Compute, network, and storage are the most critical components of cloud infrastructure. Without any of them, cloud computing would not function, as they work together to deliver on-demand services over the internet. However, they are also the primary drivers of high costs in the cloud.
Managing these costs is complex for several reasons. Cloud environments demand dynamic scaling, which leads to performance issues or excessive costs. These services are also interdependent, and a misconfiguration in one can impact the entire cloud infrastructure.
A cloud cost management platform like Zesty can help, but it’s limited to AWS. If you’re using a different provider or multiple, this guide features the top Zesty alternatives to consider now.
What Does Zesty Do?
Zesty leverages AI to automatically optimize AWS compute and storage.
Zesty’s Commitment Manager automates the purchase and sale of AWS Reserved Instances (RIs). It adjusts RIs based on actual usage, ensuring up to 50% savings by minimizing reliance on expensive on-demand instances. With nearly 99% coverage, it helps users avoid over- or under-provisioning, thus optimizing EC2 costs.
For AWS storage optimization, Zesty Disk automatically shrinks and expands AWS EBS volumes to meet usage needs. It also optimizes IOPS and throughput, making it ideal for data-heavy workloads such as machine learning and ETL processes.
Yet, Zesty is not for every organization. Besides its limitation to AWS, it also doesn’t support:
- Major integrations
- Detailed per-unit insights
- Cluster management and more.
An alternative can offer more robust capabilities.
13 Zesty Alternatives To Help Bolster Cloud Efficiency
These tools will help you manage and optimize different aspects of cloud infrastructure.
1. CloudZero
CloudZero AnyCost ingests and analyzes cloud spend data from any source, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS providers. You can view business-specific metrics such as cost per product, feature, customer, and more right to an hourly granularity.
With CloudZero, you can also:
- Breaks down costs in Kubernetes environments by pod, service, or namespace for granular visibility
- Automatically identifies unusual cost spikes and alerts teams to prevent overspending
- Monitor cloud spend and savings opportunities with real-time, detailed reports
- Forecast future cloud costs by analyzing trends and usage patterns
- Allocate costs without tagging
- Get a complete picture of your cost of goods sold (COGS)
CloudZero’s cost intelligence works. Drift and NinjaCat have saved over $4 million and 40% off their annual cloud costs. LawnStarter reduced their cloud storage costs by 55%. Symphony Talent reduced their AWS costs by 48%. Read our customer success stories here to experience CloudZero in action right now.
2. Amazon CloudWatch
With CloudWatch, you can monitor your stack across AWS, on-premises, and hybrid cloud environments.
It collects, visualizes, and analyzes metrics, logs, and events from AWS resources to allow full observability.
It also sets alarms and integrates with AWS services to track resource usage, detect inefficiencies, and optimize costs.
3. Azure Cost Management + Billing
Azure Cost Management + Billing is native to Microsoft Azure.
It monitors all cloud usage and costs across Azure, creates budgets and alerts, analyzes spending, and allocates costs.
It also consolidates billing for multiple subscriptions from Azure and AWS, providing a unified view of costs.
4. ProsperOps
ProsperOps uses advanced algorithms to automatically manage and optimize cloud discount instruments.
Its Effective Savings Rate (ESR) reduces the risk of over-commitment and wasted spend.
ProsperOps also automates cost optimization for AWS RDS, Redshift, ElastiCache, and OpenSearch. It uses Adaptive Laddering to intelligently manage Reserved Instances by spreading commitments over time.
ProsperOps also partners with CloudZero to combine cost intelligence with automated savings management. Users can even access the ProsperOps ESR through the CloudZero Discounts optimization dashboard.
5. nOps
nOps automates cost optimization using machine learning to analyze AWS usage patterns. It stops idle resources and runs workloads on spot instances, lowering costs compared to on-demand instances.
nOps also optimizes container clusters and helps users align their cloud infrastructure with AWS Well-Architected Framework best practices.
6. Datadog
With Datadog, users can monitor both performance and costs. The platform gathers data from over 750 integrations, including AWS, Azure, GCP, and more, to offer a single visibility pane.
This unified approach enables engineering teams to see how infrastructure changes, such as new deployments, impact their cloud spend. It also empowers them to take ownership of their costs without needing separate tools or workflows.
In Kubernetes monitoring, Datadog breaks down costs by clusters, namespaces, and pods. It delivers visibility into both active and idle workloads, helping teams understand the total cost of running applications in shared environments.
