Businesses that make use of cloud technology have to constantly maintain a balance between scalability and affordability. As they expand their offerings and add more features to their products, the cost it takes to maintain that extra capability on the cloud can quickly spiral out of control. This is the unique problem that FinOps tools help solve.
FinOps tools help you make the most of your spending on cloud usage, so you get the most bang for your buck.
They allow you to analyze your cloud usage, highlight areas where you’re wasting money, and suggest areas where you can further optimize your cloud spending. That allows you to maintain your business growth on the cloud while making sure you can still afford it.
This post will cover what FinOps tools are, how to choose the right one for your business, and a selection of the best FinOps tools out there with their features and use cases.
What are FinOps Tools?
FinOps combines Finance and DevOps. FinOps tools are specialized software solutions designed to optimize your cloud cost management.
Tools like this help you understand how much you’re spending on the cloud and where exactly your money is going to identify any inefficiencies.
The reason why FinOps tools are useful is because they allow you to make the most of the money invested into cloud resources without sacrificing performance or usability.
Imagine you’re running an IT team that manages a cloud infrastructure that hosts various apps. Over time, as these apps gain more users, the cost of maintaining and hosting them is bound to increase.
If you use a cloud FinOps tool, you gain visibility into your cloud spending. It shows you underused instances and resources that pile onto your unnecessary costs.
With those insights, you and your IT team can make better decisions about what features or resources to scale down.
Cloud FinOps tools have evolved to go beyond basic cost reporting toward dynamic, automated cost optimization.
Instead of static reports and recommendations you have to implement manually, they now give you real-time analytics and cloud cost management. You need that kind of information to make informed decisions about your cloud spending and resource utilization and get the most value from your cloud investments.
How to Pick the Right FinOps Tools
Your business’ cloud usage patterns and financial goals are unique to you.
Whatever FinOps tool you go with should fit your business’s specific needs. Do you want more granular insights into your cloud services, or do you need a broader overview of your cloud spending? Do you just use one major cloud service provider, or do you make use of multiple cloud providers?
Here are some criteria you can consider when choosing your FinOps tool:
- Feature Set: Look at tools that offer a comprehensive suite of features like forecasting, budgeting, and anomaly detection.
- Scalability: Make sure the FinOps tool is priced to grow with your business without hitting you with unwanted surprise costs.
- Integration Capabilities: Make sure the FinOps software can integrate with your existing cloud services (AWS, Google Cloud, etc.).
- User Interface: Ideally, your FinOps tools should be intuitive and give you efficient cloud cost monitoring and cloud cost management features.
- Automation: Automated FinOps tools are especially important for Kubernetes environments because they automatically scale resources up or down based on demand. That way, you’re not paying for anything you aren’t using, which is important in Kubernetes environments where resource allocation can be very complex.
Best Practices for Implementing FinOps Tools
Once you know what FinOps solution best fits your needs, then comes the process of integrating it into your cloud infrastructure. There are a few things to keep in mind here:
- Granular Tagging and Custom Views: You’ll need different views and data from the different cloud services you use.
- Effective Reporting and Performance Metrics: Know what metrics you’ll want to keep track of to know how your cloud spend is affecting your resource management and make better cost-saving strategies.
- Budgeting and Forecasting: It’s useful to have a FinOps tool that gives you data-driven recommendations on how to allocate your cloud spend.
Native vs. Third-Party FinOps Tools
Depending on your cloud setup, you may choose to go with a FinOps tool that’s already bundled with your native cloud service provider or choose a third-party FinOps tool that integrates with what you’re using.
Here are some of the reasons you might choose one or the other.
Pros and Cons of Native Tools
Native tools are provided in-house by major cloud service providers like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. They have several advantages, including:
- Simplicity: They’re easier to integrate and use within their cloud environment, leaving you with one less tool you need to fiddle with.
- Provider-Specific Features: Native tools often provide specific features and insights tailored to the specific cloud environment they’re designed for.
That said, they come with limitations:
- Limited Scope: They may not provide a comprehensive view across all cloud environments, leaving you with less visibility if you use multiple cloud providers.
- Less Flexibility: Native tools may not offer the same level of customization as third-party tools.
