A computer-implemented method, comprising: determining characteristics of a virtualized application that is awaiting deployment; analyzing the characteristics of the virtualized application to select a subset of virtualization environments (108, 109) that are capable of executing the virtualized application, wherein the subset of virtualization environments (108, 109) are selected from a set of virtualization environments (107, 108, 109) of different virtualization environment types used in a datacenter, wherein the different types of the virtualization environments (107, 108, 109) include full virtualization providing virtual hardware resources, paravirtualization providing direct access to at least some physical hardware resources (102, 104), and operating system virtualization providing containers which isolate processes therein; comparing the characteristics of the virtualized application to the virtualization environments of the subset of virtualization environments (108, 109) to determine scores for each of the subset of virtualization environments (108, 109), the scores being based on rules that identify different scores for respective combinations of the characteristics of the virtualized application and the different types of the virtualization environments (107, 108, 109), wherein the rules include any one or more of: whether the virtualization environment (107, 108, 109) has sufficient resources to allocate to the virtualized application, whether a fast boot time is desired for the virtualized application, whether the virtualized application includes a group of elements (140, 141), whether scaleout is needed for the virtualized application, whether a guest operating system of the virtualized application will be upgraded later, whether high availability is needed for the virtualized application, and whether the virtualized application is utilized in a production environment; and deploying the virtualized application in one of the virtualization environments selected based on the scores. determining characteristics of a virtualized application that is awaiting deployment; analyzing the characteristics of the virtualized application to select a subset of virtualization environments (108, 109) that are capable of executing the virtualized application, wherein the subset of virtualization environments (108, 109) are selected from a set of virtualization environments (107, 108, 109) of different virtualization environment types used in a datacenter, wherein the different types of the virtualization environments (107, 108, 109) include full virtualization providing virtual hardware resources, paravirtualization providing direct access to at least some physical hardware resources (102, 104), and operating system virtualization providing containers which isolate processes therein; comparing the characteristics of the virtualized application to the virtualization environments of the subset of virtualization environments (108, 109) to determine scores for each of the subset of virtualization environments (108, 109), the scores being based on rules that identify different scores for respective combinations of the characteristics of the virtualized application and the different types of the virtualization environments (107, 108, 109), wherein the rules include any one or more of: whether the virtualization environment (107, 108, 109) has sufficient resources to allocate to the virtualized application, whether a fast boot time is desired for the virtualized application, whether the virtualized application includes a group of elements (140, 141), whether scaleout is needed for the virtualized application, whether a guest operating system of the virtualized application will be upgraded later, whether high availability is needed for the virtualized application, and whether the virtualized application is utilized in a production environment; and whether the virtualization environment (107, 108, 109) has sufficient resources to allocate to the virtualized application, whether a fast boot time is desired for the virtualized application, whether the virtualized application includes a group of elements (140, 141), whether scaleout is needed for the virtualized application, whether a guest operating system of the virtualized application will be upgraded later, whether high availability is needed for the virtualized application, and whether the virtualized application is utilized in a production environment; and deploying the virtualized application in one of the virtualization environments selected based on the scores.