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18 Essential FinOps Platforms and Tools for 2024

Last updated

November 20, 2024

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Last updated

November 20, 2024

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18 Essential FinOps Platforms and Tools for 2024

Did you know that over 60% of companies have already embraced FinOps to control their cloud costs? This isn't just a trend; it's a game-changer in managing cloud finances. As cloud adoption grows, so does the need for effective cost management, and that's where FinOps comes in. By aligning finance, technology, and business teams, FinOps ensures every cloud dollar is well-spent, driving real value.

The impact is significant—companies that master FinOps can reduce their cloud costs by 20% to 30%. It's not just about saving money; it's about making smarter, more strategic investments in your cloud infrastructure. 

In this blog, you’ll learn about the essential FinOps platforms in 2024 and why they're becoming a must-have for modern businesses.

What is a FinOps Tool?

A FinOps tool is a specialized software designed to optimize and manage your cloud financial operations, integrating financial accountability directly into the cloud management process. 

FinOps platforms provide real-time insights into cloud spending, automate cost-saving measures, and facilitate collaboration between finance, engineering, and operations teams to ensure efficient use of cloud resources. Using data analytics, they help you make informed decisions about cloud investments, driving cost efficiency and performance. 

The FinOps lifecycle, as outlined by the FinOps Foundation, consists of three ongoing components: Inform, Optimize, and Operate. 

FinOps Lifecycle Component Description
Inform Provides the visibility needed to create shared accountability across teams.
Optimize Focuses on identifying efficiency opportunities and evaluating their value.
Operate Involves defining and implementing processes that align with business, technology, and finance goals.

Key FinOps Capabilities

In 2023, the FinOps community created a library of optimization opportunities, after identifying the need in a survey, to help improve cloud efficiency on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. This resource serves as a vital tool for organizations looking to maximize their cloud investments.

Below is a comprehensive outline of FinOps capabilities as defined by the FinOps Foundation.

Capability Description
Allocation Assign and share cloud costs using accounts, tags, and metadata for accountability.
Anomaly Management Detect, manage, and minimize unexpected cloud cost events to reduce business impact.
Architecting for Cloud Ensure cloud services meet operational, sustainability, and financial requirements.
Benchmarking Compare metrics and KPIs internally and externally for cloud value and optimization.
Budgeting Set, monitor, and manage cloud spending to align with business objectives and ensure predictability.
Cloud Policy & Governance Establish policies and controls to align cloud use with business objectives and compliance.
Cloud Sustainability Make decisions about cloud usage considering environmental impact and sustainability goals.
Data Ingestion Gather and process datasets to support activities across all FinOps capabilities.
FinOps Assessment Measure the effectiveness of the FinOps practice and identify areas for improvement.
FinOps Education & Enablement Develop a common understanding of FinOps concepts and practices among participants.
FinOps Practice Operations Build and operate a FinOps practice within an organization.
FinOps Tools & Services Utilize cloud provider or third-party tools and services to support FinOps capabilities.
Forecasting Model future cloud costs and value using statistical methods and historical data.
Intersecting Disciplines Coordinate activities with interconnected disciplines or allied teams.
Invoicing & Chargeback Manage cloud invoices and establish chargeback processes with Finance & Accounting.
Licensing & SaaS Optimize software licenses and SaaS investments to impact cloud value structure.
Onboarding Workloads Migrate systems to cloud environments transparently and cost-effectively.
Planning & Estimating Estimate potential cloud costs and value for different workload models.
Rate Optimization Lower the rate paid for cloud resources.

18 Top FinOps Platforms in 2024

Managing costs effectively becomes even more important as your business continues to rely on cloud services. Take a look at the 18 top FinOps tools that can help you stay on top of your cloud costs and run your operations more efficiently. 

1. Sedai

Sedai is an AI-driven platform focused on cloud optimization. It provides autonomous cost management around the clock, ensuring significant cost savings while maintaining 100% operational safety and zero incidents.  

Sedai acts as an AI Copilot, continuously optimizing cloud environments without requiring manual intervention. This allows businesses to maximize their cloud investments securely and efficiently.  It is specifically tailored for FinOps teams.

It autonomously manages and optimizes cloud environments across various platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. 

Sedai's key strength lies in its ability to analyze workloads continuously. It applies machine learning to uncover potential savings of 30-50% based on actual usage patterns, not just static rules. 

Unique Feature: Sedai's distinctive features are Autonomous Optimization, Autonomous Remediation, a wide range of integrations to support engineering execution, Release Intelligence to show the projected cost impact of every new release, and Smart SLOs which help ensure FinOps changes do not negatively affect customer experience.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities: 
    • Workload Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Rate Optimization
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Sedai is trusted by organizations such as KnowBe4, Palo Alto Networks, Belcorp

Pricing: Sedai offers custom pricing based on your organization’s needs and cloud usage patterns with models for mid-sized companies and advanced deployment and security for enterprises. 

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: User-friendly interface, effective automation features, good customer support.
  • Cons: Can be a bit expensive for smaller teams.

2. Apptio Cloudability

Apptio Cloudability is a cloud financial management platform that enables IT, finance, and DevOps teams to optimize cloud spending for performance and efficiency. Cloudability supports strategic decision-making by correlating cloud expenses with business value, ensuring companies maximize their return on cloud investments. 

Unique Feature: Predictive cost management, which uses machine learning to forecast future cloud expenses.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Reporting & Analytics 
    • Architecting for Cloud
    • Workload Optimization
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Companies like Atlassian, Autodesk, and Equifax use Apptio Cloudability. 

Pricing: Apptio Cloudability operates on a custom pricing model, making it a robust solution for enterprises with complex financial structures.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Robust cost management features that streamline cloud spending.
  • Cons: Steep learning curve for first-time users.

3. CloudHealth

CloudHealth by VMware, a platform for cloud cost management and optimization, was acquired by VMware in 2018. It specializes in providing multi-cloud FinOps reporting to optimize cloud expenses.  

With a solid financial foundation and innovative technology, CloudHealth empowers enterprises to manage their cloud environments effectively.

Unique Feature: Policy-driven governance, which enables you to automate compliance and cost management across multi-cloud environments by setting customized policies.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Rate Optimization
    • Budgeting 
    • Workload Optimization  

Key Customers: Companies like Autodesk, Yelp, and Suncorp use CloudHealth to streamline their cost management across various cloud platforms.

Pricing: CloudHealth offers flexible pricing based on the size and complexity of your cloud environment, typically structured as a subscription model.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Comprehensive visibility into multi-cloud environments for effective cost management.
  • Cons: Occasional delays in data synchronization across platforms.

4. Kubecost

Kubecost provides real-time insights into your Kubernetes spending. Founded by former Google engineers, it is an open-source tool designed to give developers visibility into Kubernetes spending. 