Datadog is a robust observability and monitoring tool. However, its costs can be high. Read our guide to Datadog cost management to learn how to optimize your monitoring costs on the platform. You can also explore these Datadog alternatives if it feels overkill for your needs.
7. Harness
Harness Cloud Cost Management (CCM) tracks cloud usage, providing hourly data on utilized, unallocated, and idle resources. It delivers clear visibility into cloud infrastructure costs, helping users understand where spending occurs without directly mapping costs to specific features or deployments.
Harness also supports CI/ CD pipelines. It automates tasks such as building code, testing, and deploying it to production.
8. Spot by NetApp
Spot by NetApp is a suite of cloud automation tools that offers visibility, analytics, and cost management.
Spot Ocean – Manages Kubernetes infrastructure, automatically scaling resources based on real-time usage to optimize performance and reduce costs.
Spot Elastigroup – Automates infrastructure scaling using spot instances, reserved, and on-demand instances.
Spot Eco – Manages Reserved Instances and Savings Plans. It automates the process, helping teams get the most out of their cloud investments.
Spot by NetApp also acquired CloudCheckr, an enterprise FinOps platform that delivers robust cloud visibility, cost governance, and compliance management.
9. CloudBolt
CloudBolt offers a hybrid cloud management platform that gives developers self-service access to resources. This eliminates the need for IT tickets, speeding up workflows. It also ensures teams can obtain the compute, storage, and applications they need fast.
Like ProsperOps, CloudBolt also automates cloud cost optimization by reserving discounts.
It also allocates cloud spend across business units and supports Kubernetes, on-premises, and multi-cloud environments.
10. Flexera
Flexera cloud cost management tool supports cost allocation, automatic budgets, cost analysis, reporting, and forecasting.
Flexera is also used to manage the full lifecycle of IT assets, from procurement to retirement. It tracks and offers visibility into asset usage and automates license management.
11. Vega Cloud
Vega Cloud manages and optimizes cloud costs through a single console. It organizes workloads using Spaces, a patented model that groups resources by project, cost center, or environment.
Among its tools is Vega Inform, which provides visibility into cloud usage and detects anomalies. For optimization, Vega Optimize automates workload management by generating real-time, actionable recommendations.
Vega Operate enforces governance by automating workflows and managing policies. Vega Datametry, on the other hand, handles data-heavy operations. It delivers a unified view of cloud analytics, warehousing, and database spending.
12. Infracost
Infracost helps developers see how infrastructure changes will impact cloud costs before deployment. By integrating into tools such as GitHub, GitLab, and Jira, it shows cost estimates directly in workflows. This early visibility follows the “shift left” FinOps model. It ensures costs are considered early in development.
The platform checks code changes against set budgets. If a modification risks exceeding the budget, an approval process begins. It also automates compliance with FinOps policies, flagging non-compliant resources during code reviews.
13. Finout
Finout’s Megabill feature consolidates all cloud providers, SaaS platforms, and Kubernetes into one detailed bill. This provides a clear view of all costs from the very start, helping teams manage costs at any level of detail.
Finout leverages Virtual Tags to allocate costs across teams or environments. You can also reallocate shared costs using any metric, ensuring that costs are tracked with precision.
Its CostGuard identifies idle resources and recommends ways to rightsize infrastructure. Finout also features customer dashboards that enable users to track budgets, usage, and waste.
What Next: Learn How To Optimize Cloud Spending To Maximize Your Business Value
Strategic planning and cloud cost management are crucial for improving the cloud’s return on investment (ROI).
CloudZero’s cost intelligence platform improves cloud ROI by offering practical insights into cloud unit economics. It aligns cloud costs with business metrics, such as cost per customer, product, feature, or team. This gives organizations a clear understanding of which areas drive the most value for their cloud investments.
It also provides hourly granularity in cost visibility, enabling businesses to pinpoint cost spikes within specific timeframes. This allows for more effective identification and optimization of inefficient resources, unlike most platforms that rely on daily or weekly reports.
CloudZero is also a FinOps-certified platform that works like an observability tool. It aggregates data from multiple clouds, infrastructure, applications, and Kubernetes. This enables organizations to gain full visibility into their cloud spending and optimize costs across their entire cloud environment.
and see how you can start optimizing your cloud spending with CloudZero.