Azure Stack HCI vs HPE Alletra dHCI comparison

Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the HCI category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.6, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.4. Microsoft holds a 3.2% mindshare in HCI, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Azure Stack HCI

Read 8 Azure Stack HCI reviews

1,633 Views
1,633 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

HPE Alletra dHCI

Read 29 HPE Alletra dHCI reviews

2,801 Views
2,801 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Azure Stack HCI

HPE Alletra dHCI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

HPE Alletra dHCI and Azure Stack HCI are both key players in the hybrid cloud infrastructure market, each excelling in different areas. While HPE Alletra dHCI leads in customer support and pricing, Azure Stack HCI offers superior features, making it a wise choice for certain businesses.

Features: HPE Alletra dHCI provides robust storage capabilities, seamless data management, and high reliability suitable for enterprises. Azure Stack HCI integrates well with Microsoft’s ecosystem, offers advanced security features, and provides flexibility in hybrid cloud environments.

Room for Improvement: HPE Alletra dHCI could enhance integration options with external platforms, improve its initial setup time, and expand its range of customization features. Azure Stack HCI could benefit from a more straightforward deployment process, reduce its high initial setup costs, and improve the learning curve for users unfamiliar with Microsoft's environment.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Alletra dHCI offers straightforward deployment with exceptional customer service and support, ensuring a smoother integration process. Azure Stack HCI, though more complex to deploy, provides a broader range of customization options, appealing to businesses in need of tailored solutions.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Alletra dHCI presents competitive pricing with a strong ROI, especially for enterprises focusing on storage efficiency and quality support. Azure Stack HCI, despite a higher initial setup cost, offers substantial long-term value with its extended capabilities for businesses prioritizing advanced cloud strategies.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Stack HCI vs. HPE Alletra dHCI Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack HCI vs. HPE Alletra dHCI

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Azure Stack HCI

Ranking in HCI

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HPE Alletra dHCI

Ranking in HCI

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Stack HCI is 3.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.0%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Alletra dHCI	4.0%
Azure Stack HCI	3.2%
Other	92.8%

HCI

Featured Reviews

Martin Coloumbe

IT Solution Architect at a educational organization with 11-50 employees

Experience with seamless cost-saving capacity, though integration and support need refinement

An area that could be possibly improved with Azure Stack HCI is the stretched cluster functionality, which was included in version 23H2 for disaster recovery purposes. However, this functionality has been put on hold for the next release, and Microsoft has decided to discontinue stretched cluster technology completely, which is disappointing. They promise to bring back a significant or similar solution in a future release, but currently, there is no such functionality for stretched clusters between two sites in the latest versions of Azure Stack HCI, which poses a problem as we were looking forward to utilizing it. The integration with Azure Arc provides a unified management experience, but I find it to be fairly clunky. The integration exists, but it is not smooth or very easy to use. While they've started to integrate the two, the integration lacks maturity and makes it difficult to manage effectively. There are discrepancies between managing VMs through Azure Arc versus managing them directly, as changes made not using the Azure Arc integration are not easily reflected in Azure Arc. For instance, if I have an Arc-enabled VM and make changes to it outside the Arc interface, those changes may not be registered directly in Azure Arc, leading to issues in fully viewing the status and configuration of VMs depending on the management tool used. You either manage VMs fully through Arc or not at all because mixing the two methods results in incomplete visibility and inconsistencies.

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Thomas Watterott

IT Consultant at Autonubil System GmbH

Synchronous replication and strong support enhance storage and data protection

The most valuable features of HPE Alletra dHCI are the synchronous replication, the easy extension for more storage, and its strong support. Data protection is very good, offering features such as virtual lock for snapshots, multi-factor authentication, and encryption for volumes. The solution handles workload variability very well without any performance issues even for demanding applications like SAP, SQL, and Citrix.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Some of the best features of Azure Stack HCI are that, as we are primarily a Microsoft Windows Server organization using Microsoft Windows Server on most of our servers, we already own data center licenses for Microsoft operating systems, and the hypervisor, Azure Stack HCI, actually comes with that license, which allows us to switch from VMware to Azure Stack HCI without any additional cost, significantly reducing our operational costs, especially now that Broadcom has purchased VMware, to $0."

"The solution has the latest processor."

"Azure Stack HCI has been very beneficial for disaster recovery operations, though the main data center still has a mix of infrastructure between other products."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."

"Azure Local, formerly known as Azure Stack HCI, is gaining attention due to its offering of a cloud experience on-premises."

"In my hybrid cloud setup, there are three features I've found very efficient. The first is software-defined networking. Similar to Azure where you create virtual networks and software load balancing, Azure Stack HCI lets you configure them with a drag-and-drop experience on the on-premises cluster. That's one of the good feature."

"The scalability is extremely good."

"The features of Azure Stack HCI that have proven to be the most beneficial for optimizing our company's data center operations revolve around its performance."

More Azure Stack HCI pros

"We have this feature in Nimble dHCI, wherein we can upgrade individual components in the infrastructure."

"Simply being able to move objects and the duplication feature have been quite effective."

"Nimble is easy to use, but hard to install. Once it's installed, it's user-friendly. Reporting is another advantage because we get a lot of statistical forecasting. It helps us see into the future with that."

"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI has the most valuable features for performance, resilience, and scalability."

"The nice thing about it is that it truly integrates with the cloud, so I can move my volumes bi-directionally in and out of the cloud."

"HPE Alletra dHCI is very comfortable with high performance and quick installation."