Based on the open-source tool OpenCost, Kubecost monitors and reduces costs while ensuring a balance between cost, performance, and reliability.

Unique Feature: Granular cost allocation for Kubernetes resources, which allows you to break down costs by namespace, deployment, or even individual pod.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Anomaly Management
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Organizations like HBO and Under Armour leverage Kubecost to optimize their Kubernetes environments and control cloud spending effectively.

Pricing: Kubecost offers a pricing structure based on the number of Kubernetes nodes in your cluster, with different tiers depending on the scale and features required. This includes a free tier, a basic paid tier, and enterprise options for larger deployments with more advanced features.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides detailed insights into Kubernetes costs, helping optimize resource usage.
  • Cons: The user interface can be challenging to use for beginners.

5. Datadog

Datadog is a comprehensive observability and security platform designed for cloud applications. This SaaS solution integrates and automates monitoring across infrastructure, application performance, log management, and real-user interactions. 

It provides unified, real-time insights into your technology stack. Organizations of all sizes use Datadog to accelerate digital transformation, enhance team collaboration, secure applications, and track key business metrics.

Unique Feature: Unified observability platform, which seamlessly integrates metrics, logs, and traces into a single pane of glass.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Anomaly Management
    • Rate Optimization 
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting

Key Customers: Companies like Samsung, Comcast, and Peloton use Datadog to monitor and optimize their cloud infrastructure, ensuring high performance and cost efficiency.

Pricing: Datadog offers a pricing structure based on the number of hosts, containers, or custom metrics you monitor, with additional charges for advanced features such as log management, APM (Application Performance Monitoring), and security monitoring.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Powerful monitoring capabilities with real-time data and alerts.
  • Cons: Pricing can quickly escalate with the addition of more features.

6. Splunk

Splunk, acquired by Cisco in 2024, specializes in monitoring and observability, offering solutions tailored to the needs of FinOps professionals. It helps organizations manage and optimize their financial operations by providing deep visibility into digital infrastructures.

Unique Feature: Real-time data analytics capability, which allows you to instantly visualize and act on data from multiple sources.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Anomaly Management
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Rate Optimization 
    • Budgeting

Key Customers: Organizations like Coca-Cola, Intuit, and Tesco rely on Splunk to analyze and optimize their cloud infrastructure, driving better performance and cost management.

Pricing: Splunk's pricing structure is based on data ingestion volume, measured in GB per day, with additional charges for features like ITSI (IT Service Intelligence), Enterprise Security, and machine learning capabilities.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Excellent scalability and flexibility for managing large volumes of data.
  • Cons: The platform can be complex and requires significant expertise to fully utilize.

7. CloudZero

CloudZero is designed to help organizations allocate their cloud spending effectively and identify savings opportunities. With capabilities for data normalization, cost allocation, and Kubernetes visibility, CloudZero empowers engineering and finance teams to drive efficient cloud usage.

Unique Feature: Cost per feature tracking, which enables you to tie cloud expenses directly to individual features or products

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Anomaly Management
    • Unit Economics
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Rapid7, Malwarebytes, and Drift use CloudZero to gain visibility into their cloud expenses and make informed decisions that align with their business objectives.

Pricing: Typically customized based on your specific needs, including the level of visibility, granularity of insights, and additional features like cost allocation and anomaly detection​.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Offers clear and actionable insights into cloud spending, helping optimize costs.
  • Cons: Initial setup can be time-consuming and requires detailed configuration.

8. Finout

Finout aims to revolutionize cloud cost management by creating an advanced platform designed to handle the complexities of modern cloud pricing. As usage-based pricing becomes more common and cloud environments grow increasingly intricate. 

Finout offers powerful features like the MegaBill, which simplifies cost allocation and instant virtual tagging.

Unique Feature: Business context mapping, which allows you to connect cloud costs directly to specific business outcomes or units.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Anomaly Management
    • Unit Economics
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Rappi, Monday.com, and Singular use Finout to gain comprehensive visibility into their cloud spending and optimize their financial operations.

Pricing: Finout operates on a fixed pricing model, charging 1% of your cloud spend.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Intuitive interface that simplifies cloud cost management across multiple platforms.
  • Cons: Reporting features could be more customizable to meet specific needs.

9. Harness

Harness is dedicated to empowering software engineering teams worldwide to deliver code reliably, efficiently, and quickly. With over 700 employees and more than 500 customers, Harness has raised $425 million in funding from top-tier investors.

Harness aims to revolutionize software development by providing teams with the tools, knowledge, and resources needed to excel.

Unique Feature: Continuous efficiency monitoring, which not only optimizes cloud costs during deployment but also continuously assesses and adjusts resource usage in real-time.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Rate Optimization
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting
    • Anomaly Management
    • Cost Allocation

Key Customers: Companies like McAfee, eBay, and Citrix use Harness to streamline their cloud cost management and enhance the efficiency of their cloud operations.

Pricing: Harness operates on a tiered pricing model, charging between 2.25% and 2.5% of your cloud spend. 

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Streamlines the CI/CD process with efficient automation and deployment tools.
  • Cons: Pricing can be high for smaller teams or startups.

10. AWS Cost Management 

AWS Cost Management is a suite of tools designed to help organizations effectively monitor, manage, and optimize their AWS spending. For FinOps teams, it's an indispensable resource, providing the insights needed to drive financial accountability in cloud operations. 

Here's a breakdown of the key AWS Cost Management tools. 

  1. AWS Cost Explorer: Visualizes and analyzes your AWS costs and usage over time, helping you identify spending trends and opportunities for optimization.
  2. AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR): Provides detailed billing data, breaking down costs by service, account, or tags for precise cost allocation and in-depth financial analysis.
  3. AWS Compute Optimizer: Offers recommendations to optimize your cloud resources, such as right-sizing instances, to enhance performance and reduce costs.

Unique Feature: Forecasting capability, which uses historical data to predict future costs, allowing users to anticipate and manage their cloud expenses more effectively.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Organizations like Netflix, Airbnb, and Lyft use AWS Cost Explorer to monitor their AWS expenses and optimize their cloud spending strategies.

Pricing: Cost Explorer's pricing is generally included with your AWS account, meaning there is no additional cost to use it. But charges may apply if you use advanced features like Reserved Instance reporting or detailed custom reports​. 

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides clear visibility into AWS spending with easy-to-use cost analysis tools.
  • Cons: Limited customization options for detailed financial reports.

11. Azure Cost Management Tools

Azure Cost Management Tools offer robust features to help you efficiently monitor, manage, and optimize your cloud spending within the Azure platform. Effective use of Azure cost management tools can help reduce cloud costs by 20-30% on average by identifying waste, rightsizing resources, and optimizing usage.

