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: 0.00 USD per 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: 0.00 USD per 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 1000.00 USD per 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 45.00 USD per 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.

	Cloudify	Scalr
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Free trial	Yes	No
Paid from	Free	Free
Open source	No	No
Platforms	api, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, Web, Windows	api, Linux, self-hosted, Web
Free plan	Yes	Yes

Cloudify vs Scalr

Cloudify

Scalr