"It's helpful as you stand on high-end storage. Alletra offers up to 99% availability, providing excellent stability. You also get the benefits of an HCI solution with a template and upgradability at any time."

"The most valuable feature of HPE Alletra dHCI is the one-click upgrade function, which allows all drivers and services to be downloaded to all servers easily."

More HPE Alletra dHCI pros

Cons

"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."

"A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved."

"Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware."

"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."

"The implementation was very difficult for the operation team at that time, as the necessary skills to implement and integrate this product were not available."

"There are a lot of areas for improvement. Since I've been working very closely with this product, there are many areas, especially in software-defined networking. We had to improve multiple areas because we depended on the service fabric cluster to manage the software-defined network. That means we're already running a hypervisor inside a VM, and we're managing the control plane of the software-defined network. That's another cluster. So, multiple layers make the complexity more. So, from an operational perspective, it's very difficult to manage."

"The biggest challenge with the tool is not being able to manage everything from Microsoft Azure Portal."

"The performance of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI could improve. Other solutions, such as Cisco, are better."

"Cost-wise, this solution is slightly more expensive than other hyperconverged solutions."

"Lacking integration to the cloud."

"The only issue I'm really running into is we have a SQL server that we're having a lot of high IO latency on one of my drives and it's my data drive from my SQL server. It's not really giving me any good information as to where that latency is coming from, so that's what I'm trying to track down and troubleshoot."

"The product does not support file services."

"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's website does not open properly or work consistently."

"They could expand product support to Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat Linux platforms."

"I'm not sure if there are features lacking."

More HPE Alletra dHCI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high compared to other tools."

"The main licenses are the OS licenses, the OEM licenses, and so on. They are very much aligned with the cost of expectations. We never had any challenges with the licensing at all."

"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."

"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."

"The product is costly."

"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."

"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."

"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."

"The product is very affordable."

"The prices are very high."

More HPE Alletra dHCI pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Stack HCI?

The solution has the latest processor.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stack HCI?

This solution costs €10 per core per month. The whole stack is free if you are renting Windows Server Datacenter.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Stack HCI?

There could be improvements with Azure Stack HCI regarding the license and price, as they have significantly higher prices compared to other competitors. The end-to-end encryption provided by Azure...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?

The solution is easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?

Pricing is rated at six, which is normal. The price is appropriate for the capabilities and features that the customers receive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?

I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately. When extending or when servers are already present, normal Alletra systems are more suitable. dHCI projects ofte...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Azure Stack HCI

Compared 25% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Azure Stack HCI

Compared 22% of the time

VxRail vs Azure Stack HCI

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Azure Stack HCI

Compared 5% of the time

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs Azure Stack HCI

Compared 4% of the time

More Azure Stack HCI Competitors

Dell PowerFlex vs HPE Alletra dHCI

Compared 22% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs HPE Alletra dHCI

Compared 16% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE Alletra dHCI

Compared 14% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs HPE Alletra dHCI

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs HPE Alletra dHCI

Compared 3% of the time

More HPE Alletra dHCI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack HCI

December 2025

Download Azure Stack HCI product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Alletra dHCI

December 2025

Download HPE Alletra dHCI product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI

Overview

Azure Stack HCI efficiently integrates software-defined networking and Azure Kubernetes Service, offering a streamlined hybrid setup for VM management while maintaining top performance.

Azure Stack HCI enhances data center operations with high-end processors and storage, optimal Kubernetes support, and integration with Azure Arc and Azure Site Recovery. High application density in four-node configurations improves both time and infrastructure efficiency. Despite its strengths, the platform can improve in areas like software-defined networking, operational management, and simplifying deployments, which currently rely on PowerShell. Users often desire better training and integration with Microsoft Azure Portal, along with multi-cluster capabilities and storage architecture enhancements. Improvements in Hyper V virtualization are also needed to match competitors like VMware.

What are the key features of Azure Stack HCI?

Software-defined Networking: Streamlines network management and enhances hybrid setups.
Azure Kubernetes Service: Superior support for container orchestration in hybrid environments.
Azure Arc Integration: Expands management capabilities across hybrid clouds.
Azure Site Recovery: Increases resilience and disaster recovery options.
High-end Processors and Storage: Delivers peak performance for demanding tasks.

What are the potential benefits of Azure Stack HCI?

Performance Efficiency: Reduces server needs while maintaining application performance.
Scalability: Supports high application counts with improved resource utilization.
Time Efficiency: Streamlines infrastructure management for quicker deployments.
Enhanced Operations: Benefits from high IOPS and comprehensive VM management.

In sectors like government, Azure Stack HCI is crucial for running secure on-premise services with selectable Azure features to ensure data privacy. Businesses leverage the platform for VM creation, management, and monitoring through Windows Center, alongside Kubernetes production environments. Connectivity with Azure allows for smoother cloud transitions, appreciated for its dashboard manageability and substantial network capacity.

Microsoft

HPE Alletra dHCI, a data storage solution from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), offers Disaggregated Hyperconverged Infrastructure (dHCI), separating storage from compute resources for independent scaling and management. Utilizing HPE Nimble Storage technology, known for AI-driven optimization, it ensures high performance and management efficiency. With scalability and agility, users can effortlessly expand storage or processing power as data requirements evolve. Additionally, boasting rapid deployment in under 15 minutes and a claimed 99.9999% data availability, HPE Alletra dHCI promises robust and reliable storage solutions.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack HCI vs. HPE Alletra dHCI

December 2025

Free Report: Azure Stack HCI vs. HPE Alletra dHCI

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