Unique Feature: Integration with Azure Advisor, which provides personalized, actionable recommendations for optimizing your cloud spend.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Rate Optimization
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting
    • Cloud Policy & Governance

Key Customers: Organizations like Adobe, GE, and SAP rely on Azure Cost Management Tools to monitor and optimize cloud expenses across complex environments.

Pricing: Azure Cost Management Tools are included at no extra cost for Azure users, with advanced features available on a pay-as-you-go model.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Easy integration for seamless cost tracking.
  • Cons: Limited customization options for detailed reporting.

12. Google Cloud Cost Management

Google Cloud Cost Management is a suite of native tools offered by Google Cloud Platform (GCP) designed to help you manage and optimize your cloud costs. It is designed to help organizations monitor, control, and optimize their cloud costs effectively. 

With a suite of tools for tracking spending trends and forecasts, businesses can achieve greater visibility and accountability in their cloud financial management.

These include:

  1. Cost Management Dashboard: Centralized real-time view of cloud spending.
  2. Billing Reports: Generate detailed cost reports by project, service, or label.
  3. Budgets and Alerts: Set spending limits and receive alerts to prevent overruns.
  4. Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs before deployment for better financial planning.
  5. Committed Use Contracts: Get discounts by committing to long-term usage.
  6. Recommendations: Personalized suggestions for cost optimization and efficiency.
  7. Resource Hierarchy Management: Organize resources for better cost allocation.
  8. Anomaly Detection: Detects and alerts on unusual spending patterns.

Unique Feature:  Granular cost visibility, which allows you to break down costs by project, service, or resource, giving you precise control and insight into where your cloud spend is concentrated.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Budgeting
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like PayPal, Twitter, and Etsy use Google Cloud Cost Management to keep their spending in check.

Pricing: The pricing structure is typically included with your Google Cloud usage, although certain advanced features or integrations may incur additional costs​.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services for efficient cost tracking.
  • Cons: The interface can be overwhelming for new users due to its complexity.

13. Spot by NetApp

Spot by NetApp empowers organizations to efficiently manage their cloud application infrastructure. Their solutions enable rapid and reliable deployment and operation of cloud applications, ensuring maximum efficiency through continuous optimization and automation. 

With Spot, businesses can unlock the full potential of their cloud investments, benefiting from unmatched reliability, security, and operational insights. 

Unique Feature: Intelligent workload automation, which dynamically reallocates resources in real-time to ensure optimal performance at the lowest possible cost.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Cost Allocation
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Organizations like Ticketmaster, Duolingo, and Intel rely on Spot by NetApp to optimize their cloud infrastructure.

Pricing: It offers a flexible pricing structure based on a percentage of the cloud savings achieved through its platform, with no upfront costs. So, you only pay for the savings it delivers.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Reliable storage solutions with strong data management capabilities.
  • Cons: The initial setup process can be complex and time-consuming.

14. Densify

Densify is tailored for Platform Owners, Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), and engineers responsible for maintaining reliable, high-performance, cost-effective infrastructure. They emphasize the needs of these teams to ensure optimal resource allocation and utilization.

Their patented machine learning (ML) analytics precisely identify the types and quantities of resources that workloads need, enabling intelligent, automated resource management.

Unique Feature: Proactive resource management that not only rightsizes cloud resources but also predicts future usage patterns.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Workload Optimization
    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Resource Management
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Turner Broadcasting, ViacomCBS, and Kroger use Densify to optimize cloud and container environments.

Pricing: It offers a pricing structure based on the number of cloud resources being managed. This is with tailored pricing depending on the size of the environment and the level of optimization services required.

Top Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Advanced optimization features that effectively manage cloud resources and costs.
  • Cons: The user interface can be difficult to use for first-time users.

15. Anodot

Anodot is an AI-driven cost management platform designed to optimize business operations and cloud spending. Founded by a team with extensive expertise in AI and DevOps, Anodot offers solutions that help organizations detect waste, track savings, and gain transparency on current and future costs. 

The platform enables strategic financial planning and effective management of multi-cloud environments, Kubernetes pods, and SaaS tools across major cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure.

Unique Feature: AI-driven anomaly detection, which automatically identifies unusual spending patterns in real-time across multi-cloud environments.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Anomaly Management
    • Rate Optimization
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Forecasting

Key Customers: Companies like T-Mobile, Vimeo, and Pandora use Anodot to monitor their cloud expenses.

Pricing: Anodot for Cloud Cost Management offers a 30-day trial with unlimited access and support for $1. After the trial, the SaaS service requires a minimum flat fee of $45,000 annually for AWS spend up to $2.5M.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides real-time anomaly detection with highly accurate alerts.
  • Cons: The platform can be challenging to set up and requires some initial configuration effort.

16. ProsperOps

ProsperOps automates the management of Reserved Instances (RI) and Savings Plans for AWS. Their founders previously led the AWS managed services business at Rackspace, gaining valuable insights into the complexities of cloud rate optimization. 

By blending finance and engineering expertise, they have developed a platform that simplifies cloud economic management. 

Unique Feature: Real-time rate optimization, which continuously adjusts your AWS commitments to maximize savings. This ensures your cloud spending is always aligned with the most cost-effective options available, even as your usage patterns change.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Drift, Remitly, and Reltio rely on ProsperOps to optimize their AWS savings plans and reserved instances.

Pricing: ProsperOps charges $0.05 per dollar saved on compute costs and integrates exclusively with AWS, focusing on automated savings for RI and Savings Plans.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Automates cloud rate optimization, delivering significant savings with minimal effort.
  • Cons: Limited customization options for advanced users looking for tailored solutions.

17. nOps

nOps is an AI-powered FinOps platform designed to optimize cloud usage, commitments, and spending, helping organizations reduce their AWS costs by up to 50% automatically. They aim to create an effortless experience for teams to optimize cloud resources, allowing them to focus on innovation, growth, and enhancing customer experience. 

Unique Feature: Focuses on automating AWS Well-Architected Framework reviews to optimize performance and spending.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Cloud Governance
    • Policy Enforcement
    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Companies like Match Group, WorkReduce, and Onica use nOps to streamline their AWS operations, optimize costs, and ensure adherence to cloud best practices.

Pricing:  Uses a pricing model based on a percentage of your total cloud spend, with costs scaling according to the level of cloud usage and management needs​.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides automated insights that help optimize AWS costs effectively.
  • Cons: The dashboard can be overwhelming with too much data presented at once.

18. Cloud Custodian

Cloud Custodian is an open-source tool that empowers users to manage and optimize cloud resources across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) by enforcing real-time policies.It is an essential tool for FinOps teams, providing the ability to automate and enforce cost-saving policies across cloud environments

It enables users to filter, tag, and apply actions to their cloud infrastructure. This is using a simple YAML Domain Specific Language (DSL). The approach allows for better cloud environment governance, security, and rate optimization.

