TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Cloudability

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AIBM Cloudability is a cloud cost management and optimization (FinOps) tool that enables IT, finance, and business teams to optimize their cloud spend across all cost sources, all maturity levels, and for all stakeholders.N/A

    Microsoft Dynamics SL

    Score5.1 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Dynamics SL is one of the ERP products in the Dynamics family. This product was acquired from Solomon 2000. The product is typically used by SMBs, particularly in project-based businesses (e.g. construction). It has strong accounting and project management capabilities.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Considered Both Products
    Apptio an IBM Company
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    94%
    Would buy again
    145 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    107 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    139 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    88%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    87 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    90%
    Implementation went as expected
    98 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    8.5
    2 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Pay calculation00 Ratings9.62 Ratings
    Direct deposit files00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Customization
    Comparison of Customization features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    6.0
    6 Ratings
    23% below category average
    API for custom integration00 Ratings6.06 Ratings
    Plug-ins00 Ratings6.04 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    8.7
    10 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Single sign-on capability00 Ratings7.49 Ratings
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings10.09 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    8.0
    10 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings8.06 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
    General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
    Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    7.1
    11 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Accounts payable00 Ratings6.011 Ratings
    Accounts receivable00 Ratings6.08 Ratings
    Global Financial Support00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings6.63 Ratings
    Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings3.04 Ratings
    Configurable Accounting00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Standardized Processes00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Inventory Management
    Comparison of Inventory Management features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    5.7
    6 Ratings
    33% below category average
    Inventory tracking00 Ratings5.06 Ratings
    Location management00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Order Management
    Comparison of Order Management features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    6.2
    4 Ratings
    25% below category average
    Pricing00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Order entry00 Ratings3.04 Ratings
    Credit card processing00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Cost of goods sold00 Ratings7.03 Ratings
    Subledger and Financial Process
    Comparison of Subledger and Financial Process features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    5.7
    4 Ratings
    28% below category average
    Billing Management00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Cash and Asset Management00 Ratings7.33 Ratings
    Travel & Expense Management00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
    Budgetary Control & Encumbrance Accounting00 Ratings6.32 Ratings
    Period Close00 Ratings6.04 Ratings
    Project Financial Management
    Comparison of Project Financial Management features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    4.7
    3 Ratings
    47% below category average
    Budgeting and Forecasting00 Ratings7.33 Ratings
    Project Costing00 Ratings6.33 Ratings
    Cost Capture00 Ratings2.12 Ratings
    Capital Project Management00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Project Revenue Recognition00 Ratings2.01 Ratings
    Grants Management
    Comparison of Grants Management features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    6.3
    1 Ratings
    18% below category average
    Award Lifecycle Management00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Manufacturing
    Comparison of Manufacturing features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    6.0
    1 Ratings
    22% below category average
    Production Management00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Supply Chain
    Comparison of Supply Chain features of IBM Cloudability and Microsoft Dynamics SL
    Feature
    IBM Cloudability
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics SL
    6.0
    1 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Inventory Planning00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    Zoho One
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    Zoho One
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft Dynamics AX (discontinued)
    Score4.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.8
    (147 ratings)
    5.0
    (18 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    6.4
    (6 ratings)
    5.4
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    7.8
    (147 ratings)
    3.0
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    9.9
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.3
    (3 ratings)
    9.5
    (4 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    1.4
    (2 ratings)
    Professional Services
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM CloudabilityMicrosoft Dynamics SL
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Apptio an IBM Company
    I don't have much exposure to the tool. I mean, I'm relatively new to using it as a platform, but I haven't really seen the benefit, especially with the actual renewal talks at the company. I'm not seeing what AWS native solutions are, how probability improves on that as opposed to just using AWS and just, I don't know. I'm not seeing the benefit, at least in my eyes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    For a small to mid-size business, MS Dynamics SL is effective. We are capable of managing our finances with a very low risk of error. We have worked with MS Dynamics for almost 15 years and have more than doubled the size of our business in that time with very few issues from the program. We have exponentially increased our revenue and reporting demands and have found SL to be very dependable and stable. The program does have the occasional glitch and those are sometimes outside of the realm of expertise of our IT department. SL support is excellent, but their timeliness is not as urgent as ours.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Apptio an IBM Company
    • We are able to integrate multiple sources of data to have a comprehensive view of our spend.
    • We are able to get more detailed insights via container dashboard for kubernetes spend
    • A unified platform to manage overall cloud spend along with related FinOps spend
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Provides flexibility for complex project based cost accounting
    • Strong and flexible allocation processer for cost allocations, markups, and pricing
    • A "Flexible Billing" module under the project controller series that allows for multiple billing formats ranging from fixed price schedule of values, T&M or Cost Plus, and scheduled billing.
    • Flexible reporting with options using Crystal Reports, SSRS, a Quick Query tool, and ability to tie into MS Office tools such as MS Access and MS Excel
    • Tight integration with Financials, but also the ability to integrate with modules such as Sales Order, Inventory, and Field Service