Pros and Cons of Third-Party Tools
Third-party tools are made by independent providers and offer added functionality beyond what native tools offer. They come with their own set of advantages, like:
- Broader Functionality: Third-party FinOps tools offer more comprehensive features like multi-cloud management and advanced analytics.
- Flexibility: They can be more adaptable to a wide variety of cloud environments tailored to your business’s unique needs.
As with native tools, they come with some drawbacks:
- Complex Integration: Integrating them into your existing cloud services can be tricky.
- Learning Curve: Third-party tools may require a steeper learning curve while you get used to the extra range of features.
Why Choose Native vs. Third-Party Tools
Whether you end up going with native or third-party FinOps tools depends on your business’s unique needs:
- Single Cloud Environment: If your operations are contained within a single provider, native tools might be the simplest way to go.
- Multi-Cloud Strategy: If, however, your business is spread across multiple cloud services, third-party tools can offer you a more complete view of your cloud spending and better cross-platform cloud cost management.
10 FinOps Tools You Need to Know
Each of the FinOps tools listed here offers a unique set of features that deal with various aspects of cloud cost optimization and cloud cost management. Let’s do a breakdown of each of their core features and what each FinOps tool can do for you.
1. CAST AI
CAST AI specializes in Kubernetes cost optimization. Its AI-driven technology can reduce your Kubernetes costs in half, and it supports multiple cloud environments including Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.
CAST AI Benefits
- AI-Driven Cloud Cost Optimization: Use AI-powered features cut cloud costs for significant savings
- Multi-Cloud Support: Integrate with major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
- Automated Scaling and Resource Management: Ensure optimal resource allocation, reducing unnecessary waste and making more efficient use of your cloud resources
- Spot instance automation: Reduce your cloud bill dramatically by leveraging spot instances, the most cost-effective type of cloud resources
CAST AI Pricing
CAST AI pricing plans start free for basic cost monitoring, with the next tier being the Growth plan at $200 per month + $5 per CPU.
2. Harness
Harness is a software delivery platform that uses FinOps principles in its framework. It’s meant to make life easier for developers with fast builds, one-click deployments, fully automated cost reporting, and cloud cost management.
Harness Features and Benefits
- Real-Time Cost Visibility: The platform gives you real-time insights into your cloud spend so you can make adjustments and manage your cloud expenditure efficiently
- Cloud Spend Tracking: Record your cloud costs into different categories and get a picture of your cloud spending in ways that make sense to you
Harness Advantages
- Detailed cloud cost insights for effective showback
- Automated anomaly detection that turns off idle cloud resources
Harness Limitations:
- The platform is built with developers in mind, which may require more input from your engineering team, compared to CAST AI which is largely automated
- Lacks the same level of Kubernetes-specific cloud optimization and scaling features CAST AI has
Key Takeaway
Although its automated idle cloud resource detection is useful, CAST AI stands out with its AI-driven method of cloud cost optimization, especially for Kubernetes environments. CAST AI’s multi-cloud support and better security features designed for Kubernetes gives you a more comprehensive solution for cloud-native applications.
Harness Pricing
Harness is free to get started, and you can upgrade to the Team version for 2.25% of your annual cloud spend.
3. Apptio Cloudability
Apptio Cloudability is a tool focused on financial cloud management and accountability. The Apptio dashboard gives you detailed and granular insights into your spending on cloud infrastructure, so you can make better decisions about your cloud investments.
Apptio Features and Benefits
- Detailed Cloud Cost Analytics and Reporting: Have a clear understanding of your cloudspendingd with in-depth reporting features
- Cloud Resource Optimization: Decide on the optimal configurations for your cloud resources and get the best performance for the lowest cost
- Budgeting and Forecasting Capabilities: Plan and invest your cloud spending effectively with strategic decision-making
Apptio Advantages
- Comprehensive cloud cost management and optimization
- Automated cloud cost categorization
- Rightsizing cloud optimization recommendations given directly to your engineering team
Apptio Limitations
- While it gives rightsizing recommendations for engineers, it doesn’t give the advanced AI-driven cloud cost optimization and resource management features of CAST AI
- The platform is geared more towards financial governance, potentially requiring more manual effort in optimization compared to the autonomous capabilities of CAST AI
Apptio Pricing
The pricing for the Apptio platform isn’t displayed on their website, but you can test it out with an Apptio free trial.