Unique Feature: Provides an open-source cloud governance framework that automates the enforcement of policies across cloud environments.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Cloud Policy & Governance
    • Policy Enforcement
    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Companies like Capital One, Intuit, and FICO use Cloud Custodian to automate cloud governance.

Pricing: It's freely available and allows you to define and manage cloud governance policies across multiple cloud environments.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Offers robust governance features that help maintain cloud compliance efficiently.
  • Cons: The platform may require a steep learning curve for those new to cloud governance.

FinOps Platforms in 2024: A Head-to-Head Comparison

According to a recent report, 82% of organizations find cloud spending to be their main challenge. This significant pain point highlights the critical need for robust platforms in 2024. 

Below is a comparison table of the top FinOps platforms in 2024. 

Tool Platform Top FinOps Capabilities Clouds Supported Specific Technologies Supported Unique Capabilities
Sedai AI-driven cloud management Workload Optimization, Anomaly Management, Rate Optimization, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure Integrates with Kubernetes, serverless architectures Proactive optimization using AI to enhance cloud resource performance and reduce costs automatically
Apptio Cloudability Cloud financial management Reporting & Analytics, Architecting for Cloud, Workload Optimization, Anomaly Management AWS, GCP, Azure Kubernetes, multi-cloud cost management Centralized FinOps platform with comprehensive budgeting, reporting, and detailed cost allocation across containers and cloud services
CloudHealth by VMware Cloud management and optimization Reporting & Analytics, Rate Optimization, Budgeting, Workload Optimization AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with VMware tools Extensive cost governance and compliance features, strong in hybrid cloud environments
Kubecost Kubernetes cost management Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure Kubernetes, OpenCost Focuses on Kubernetes cost management, supports real-time visibility of Kubernetes costs
Datadog Monitoring and analytics platform Anomaly Management, Rate Optimization, Reporting & Analytics, Budgeting AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with over 400 technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker) Combines cloud cost management with monitoring and security capabilities
Splunk Data analytics and monitoring Anomaly Management, Reporting & Analytics, Rate Optimization, Budgeting AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with various logging and monitoring tools Advanced data analytics and machine learning for predictive cost insights
CloudZero Cost management and optimization Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Unit Economics, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure, Snowflake, Databricks Kubernetes, Snowflake, Databricks Dynamic cost allocation model, real-time cost insights, and strong focus on engineering-led cost optimization
Finout FinOps and cloud cost management Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Unit Economics, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, Snowflake Kubernetes, Snowflake Unified view of costs across multi-cloud environments, integrates with third-party services
Harness Software delivery platform Rate Optimization, Reporting, Budgeting, Anomaly Management, Cost Allocation AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes Integration with CI/CD tools, Kubernetes Continuous cost management integrated with CI/CD pipeline, anomaly detection
AWS Cost Management Native AWS cost management Cost Allocation, Reporting and Cost Analysis, Budgeting and Anomaly Detection AWS Native AWS services Deep integration with AWS services, granular cost analysis with AWS CUR (Cost and Usage Reports)
Azure Cost Management Native Azure cost management Rate Optimization, Reporting and Cost Analysis, Budgeting, Cloud Policy & Governance Azure Native Azure services Deep integration with Azure services, supports multi-tenant cost management
Google Cloud Cost Management Native Google Cloud cost management Cost Allocation, Budgeting, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics GCP Native GCP services Supports BigQuery for cost analysis, integrates with Google Cloud's AI and ML tools
Spot by NetApp Cloud infrastructure management Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Cost Allocation, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with cloud-native and on-prem workloads Automated optimization of cloud resources using spot instances, workload scheduling
Densify Resource optimization platform Workload Optimization, Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Resource Management, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure, on-prem Integration with cloud and on-prem workloads Advanced resource optimization with AI-driven recommendations, proactive resource rightsizing
Anodot Autonomous business monitoring Anomaly Management, Rate Optimization, Reporting & Analytics, Forecasting AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with various data sources AI-driven predictive analytics, autonomous anomaly detection across cloud costs
ProsperOps Cost management automation Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Budgeting, Cloud Policy & Governance AWS Native AWS services Fully automated management of AWS discount instruments, effective savings rate (ESR) tracking
nOps Cloud management platform Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics AWS Native AWS services Machine learning-driven cost optimization, integrates with AWS Well-Architected Framework
Cloud Custodian Open-source cloud governance Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Reporting & Analytics, Cloud Policy & Governance AWS, GCP, Azure Extensive cloud service integration Policy-as-code framework for managing cloud costs, compliance, and security

Top Priorities in FinOps for 2024

With companies averaging $44 million in annual cloud spending and some reporting upwards of $1 billion, managing cloud costs effectively is more critical than ever. 

As your cloud usage grows, you will need more than essential cloud budgeting tools. They need a robust approach like FinOps to spend every dollar wisely. 

With that in mind, let's examine the top priorities in FinOps as revealed by the 2024 State of FinOpsRate Optimization report. The following priorities are ranked based on the percentage of respondents who identified them as important.

  • Reducing Waste and Unused Resources: Cutting unnecessary spending by identifying and eliminating idle resources (50.3%).
  • Managing Commitment-Based Discounts: Maximize savings by effectively managing Reserved Instances and Savings Plans (43.3%).
  • Accurate Forecasting of Spend: Improving the precision of budget forecasts to avoid surprises in cloud expenses (41.3%).
  • Improving Cloud Cost Allocation: Ensuring costs are accurately attributed to the right teams, projects, or departments (38.4%).
  • Organizational Adoption of FinOps: Driving a culture that embraces FinOps principles across the organization (35.7%).
  • Empowering Engineers to Take Action: Providing engineers with the tools and data to optimize their cloud usage (35%).
  • Implementing Governance and Policy at Scale: Establishing and enforcing cloud governance policies that scale with the organization (33.7%).
  • Enabling Automation: Using automation tools to streamline and simplify cloud financial management (28.9%).
  • Leadership Buy-In of FinOps: Securing executive support to ensure FinOps initiatives are prioritized and adequately resourced (27.5%).
  • Multicloud Cost Reporting: Enhancing visibility and control by integrating cost reporting across multiple cloud platforms (26.4%).

Conclusion

In 2024, FinOps platforms are like the compass guiding your cloud strategy, steering you toward financial efficiency. They seamlessly integrate with your operations, offering the governance and security you need to manage cloud investments wisely and helping you scale confidently in an ever-changing industry. 

Unlock serious savings without lifting a finger. Let Sedai’s autonomous cloud platform cut your cloud costs by 30-50% while your engineering team focuses on innovation. Ready to see results, not just reports? Book your demo! 

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CONTENTS

18 Essential FinOps Platforms and Tools for 2024

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Last updated on

November 20, 2024

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18 Essential FinOps Platforms and Tools for 2024

Did you know that over 60% of companies have already embraced FinOps to control their cloud costs? This isn't just a trend; it's a game-changer in managing cloud finances. As cloud adoption grows, so does the need for effective cost management, and that's where FinOps comes in. By aligning finance, technology, and business teams, FinOps ensures every cloud dollar is well-spent, driving real value.