    • Customization abilities ranging from a VBA (visual basic for application) foundation to allow customizing existing forms to the ability to use the SDK (Software Development Kit) to build more complex customizations that integrate with Dynamics SL.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Apptio an IBM Company
    • For me, it is a lot of anomaly detection and I think there's a lot of improvement that can be made to show anomalies that happen over time because if it's just day to day or week to week, you may not see the change. But if you see the trend over a period of time, show me something that has grown 40%, 50% over the past three months and maybe you can do those things and we just haven't figured them out yet. So we are very new to the product, but I think anomaly detection for me is one of the bigger things.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Reporting in the Project module is lacking functionality. I understand that most companies have specific needs when it comes to tracking project information but the standard reports are not good.
    • I would recommend a product like Management Reporter that is for Projects only. Project Reporter should allow users to pull in all Project related data into reports.
    • Fixing suspended batches. Obviously all of us users have experienced this mess. SL knows what needs to be corrected and there could be some step by step fixes in a separate repair module to do the steps we do in Query Analyzer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Cloudability has been one solution for almost all of our FinOps needs. Except for Data transfer costs, we have covered all use cases and have made significant savings across our cloud infrastructure. Reporting has provided management a deeper analysis into their spending and helped them forecast their budgets for next year
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Unfortunately, Dynamics' lack of ability to smoothly integrate with our CRM system is causing us to look at other solutions. The efficiencies that we gain by using Dynamics for our day to day accounting are lost in the constant headaches of getting sales quotes to import properly into the system for invoicing. Another major issue for us has been budgeting and reporting. We currently do all of our budgeting and board reporting in Excel, which is too time consuming and inefficient, especially when a system as robust as Dynamics should easily be able to handle this relatively simple task.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Apptio an IBM Company
    I gave the IBM Cloudability a 7/10 because it is good, but it could improve in some places. It is easy to get data uploaded and ready to view, but it is only up to a certain point in time, and not live data. As for how it looks, the interface is good for viewing, however navigation could be a little better, maybe supported with a roadmap.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    I rate it a 10 because we have removed the fields we don't need so users can really crank the data into the system. The software was designed for the professional services firm in mind but does a tremendous job for construction firms and "blended" companies that are both distribution firms but project centric as well. Perhaps they drop ship inventory to a project where their employees or subs need to work on a project for example.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Only been 1 or 2 occaisions when not available, in 3 years
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We have had only one unplanned outage for 2 hours in the last 30 months. We shut down for 30 min to 1 hour once a month, but that is for Microsoft OS updates to the servers. Being a 24/7 world wide operation, the reliability is really important. We do get an 8 hour window on the weekend that we can be down for a short period to install Microsoft Dynamics SL updates, but we do not have many of those. On our last version upgrade, we shut the users out at 9:30 am and were fully operational in less than 6 hours. The upgrade was New SQL server, New SL server and 2 new Citrix servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Afternoons tend to be a little slower, due to US traffic I assume
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Apptio an IBM Company
    While there have been few support cases where the experience was good. But in multiple support cases it's firstly delayed and even after weeks or months of time, team is not able to provide us with the RCA of the issue. All they are claiming is the issue is now fixed which I still see coming back after few days or weeks as we've never identified and addressed the root cause.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Support is only used when needed, so unfortunately ,they get all the odd issues. It's a difficult business, but Microsoft and our firm do a great job of meeting customer needs. We get routine feedback that our support services are very good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Training was adequate, but the real learning begins when you start using the product, like most things. All major functions were covered so as an entry point, was a good introduction to the product. The training pace was good as well, the areas were covered in decent depth, without being too much of an information overload.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Within months
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Just to let it take its course. The implementation for me once I became a part of my former organization was pretty seamless. Just get to know the basics and call the support team to ask questions if you need help on an issue, should they arise. They are ready, willing, and able to help!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Before Apptio we extensively used the cloud native and in house automated and developed cost optimization tool using python , powershell and leveraging the various cloud native services like AWS systems manager , Azure Functions and Azure automation run books.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Of the comparable mid-range ERP systems, Dynamics SL competes at the lower end based on price, but also above the high-end based on flexibility, data, and reporting. Being able to stay with the same core accounting from a $100 million dollar company to a $3 billion dollar company shows the range of capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Apptio an IBM Company
    I wasn't personally involved, but all dealings with Apptio have been easy
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Apptio an IBM Company
    Works as designed
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Apptio an IBM Company
    • Apptio Cloudability has enabled us to charge back 100% of our cloud spend to our business users and on an automated basis through the use of ApptioOne
    • Apptio Cloudability's transparency and metrics have enabled us to save millions of dollars in cloud spend across our user base.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • More time is spent on manipulating reports which can and should be automated.
    • Lack of electronic invoicing process and other green technology features creates more cost on printing and storage costs.
    • The lack of a user friendly interface requires more training and a bigger learning curve for staff.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM Cloudability Screenshots

    Screenshot of ML backed rightsizing recommendations surfacing multiple scenarios with tools to help sort those that can me realistically actioned on, with Jira and ServiceNowScreenshot of an allocation of cloud viewed through the enterprise grade tools to tailor data for chargeback/showback across an organizationScreenshot of intelligent forecasting including seasonality, cost drivers and net new spendScreenshot of anomaly detection capabilities to stop issues in their tracks via the right people for the job