No. 6 of 33 ·Cloud Management Software

Canonical OpenStack

Web · Linux · Self-hosted · API

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.4

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely2 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Canonical OpenStack is ranked #6 of 33 in cloud management software on Freedom251. It runs on API, Linux, Self-hosted, Web. There is a free plan.

Canonical OpenStack plans and pricing

All plans

Canonical OpenStack Free No hidden license or subscription cost; commercial support and consulting are separate canonical.com · 3 Oct 2026

Compared on cloud management software

Free plan: Yes
Cloud coverage: hybrid
Provisioning automation: Yes
Self-service catalog: Yes
Deployment model: self_hosted

Best Canonical OpenStack alternatives

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Two bars Cloudforet Free tier No. 1Free6.6 Two bars Pulumi Free tier No. 2$40/mo6.6 Two bars Terraform Free tier No. 3$0.10/mo6.6 Two bars Cloudify Free tier No. 4Free6.5 One bar Apache CloudStack Free tier No. 5Free6.4 One bar Cloud 66 Free tier No. 7$23/mo6.4

The record

Purpose: Canonical OpenStack lets organizations host applications in their own data center with a public cloud-like experience.
Self-service infrastructure: It provides self-service IT infrastructure and on-demand computing resources for teams.
Open source: Canonical describes the product as 100% open source and based on upstream OpenStack code.
Automation: It automates cloud operations from bare metal provisioning through applications, using MAAS and Juju across the stack.
Architecture: Its cloud-native architecture is based on Kubernetes, OCI images and snaps, which Canonical says decouples OpenStack from the underlying Ubuntu OS.
Storage: Canonical Ceph is included by default and supports up to 128 TB of data per node, according to the features page.
Integrations: The product includes an expandable Kubernetes layer, an integrated observability stack, Landscape system management and MAAS bare metal automation.
Workloads: Canonical lists HPC and AI/ML, telco NFVI, sovereign clouds, local or regional public clouds and edge infrastructure among its target uses.
Security maintenance: Canonical offers up to 15 years of security maintenance for artifacts used in Canonical OpenStack.
Compliance: Canonical offers CIS and DISA-STIG hardening profiles and says the product can conform to standards for telco, federal and financial services use cases.
Support: Commercial support includes 24/7 phone and ticket coverage, with a stated one-hour response time for Severity 1 issues.
Deployment options: Customers can deploy Canonical OpenStack themselves or have Canonical design, build, test and validate the cloud for them.
Notable limitation: The comparison page says its on-demand Kubernetes service is currently in beta.
Getting started: Canonical's learning tutorial uses one dedicated physical machine with at least 4 amd64 cores, 16 GiB RAM, 100 GiB SSD storage and Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 LTS.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Cloud Management Software in 2026#6 of 33

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Sources

canonical.com/openstack· checked 3 Oct 2026
canonical.com/openstack/compare· checked 3 Oct 2026
canonical.com/openstack/architecture· checked 3 Oct 2026
canonical.com/openstack/features· checked 3 Oct 2026
canonical.com/openstack/support· checked 3 Oct 2026
canonical.com/openstack/docs/latest/tutorial/get-star· checked 3 Oct 2026