The impact is significant—companies that master FinOps can reduce their cloud costs by 20% to 30%. It's not just about saving money; it's about making smarter, more strategic investments in your cloud infrastructure. 

In this blog, you’ll learn about the essential FinOps platforms in 2024 and why they're becoming a must-have for modern businesses.

What is a FinOps Tool?

A FinOps tool is a specialized software designed to optimize and manage your cloud financial operations, integrating financial accountability directly into the cloud management process. 

FinOps platforms provide real-time insights into cloud spending, automate cost-saving measures, and facilitate collaboration between finance, engineering, and operations teams to ensure efficient use of cloud resources. Using data analytics, they help you make informed decisions about cloud investments, driving cost efficiency and performance. 

The FinOps lifecycle, as outlined by the FinOps Foundation, consists of three ongoing components: Inform, Optimize, and Operate. 

FinOps Lifecycle Component Description
Inform Provides the visibility needed to create shared accountability across teams.
Optimize Focuses on identifying efficiency opportunities and evaluating their value.
Operate Involves defining and implementing processes that align with business, technology, and finance goals.

Key FinOps Capabilities

In 2023, the FinOps community created a library of optimization opportunities, after identifying the need in a survey, to help improve cloud efficiency on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. This resource serves as a vital tool for organizations looking to maximize their cloud investments.

Below is a comprehensive outline of FinOps capabilities as defined by the FinOps Foundation.

Capability Description
Allocation Assign and share cloud costs using accounts, tags, and metadata for accountability.
Anomaly Management Detect, manage, and minimize unexpected cloud cost events to reduce business impact.
Architecting for Cloud Ensure cloud services meet operational, sustainability, and financial requirements.
Benchmarking Compare metrics and KPIs internally and externally for cloud value and optimization.
Budgeting Set, monitor, and manage cloud spending to align with business objectives and ensure predictability.
Cloud Policy & Governance Establish policies and controls to align cloud use with business objectives and compliance.
Cloud Sustainability Make decisions about cloud usage considering environmental impact and sustainability goals.
Data Ingestion Gather and process datasets to support activities across all FinOps capabilities.
FinOps Assessment Measure the effectiveness of the FinOps practice and identify areas for improvement.
FinOps Education & Enablement Develop a common understanding of FinOps concepts and practices among participants.
FinOps Practice Operations Build and operate a FinOps practice within an organization.
FinOps Tools & Services Utilize cloud provider or third-party tools and services to support FinOps capabilities.
Forecasting Model future cloud costs and value using statistical methods and historical data.
Intersecting Disciplines Coordinate activities with interconnected disciplines or allied teams.
Invoicing & Chargeback Manage cloud invoices and establish chargeback processes with Finance & Accounting.
Licensing & SaaS Optimize software licenses and SaaS investments to impact cloud value structure.
Onboarding Workloads Migrate systems to cloud environments transparently and cost-effectively.
Planning & Estimating Estimate potential cloud costs and value for different workload models.
Rate Optimization Lower the rate paid for cloud resources.

18 Top FinOps Platforms in 2024

Managing costs effectively becomes even more important as your business continues to rely on cloud services. Take a look at the 18 top FinOps tools that can help you stay on top of your cloud costs and run your operations more efficiently. 

1. Sedai

Sedai is an AI-driven platform focused on cloud optimization. It provides autonomous cost management around the clock, ensuring significant cost savings while maintaining 100% operational safety and zero incidents.  

Sedai acts as an AI Copilot, continuously optimizing cloud environments without requiring manual intervention. This allows businesses to maximize their cloud investments securely and efficiently.  It is specifically tailored for FinOps teams.

It autonomously manages and optimizes cloud environments across various platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. 

Sedai's key strength lies in its ability to analyze workloads continuously. It applies machine learning to uncover potential savings of 30-50% based on actual usage patterns, not just static rules. 

Unique Feature: Sedai's distinctive features are Autonomous Optimization, Autonomous Remediation, a wide range of integrations to support engineering execution, Release Intelligence to show the projected cost impact of every new release, and Smart SLOs which help ensure FinOps changes do not negatively affect customer experience.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities: 
    • Workload Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Rate Optimization
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Sedai is trusted by organizations such as KnowBe4, Palo Alto Networks, Belcorp

Pricing: Sedai offers custom pricing based on your organization’s needs and cloud usage patterns with models for mid-sized companies and advanced deployment and security for enterprises. 

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: User-friendly interface, effective automation features, good customer support.
  • Cons: Can be a bit expensive for smaller teams.

2. Apptio Cloudability

Apptio Cloudability is a cloud financial management platform that enables IT, finance, and DevOps teams to optimize cloud spending for performance and efficiency. Cloudability supports strategic decision-making by correlating cloud expenses with business value, ensuring companies maximize their return on cloud investments. 

Unique Feature: Predictive cost management, which uses machine learning to forecast future cloud expenses.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Reporting & Analytics 
    • Architecting for Cloud
    • Workload Optimization
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Companies like Atlassian, Autodesk, and Equifax use Apptio Cloudability. 

Pricing: Apptio Cloudability operates on a custom pricing model, making it a robust solution for enterprises with complex financial structures.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Robust cost management features that streamline cloud spending.
  • Cons: Steep learning curve for first-time users.

3. CloudHealth

CloudHealth by VMware, a platform for cloud cost management and optimization, was acquired by VMware in 2018. It specializes in providing multi-cloud FinOps reporting to optimize cloud expenses.  

With a solid financial foundation and innovative technology, CloudHealth empowers enterprises to manage their cloud environments effectively.

Unique Feature: Policy-driven governance, which enables you to automate compliance and cost management across multi-cloud environments by setting customized policies.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Rate Optimization
    • Budgeting 
    • Workload Optimization  

Key Customers: Companies like Autodesk, Yelp, and Suncorp use CloudHealth to streamline their cost management across various cloud platforms.

Pricing: CloudHealth offers flexible pricing based on the size and complexity of your cloud environment, typically structured as a subscription model.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Comprehensive visibility into multi-cloud environments for effective cost management.
  • Cons: Occasional delays in data synchronization across platforms.

4. Kubecost

Kubecost provides real-time insights into your Kubernetes spending. Founded by former Google engineers, it is an open-source tool designed to give developers visibility into Kubernetes spending. 

Based on the open-source tool OpenCost, Kubecost monitors and reduces costs while ensuring a balance between cost, performance, and reliability.

Unique Feature: Granular cost allocation for Kubernetes resources, which allows you to break down costs by namespace, deployment, or even individual pod.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Anomaly Management
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Organizations like HBO and Under Armour leverage Kubecost to optimize their Kubernetes environments and control cloud spending effectively.

