Businesses Turn to FinOps and New Cloud Cost Tools Amid Rising Cloud Spend

IBM’s Cloudability platform, now part of IBM after acquiring Apptio, is cited for its steep learning curve, overwhelming user interface and high pricing, prompting large enterprises to seek alternatives. Among the highlighted replacements, CloudZero offers a cloud cost‑intelligence approach that links technical decisions to business outcomes and provides detailed cost visibility across services such as AWS and Snowflake.

For small and midsize firms, the 2026 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera shows that organizations waste about 29% of their cloud budget, with the waste rate climbing to 35% for spenders under $100,000 a year. Experts recommend adopting a FinOps discipline—combining finance, technology and business teams—to improve visibility, accountability and governance of cloud consumption. Implementation guidance includes appointing a dedicated FinOps owner and using a hub‑and‑spoke model to coordinate across departments.