4. CloudHealth by VMWare
CloudHealth is a comprehensive cloud management platform built to strengthen and simplify the way you spend money on cloud operations. It’s designed to help govern, optimize, and automate your cloud usage.
CloudHealth Core Features and Benefits
- Cost Management and Optimization: Manage and optimize your cloud cost management across multiple platforms and make your financial management simple
- Security and Compliance Monitoring: Investigate and prevent security risks before they happen with a focus on resource relationships, misconfigurations, and entitlements
- Operational Efficiency: Speed up your decision-making and keep risks to a minimum with automated cloud operations based on custom policies you create
CloudHealth Advantages
- Insights and visibility into public, hybrid, and containerized cloud environments
- Optimized workflows and usage of cloud resources
- Gives you strategies for consistent tagging and reporting on the impacts of your cloud infrastructure
CloudHealth Limitations
- CloudHealth’s focus on cloud operations and financial management might lack the specific Kubernetes-centric features and automated scaling capabilities that CAST AI provides.
- While CloudHealth may give you good visibility and cloud cost reporting, it doesn’t give you the same level of real-time optimization for Kubernetes environments CAST AI can
CloudHealth Pricing
The pricing details for CloudHealth are provided upon request.
5. Spot by NetApp
Spot by NetApp is a cloud infrastructure management tool built to deliver cost-effective workload management solutions. The platform stands out for its ability to leverage excess cloud capacity and make use of your existing cloud resources.
Spot Core Benefits and Features
- Cost-Effective Workload Management: Put your excess cloud capacity to efficient use and keep your expenses down
- Automated Cloud Resource Optimization: Get the best performance at the lowest possible cost by automating your cloud resource optimization
- Advanced Analytics for Cost and Performance: Make informed decisions about how to use your existing cloud resources
Spot Advantages
- Holistic visibility and analytics for cloud resource utilization
- AI-driven automation for scaling infrastructure based on real-time analysis.
- Solutions for optimizing cloud spend
Spot Limitations
- While spot has AI-driven cloud cost optimization, it doesn’t have the same level of Kubernetes-specific optimization and scaling that CAST AI does
- Geared towards general cloud cost management. which requires more manual input in Kubernetes-specific scenarios compared to CAST AI’s automated optimization
Spot Pricing
You can try out Spot for free, then upgrade to pay-as-you-go month-to-month pricing.
6. Kubecost
Kubecost is a tool that specializes in Kubernetes cost monitoring and optimization. The platform stands out for its ability to give rightsized recommendations and optimize overprovisioned resources efficiently.
Kubecost Core Benefits and Features
- Real-Time Cost Monitoring: Get instant visibility into your Kubernetes spending and track costs as they happen
- Cost Allocation Breakdown: Understand and visualize your costs across multiple Kubernetes clusters
- Unified Cost Monitoring: Have a comprehensive view of your total cloud spend by integrating Kubernetes into your external cloud services
Kubecost Advantages
- Detailed visibility on Kubernetes spending, including breakdown by deployments, services, and containers
- Real-time cost monitoring across clusters and cloud providers
- Dynamic suggestions for cloud cost savings and cloud resource optimization without sacrificing performance
Kubecost Limitations
- While it offers Kubernetes cost monitoring, it doesn’t give you the broader scope of AI-driven cloud cost optimization across multiple cloud platforms like CAST AI does
- Lacks the automated scaling and cloud resource management features that CAST AI gives you for Kubernetes workloads
Kubecost Pricing
You can start using Kubecost for free for basic monitoring. If you need more advanced features and monitoring, you can upgrade to the Enterprise version, with pricing available on request.
7. Flexera
Flexera is a versatile cloud management solution that’s good if you need to manage hybrid IT environments. With it, you have access to data-driven decision-making to optimize your cloud spend.
Flexera Core Benefits and Features
- Optimization for Cost Savings and Efficiency: Identify and reduce your cloud costs in half
- Customizable Dashboards and Reporting: Keep the data you need always at hand with dashboard reports tailored to your business needs
- Integration with a Wide Range of Cloud Services: Integrate with whatever cloud services you might use in a diverse IT environment
Flexera Advantages
- Detailed visibility into public, hybrid, and containerized cloud environments.