Pricing: Kubecost offers a pricing structure based on the number of Kubernetes nodes in your cluster, with different tiers depending on the scale and features required. This includes a free tier, a basic paid tier, and enterprise options for larger deployments with more advanced features.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides detailed insights into Kubernetes costs, helping optimize resource usage.
  • Cons: The user interface can be challenging to use for beginners.

5. Datadog

Datadog is a comprehensive observability and security platform designed for cloud applications. This SaaS solution integrates and automates monitoring across infrastructure, application performance, log management, and real-user interactions. 

It provides unified, real-time insights into your technology stack. Organizations of all sizes use Datadog to accelerate digital transformation, enhance team collaboration, secure applications, and track key business metrics.

Unique Feature: Unified observability platform, which seamlessly integrates metrics, logs, and traces into a single pane of glass.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Anomaly Management
    • Rate Optimization 
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting

Key Customers: Companies like Samsung, Comcast, and Peloton use Datadog to monitor and optimize their cloud infrastructure, ensuring high performance and cost efficiency.

Pricing: Datadog offers a pricing structure based on the number of hosts, containers, or custom metrics you monitor, with additional charges for advanced features such as log management, APM (Application Performance Monitoring), and security monitoring.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Powerful monitoring capabilities with real-time data and alerts.
  • Cons: Pricing can quickly escalate with the addition of more features.

6. Splunk

Splunk, acquired by Cisco in 2024, specializes in monitoring and observability, offering solutions tailored to the needs of FinOps professionals. It helps organizations manage and optimize their financial operations by providing deep visibility into digital infrastructures.

Unique Feature: Real-time data analytics capability, which allows you to instantly visualize and act on data from multiple sources.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Anomaly Management
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Rate Optimization 
    • Budgeting

Key Customers: Organizations like Coca-Cola, Intuit, and Tesco rely on Splunk to analyze and optimize their cloud infrastructure, driving better performance and cost management.

Pricing: Splunk's pricing structure is based on data ingestion volume, measured in GB per day, with additional charges for features like ITSI (IT Service Intelligence), Enterprise Security, and machine learning capabilities.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Excellent scalability and flexibility for managing large volumes of data.
  • Cons: The platform can be complex and requires significant expertise to fully utilize.

7. CloudZero

CloudZero is designed to help organizations allocate their cloud spending effectively and identify savings opportunities. With capabilities for data normalization, cost allocation, and Kubernetes visibility, CloudZero empowers engineering and finance teams to drive efficient cloud usage.

Unique Feature: Cost per feature tracking, which enables you to tie cloud expenses directly to individual features or products

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Anomaly Management
    • Unit Economics
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Rapid7, Malwarebytes, and Drift use CloudZero to gain visibility into their cloud expenses and make informed decisions that align with their business objectives.

Pricing: Typically customized based on your specific needs, including the level of visibility, granularity of insights, and additional features like cost allocation and anomaly detection​.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Offers clear and actionable insights into cloud spending, helping optimize costs.
  • Cons: Initial setup can be time-consuming and requires detailed configuration.

8. Finout

Finout aims to revolutionize cloud cost management by creating an advanced platform designed to handle the complexities of modern cloud pricing. As usage-based pricing becomes more common and cloud environments grow increasingly intricate. 

Finout offers powerful features like the MegaBill, which simplifies cost allocation and instant virtual tagging.

Unique Feature: Business context mapping, which allows you to connect cloud costs directly to specific business outcomes or units.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Anomaly Management
    • Unit Economics
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Rappi, Monday.com, and Singular use Finout to gain comprehensive visibility into their cloud spending and optimize their financial operations.

Pricing: Finout operates on a fixed pricing model, charging 1% of your cloud spend.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Intuitive interface that simplifies cloud cost management across multiple platforms.
  • Cons: Reporting features could be more customizable to meet specific needs.

9. Harness

Harness is dedicated to empowering software engineering teams worldwide to deliver code reliably, efficiently, and quickly. With over 700 employees and more than 500 customers, Harness has raised $425 million in funding from top-tier investors.

Harness aims to revolutionize software development by providing teams with the tools, knowledge, and resources needed to excel.

Unique Feature: Continuous efficiency monitoring, which not only optimizes cloud costs during deployment but also continuously assesses and adjusts resource usage in real-time.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Rate Optimization
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting
    • Anomaly Management
    • Cost Allocation

Key Customers: Companies like McAfee, eBay, and Citrix use Harness to streamline their cloud cost management and enhance the efficiency of their cloud operations.

Pricing: Harness operates on a tiered pricing model, charging between 2.25% and 2.5% of your cloud spend. 

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Streamlines the CI/CD process with efficient automation and deployment tools.
  • Cons: Pricing can be high for smaller teams or startups.

10. AWS Cost Management 

AWS Cost Management is a suite of tools designed to help organizations effectively monitor, manage, and optimize their AWS spending. For FinOps teams, it's an indispensable resource, providing the insights needed to drive financial accountability in cloud operations. 

Here's a breakdown of the key AWS Cost Management tools. 

  1. AWS Cost Explorer: Visualizes and analyzes your AWS costs and usage over time, helping you identify spending trends and opportunities for optimization.
  2. AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR): Provides detailed billing data, breaking down costs by service, account, or tags for precise cost allocation and in-depth financial analysis.
  3. AWS Compute Optimizer: Offers recommendations to optimize your cloud resources, such as right-sizing instances, to enhance performance and reduce costs.

Unique Feature: Forecasting capability, which uses historical data to predict future costs, allowing users to anticipate and manage their cloud expenses more effectively.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Organizations like Netflix, Airbnb, and Lyft use AWS Cost Explorer to monitor their AWS expenses and optimize their cloud spending strategies.

Pricing: Cost Explorer's pricing is generally included with your AWS account, meaning there is no additional cost to use it. But charges may apply if you use advanced features like Reserved Instance reporting or detailed custom reports​. 

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides clear visibility into AWS spending with easy-to-use cost analysis tools.
  • Cons: Limited customization options for detailed financial reports.

11. Azure Cost Management Tools

Azure Cost Management Tools offer robust features to help you efficiently monitor, manage, and optimize your cloud spending within the Azure platform. Effective use of Azure cost management tools can help reduce cloud costs by 20-30% on average by identifying waste, rightsizing resources, and optimizing usage.

Unique Feature: Integration with Azure Advisor, which provides personalized, actionable recommendations for optimizing your cloud spend.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Rate Optimization
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Budgeting
    • Cloud Policy & Governance

Key Customers: Organizations like Adobe, GE, and SAP rely on Azure Cost Management Tools to monitor and optimize cloud expenses across complex environments.

