a Docker container, a VM or Kubernetes using a Helm chart; SaaS is hosted. The CLI installation options include Linux and Mac binaries, a Windows EXE, a Python package and Docker. The platform supports API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, web and Windows environments.

Who it's for

Cloudify is aimed at organizations transitioning to public cloud and cloud-native architecture, particularly those automating across infrastructure and edge resources. Teams working across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or OpenStack can use its composition model and integrations to coordinate services. It is less suitable when a team needs the Community edition to provide the listed enterprise access controls or high availability.

Pros and cons

• Pros: The composition DSL and Manager workflows cover services spanning orchestration domains, while integrations include major infrastructure, container and CI/CD tools.
• Pros: A no-time-limit Community plan and multiple self-hosted deployment formats give teams options for running the platform on their own infrastructure.
• Cons: Community omits users/groups/tenants, RBAC, identity-provider integrations, snapshots and high availability, limiting its fit for organizations that require those capabilities.
• Cons: Both Community and Premium need setup and cloud-provider access for workloads; the Premium trial also ends when its activation license expires.

Alternatives

Cloudforet is a free, open-source self-hosted option for teams that prefer a no-cost platform without a trial period. Waldur is another free option, with API, Linux, self-hosted and web platforms.

OpenText Cloud Management is a paid alternative for readers looking for cloud management on web, Android or iOS. OpenNebula offers a Community Edition with public open-source releases and no stated host limit; its Enterprise Subscription is another plan option.

Canonical OpenStack is a free, open-source choice based on upstream OpenStack code. Apache CloudStack is free open-source IaaS cloud software without commercial plan pricing.

Platform9 Private Cloud Director offers a full-featured, no-time-limit Community Edition for a single workload region, or a Cloud Service Provider Program at $1,000 a month. Cycloid has a free SaaS plan for up to 5 users and one workspace, with blueprints, forms and orchestration plus native RBAC, SSO and MFA; its Advanced plan is $45 a month.

Explore more options in Cloud Management Software, Cloud Orchestration Software, Multi-Cloud Management Software, Cloud Automation Software and Infrastructure as Code Tools.

Verdict

Choose Cloudify if your organization needs to model and automate services across cloud and edge environments, and values both self-hosted deployment choices and a hosted option. Its broad orchestration and integration coverage is the main reason to consider it; look elsewhere if you need Community to include the identity, tenancy or high-availability controls reserved for Premium and SaaS.