- Robust cost reporting and anomaly detection for efficient cloud governance
- Allocation tools and reporting for cloud spend management
Flexera Limitations
- Flexera’s focus on financial reporting and governance lacks specific Kubernetes-specific features and automatic scaling that CAST AI gives you
- The platform is built for cloud cost management, which requires more manual oversight for Kubernetes-specific environments
Flexera Pricing
Pricing for Flexera is available on request.
8. Densify
Densify is a cloud and container resource management tool that stands out for optimizing cloud resources, rather than just financial analysis alone. The design of the platform emphasizes aligning resources with actual application needs.
Densify Core Features and Benefits
- Predictive Analytics for Resource Optimization: Maintain an optimal balance between performance and cost with ML-powered analytics
- Customizable Policies for Cost Control: Set your parameters for your cloud spending and get exactly what you pay for
- Top-Down Capacity Visibility: Get a comprehensive view across cloud infrastructures, get comparisons and assessments between accounts
Densify Advantages
- Detailed analytics for Kubernetes resource optimization
- Visualization to help you identify under-utilized or over-provisioned cloud resources
Densify Limitations
- While it has Kubernetes-specific features, Densify may lack the broad scope of cloud-native application optimization of CAST AI
- Requires more manual integration with automation tools, compared to automated optimization processes of CAST AI
Densify Pricing
Densify pricing is tailored to different business needs and is available upon request.
9. Granulate
Granulate focuses on performance optimization and cost reduction. It’s designed for business owners who want to optimize their cloud workloads in real-time.
Granulate Core Features and Benefits
- Reduction in Computing Costs: Reduce your cloud computing expenses by optimizing your resource usage
- Improved Application Performance: Enhance the performance of your cloud applications for better user experiences and increased opportunity
- Easy Deployment and Instant Results: See immediate improvements in performance and cost reductions
Granulate Advantages
- Real-time optimization of cloud resources, reducing Kubernetes costs by 45%
- Pod resource rightsizing for continuous and automatic improvements
Granulate Limitations
- The focus on capacity optimization lacks the broader scope of cloud-native application and optimization of CAST AI
- Lacks the level of AI-powered cloud cost optimization across multiple cloud forms that CAST AI has
Granulate Pricing
Granulate starts free and has options to upgrade to the Pro tier at $.003 per core/hr.
10. Finout
Finout is a FinOps tool designed for organizations that want a deep and clear understanding of their cloud expenses, so they can make the best financial decision with regards to cloud cost management.
Finout Core Features and Benefits
- Cloud Cost Anomalies Detection for Unusual Spending: Get notified whenever you get an unexpected spike in cloud costs
- Budget Tracking and Forecasting: Be on top of your financial planning and track your current spending against your budgets and future expenses
- User-Friendly Interface: The easy-to-use interface makes the platform accessible for users with different levels of tech skills
Finout Advantages
- Real-time optimization of AWS discounts, aligning discount instruments to compute usage
- Automatic buying and selling of RIs to optimize EC2 costs
Finout Limitations
- Offers real-time optimization for AWS, but lacks AI-driven support across multi-cloud environments like CAST AI
- The focus of Finout is on AWS optimization, and it lacks the broader scope of cloud-native application optimization of the CAST AI platform, especially for Kubernetes environments
- Focus on AWS cloud cost management limits ability to give multi-cloud and Kubernetes-specific optimization recommendations compared to CAST AI
Finout Pricing
Finout operates on a pay-as-you-grow model that starts at $0/month, bumping up to $500/month for the business tier.
Wrap up
The FinOps tool that you choose for your cloud resource management will be the one that makes the most out of your unused resources, integrates with your cloud providers, and keeps your cloud expenses to a minimum.
Where CAST AI stands out among other FinOps tools is in how it optimizes your cloud cost continually. It’s particularly useful for Kubernetes environments where cloud cost reduction across platforms can get quite complicated.
Star with CAST AI for free, and see how a small investment in a good FinOps keeps your cloud costs from going through the roof.