Pricing: Azure Cost Management Tools are included at no extra cost for Azure users, with advanced features available on a pay-as-you-go model.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Easy integration for seamless cost tracking.
  • Cons: Limited customization options for detailed reporting.

12. Google Cloud Cost Management

Google Cloud Cost Management is a suite of native tools offered by Google Cloud Platform (GCP) designed to help you manage and optimize your cloud costs. It is designed to help organizations monitor, control, and optimize their cloud costs effectively. 

With a suite of tools for tracking spending trends and forecasts, businesses can achieve greater visibility and accountability in their cloud financial management.

These include:

  1. Cost Management Dashboard: Centralized real-time view of cloud spending.
  2. Billing Reports: Generate detailed cost reports by project, service, or label.
  3. Budgets and Alerts: Set spending limits and receive alerts to prevent overruns.
  4. Pricing Calculator: Estimate costs before deployment for better financial planning.
  5. Committed Use Contracts: Get discounts by committing to long-term usage.
  6. Recommendations: Personalized suggestions for cost optimization and efficiency.
  7. Resource Hierarchy Management: Organize resources for better cost allocation.
  8. Anomaly Detection: Detects and alerts on unusual spending patterns.

Unique Feature:  Granular cost visibility, which allows you to break down costs by project, service, or resource, giving you precise control and insight into where your cloud spend is concentrated.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Cost Allocation
    • Budgeting
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like PayPal, Twitter, and Etsy use Google Cloud Cost Management to keep their spending in check.

Pricing: The pricing structure is typically included with your Google Cloud usage, although certain advanced features or integrations may incur additional costs​.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services for efficient cost tracking.
  • Cons: The interface can be overwhelming for new users due to its complexity.

13. Spot by NetApp

Spot by NetApp empowers organizations to efficiently manage their cloud application infrastructure. Their solutions enable rapid and reliable deployment and operation of cloud applications, ensuring maximum efficiency through continuous optimization and automation. 

With Spot, businesses can unlock the full potential of their cloud investments, benefiting from unmatched reliability, security, and operational insights. 

Unique Feature: Intelligent workload automation, which dynamically reallocates resources in real-time to ensure optimal performance at the lowest possible cost.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Cost Allocation
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Organizations like Ticketmaster, Duolingo, and Intel rely on Spot by NetApp to optimize their cloud infrastructure.

Pricing: It offers a flexible pricing structure based on a percentage of the cloud savings achieved through its platform, with no upfront costs. So, you only pay for the savings it delivers.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Reliable storage solutions with strong data management capabilities.
  • Cons: The initial setup process can be complex and time-consuming.

14. Densify

Densify is tailored for Platform Owners, Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), and engineers responsible for maintaining reliable, high-performance, cost-effective infrastructure. They emphasize the needs of these teams to ensure optimal resource allocation and utilization.

Their patented machine learning (ML) analytics precisely identify the types and quantities of resources that workloads need, enabling intelligent, automated resource management.

Unique Feature: Proactive resource management that not only rightsizes cloud resources but also predicts future usage patterns.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Workload Optimization
    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Resource Management
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Turner Broadcasting, ViacomCBS, and Kroger use Densify to optimize cloud and container environments.

Pricing: It offers a pricing structure based on the number of cloud resources being managed. This is with tailored pricing depending on the size of the environment and the level of optimization services required.

Top Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Advanced optimization features that effectively manage cloud resources and costs.
  • Cons: The user interface can be difficult to use for first-time users.

15. Anodot

Anodot is an AI-driven cost management platform designed to optimize business operations and cloud spending. Founded by a team with extensive expertise in AI and DevOps, Anodot offers solutions that help organizations detect waste, track savings, and gain transparency on current and future costs. 

The platform enables strategic financial planning and effective management of multi-cloud environments, Kubernetes pods, and SaaS tools across major cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure.

Unique Feature: AI-driven anomaly detection, which automatically identifies unusual spending patterns in real-time across multi-cloud environments.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:
    • Anomaly Management
    • Rate Optimization
    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Forecasting

Key Customers: Companies like T-Mobile, Vimeo, and Pandora use Anodot to monitor their cloud expenses.

Pricing: Anodot for Cloud Cost Management offers a 30-day trial with unlimited access and support for $1. After the trial, the SaaS service requires a minimum flat fee of $45,000 annually for AWS spend up to $2.5M.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides real-time anomaly detection with highly accurate alerts.
  • Cons: The platform can be challenging to set up and requires some initial configuration effort.

16. ProsperOps

ProsperOps automates the management of Reserved Instances (RI) and Savings Plans for AWS. Their founders previously led the AWS managed services business at Rackspace, gaining valuable insights into the complexities of cloud rate optimization. 

By blending finance and engineering expertise, they have developed a platform that simplifies cloud economic management. 

Unique Feature: Real-time rate optimization, which continuously adjusts your AWS commitments to maximize savings. This ensures your cloud spending is always aligned with the most cost-effective options available, even as your usage patterns change.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management
    • Forecasting
    • Reporting & Analytics

Key Customers: Companies like Drift, Remitly, and Reltio rely on ProsperOps to optimize their AWS savings plans and reserved instances.

Pricing: ProsperOps charges $0.05 per dollar saved on compute costs and integrates exclusively with AWS, focusing on automated savings for RI and Savings Plans.

Insights from TrustRadius Reviews

  • Pros: Automates cloud rate optimization, delivering significant savings with minimal effort.
  • Cons: Limited customization options for advanced users looking for tailored solutions.

17. nOps

nOps is an AI-powered FinOps platform designed to optimize cloud usage, commitments, and spending, helping organizations reduce their AWS costs by up to 50% automatically. They aim to create an effortless experience for teams to optimize cloud resources, allowing them to focus on innovation, growth, and enhancing customer experience. 

Unique Feature: Focuses on automating AWS Well-Architected Framework reviews to optimize performance and spending.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Cloud Governance
    • Policy Enforcement
    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Companies like Match Group, WorkReduce, and Onica use nOps to streamline their AWS operations, optimize costs, and ensure adherence to cloud best practices.

Pricing:  Uses a pricing model based on a percentage of your total cloud spend, with costs scaling according to the level of cloud usage and management needs​.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Provides automated insights that help optimize AWS costs effectively.
  • Cons: The dashboard can be overwhelming with too much data presented at once.

18. Cloud Custodian

Cloud Custodian is an open-source tool that empowers users to manage and optimize cloud resources across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) by enforcing real-time policies.It is an essential tool for FinOps teams, providing the ability to automate and enforce cost-saving policies across cloud environments

It enables users to filter, tag, and apply actions to their cloud infrastructure. This is using a simple YAML Domain Specific Language (DSL). The approach allows for better cloud environment governance, security, and rate optimization.

Unique Feature: Provides an open-source cloud governance framework that automates the enforcement of policies across cloud environments.

  • Top FinOps Capabilities:

    • Cloud Policy & Governance
    • Policy Enforcement
    • Rate Optimization
    • Anomaly Management

Key Customers: Companies like Capital One, Intuit, and FICO use Cloud Custodian to automate cloud governance.

Pricing: It's freely available and allows you to define and manage cloud governance policies across multiple cloud environments.

Insights from G2 Reviews

  • Pros: Offers robust governance features that help maintain cloud compliance efficiently.
  • Cons: The platform may require a steep learning curve for those new to cloud governance.

FinOps Platforms in 2024: A Head-to-Head Comparison

According to a recent report, 82% of organizations find cloud spending to be their main challenge. This significant pain point highlights the critical need for robust platforms in 2024. 

Below is a comparison table of the top FinOps platforms in 2024. 

Tool Platform Top FinOps Capabilities Clouds Supported Specific Technologies Supported Unique Capabilities
Sedai AI-driven cloud management Workload Optimization, Anomaly Management, Rate Optimization, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure Integrates with Kubernetes, serverless architectures Proactive optimization using AI to enhance cloud resource performance and reduce costs automatically
Apptio Cloudability Cloud financial management Reporting & Analytics, Architecting for Cloud, Workload Optimization, Anomaly Management AWS, GCP, Azure Kubernetes, multi-cloud cost management Centralized FinOps platform with comprehensive budgeting, reporting, and detailed cost allocation across containers and cloud services
CloudHealth by VMware Cloud management and optimization Reporting & Analytics, Rate Optimization, Budgeting, Workload Optimization AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with VMware tools Extensive cost governance and compliance features, strong in hybrid cloud environments
Kubecost Kubernetes cost management Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure Kubernetes, OpenCost Focuses on Kubernetes cost management, supports real-time visibility of Kubernetes costs
Datadog Monitoring and analytics platform Anomaly Management, Rate Optimization, Reporting & Analytics, Budgeting AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with over 400 technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker) Combines cloud cost management with monitoring and security capabilities
Splunk Data analytics and monitoring Anomaly Management, Reporting & Analytics, Rate Optimization, Budgeting AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with various logging and monitoring tools Advanced data analytics and machine learning for predictive cost insights
CloudZero Cost management and optimization Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Unit Economics, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure, Snowflake, Databricks Kubernetes, Snowflake, Databricks Dynamic cost allocation model, real-time cost insights, and strong focus on engineering-led cost optimization
Finout FinOps and cloud cost management Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Unit Economics, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, Snowflake Kubernetes, Snowflake Unified view of costs across multi-cloud environments, integrates with third-party services
Harness Software delivery platform Rate Optimization, Reporting, Budgeting, Anomaly Management, Cost Allocation AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes Integration with CI/CD tools, Kubernetes Continuous cost management integrated with CI/CD pipeline, anomaly detection
AWS Cost Management Native AWS cost management Cost Allocation, Reporting and Cost Analysis, Budgeting and Anomaly Detection AWS Native AWS services Deep integration with AWS services, granular cost analysis with AWS CUR (Cost and Usage Reports)
Azure Cost Management Native Azure cost management Rate Optimization, Reporting and Cost Analysis, Budgeting, Cloud Policy & Governance Azure Native Azure services Deep integration with Azure services, supports multi-tenant cost management
Google Cloud Cost Management Native Google Cloud cost management Cost Allocation, Budgeting, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics GCP Native GCP services Supports BigQuery for cost analysis, integrates with Google Cloud's AI and ML tools
Spot by NetApp Cloud infrastructure management Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Cost Allocation, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with cloud-native and on-prem workloads Automated optimization of cloud resources using spot instances, workload scheduling
Densify Resource optimization platform Workload Optimization, Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Resource Management, Reporting & Analytics AWS, GCP, Azure, on-prem Integration with cloud and on-prem workloads Advanced resource optimization with AI-driven recommendations, proactive resource rightsizing
Anodot Autonomous business monitoring Anomaly Management, Rate Optimization, Reporting & Analytics, Forecasting AWS, GCP, Azure Integration with various data sources AI-driven predictive analytics, autonomous anomaly detection across cloud costs
ProsperOps Cost management automation Cost Allocation, Anomaly Management, Budgeting, Cloud Policy & Governance AWS Native AWS services Fully automated management of AWS discount instruments, effective savings rate (ESR) tracking
nOps Cloud management platform Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Forecasting, Reporting & Analytics AWS Native AWS services Machine learning-driven cost optimization, integrates with AWS Well-Architected Framework
Cloud Custodian Open-source cloud governance Rate Optimization, Anomaly Management, Reporting & Analytics, Cloud Policy & Governance AWS, GCP, Azure Extensive cloud service integration Policy-as-code framework for managing cloud costs, compliance, and security

Top Priorities in FinOps for 2024

With companies averaging $44 million in annual cloud spending and some reporting upwards of $1 billion, managing cloud costs effectively is more critical than ever. 

As your cloud usage grows, you will need more than essential cloud budgeting tools. They need a robust approach like FinOps to spend every dollar wisely. 

With that in mind, let's examine the top priorities in FinOps as revealed by the 2024 State of FinOpsRate Optimization report. The following priorities are ranked based on the percentage of respondents who identified them as important.

  • Reducing Waste and Unused Resources: Cutting unnecessary spending by identifying and eliminating idle resources (50.3%).
  • Managing Commitment-Based Discounts: Maximize savings by effectively managing Reserved Instances and Savings Plans (43.3%).
  • Accurate Forecasting of Spend: Improving the precision of budget forecasts to avoid surprises in cloud expenses (41.3%).
  • Improving Cloud Cost Allocation: Ensuring costs are accurately attributed to the right teams, projects, or departments (38.4%).
  • Organizational Adoption of FinOps: Driving a culture that embraces FinOps principles across the organization (35.7%).
  • Empowering Engineers to Take Action: Providing engineers with the tools and data to optimize their cloud usage (35%).
  • Implementing Governance and Policy at Scale: Establishing and enforcing cloud governance policies that scale with the organization (33.7%).
  • Enabling Automation: Using automation tools to streamline and simplify cloud financial management (28.9%).
  • Leadership Buy-In of FinOps: Securing executive support to ensure FinOps initiatives are prioritized and adequately resourced (27.5%).
  • Multicloud Cost Reporting: Enhancing visibility and control by integrating cost reporting across multiple cloud platforms (26.4%).

Conclusion

In 2024, FinOps platforms are like the compass guiding your cloud strategy, steering you toward financial efficiency. They seamlessly integrate with your operations, offering the governance and security you need to manage cloud investments wisely and helping you scale confidently in an ever-changing industry. 

Unlock serious savings without lifting a finger. Let Sedai’s autonomous cloud platform cut your cloud costs by 30-50% while your engineering team focuses on innovation. Ready to see results, not just reports? Book your demo! 

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