Azure Stack vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

Microsoft and Nutanix are both solutions in the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) category. Microsoft is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8, while Nutanix is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Microsoft holds a 44.6% mindshare in SDDC, compared to Nutanix’s 36.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Azure Stack

Read 64 Azure Stack reviews

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145 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Read 196 Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) reviews

290 Views
92 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Azure Stack

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and Azure Stack compete in the cloud infrastructure and hybrid cloud category. While Azure Stack stands out for its integration with Microsoft's ecosystem, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers superior storage solutions and ease of use.

Features: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers a distributed file system, data protection, and storage auto-tiering for redundancy and efficiency in traffic-intensive applications. Its all-in-one solution allows easy upgrades and maintenance with a single click. Azure Stack integrates well with Microsoft tools, providing flexibility in using Microsoft products on a private cloud. Its deployment of services and robust security features are beneficial for users.

Room for Improvement: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure users suggest enhancements in cloud integration, third-party flexibility, and potential price reductions. Improvements in network virtualization and broader operating system support are also desirable. Azure Stack users wish for more openness to other environments, better container support, and clearer pricing structures. Enhancements in disaster recovery and multi-region scalability are also needed.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is known for its straightforward on-premises deployment and efficient technical support. It ensures a smooth transition period with its all-in-one platform. Azure Stack provides versatile deployment options in private and hybrid cloud setups, though it may be more complex. Both platforms excel in customer service, with Nutanix highlighted for seamless integration support and Azure Stack benefiting from Microsoft’s resource network.

Pricing and ROI: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is considered expensive but justifies its cost with reduced operational expenses, management efficiency, and faster ROI through consolidated infrastructure. Azure Stack, with its subscription-based pricing models, alleviates upfront costs. However, complex licensing can reduce its perceived value. Nutanix offers quicker returns due to efficiency and reduced downtime, while Azure Stack provides ROI through scalability and integration with Microsoft's cloud environment.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Stack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 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

Ranking in Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)

2nd

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Ranking in Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)

1st

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

196

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), HCI (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) category, the mindshare of Azure Stack is 44.6%, up from 38.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 36.1%, up from 13.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Data Center (SDDC)

Featured Reviews

PuneetKaura

Vice President of Sales and Operations at Aquila Clouds

Offers seamless transition, integration capabilities of Azure Stack works well and scales easily

For hybrid cloud operations, the seamless transition it enables is key. Most enterprises have a lot of workloads on-premises, and they want a smooth way to move into the cloud. Some things are on-prem, and some things are on the cloud. Azure Stack bridges that gap with solutions that work well for their existing on-premises infrastructure.

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MahendraPanchotiya

Infrastructure Manager at ER Tech Pros

Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates

Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.

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

"The most valuable feature is the OCR, which I use for reading PDFs."

"The solution is certainly stable."

"This solution is highly scalable, with both direct and indirect users numbering over fifty thousand within my business."

"Azure Stack provides us with computational power. We also get an option to have it with Azure Cloud, which is beneficial. We don't need to buy any other extra servers or any virtual machines with high-end graphics."

"The scalability of the solution is good. We have hundreds of users internally and thousands of users externally. We do plan to increase usage shortly."

"The user interface is nice and very simple to use."

"The whole package works very well together for identity management, defending endpoints or servers, and the CM."

"The setup is very straightforward and it's quite stable."

More Azure Stack pros

"One of the most valuable features that can be found, is the inclusion of a hypervisor for free."

"The administration console, automation, and the first cluster are all valuable features."

"The tool is simple, stable, and easy to upgrade. It also requires few resources to manage, which simplifies our work. The solution's ease of upgrading is its valuable feature. AHV, provided by Nutanix, is excellent in performance and ease of use. It's based on an open-source product called KVM, which I also use for other services."

"Simplified management: It provides us more time to work on other tasks."

"The virtualization environment is now much easier to manage and maintain, there is only one vendor to call in case of issues and one single console to manage everything."

"Everything is core centralized on the UI."

"The solution remains stable across versions."

"Acropolis has a great interface and lots of management features packaged with it at an affordable price."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros

Cons

"Azure Stack could use some improvement when it comes to seamless support for disaster recovery scenarios of higher availability regarding multi-regions."

"It should provide more core on the VM and support multi-scale units."

"Azure Stack doesn't have all the services available in Microsoft Azure."

"Overall support needs improvement because they are not agile across services."

"It's not stable as IBM solutions. It fully supports all the .NET solutions, but our main applications are based in Java. So in those cases, we've had some minor problems with Azure, but Microsoft always says that it can handle this stuff."

"I would like to see better support for containers."

"I would only recommend this solution to smaller organizations like ours because I cannot really speculate what big issues that the bigger organizations will face."

"I believe the only room for improvement is that I am based in Nairobi, if it has even a local node for Azure, I believe most customers will prefer that to reduce latencies and everything else when using the Azure Stack."

More Azure Stack cons

"The look and feel of the web GUI of this system needs improvement, when compared to other systems. Its hardware integration also needs improvement."

"It is a CentOS-based operating system, but CentOS releases security patches almost every week or every other week. However, Nutanix releases their upgrade at three or four month intervals. According to my organization's SLA, if a critical patch is released during that time, then I need to implement the patches within 30 days. If it is a standard patch, then I need to patch it within 60 days. Since that is my SLA, I cannot meet my SLA for security because Nutanix will not release the upgrade within these 30 days. Between the critical patch release and the Nutanix release, my customers say they are vulnerable and I am accepting the risk while the SLA is breached."

"The One-Click Upgrade process could/should offer the ability to integrate with 3rd party drivers. For example, we use NVIDIA Grid graphics cards. It would be amazing if, during the One-Click Upgrade process, we could "slipstream" additional VIB drivers for ESXi into the upgrade process."

"One thing I've noticed is that, when you do a shift from VMware to Nutanix, it opens the setup of the VM that's currently running. If people from another site double click on it, it opens the VM instead of the setup of the unit. So I would suggest that this could perhaps be switched. That is so far the only change I would like. I would like it if they could fix the instance where you double click on a VM and it opens the VM instead of the setup. That's the only thing that's a major bother to me."

"I would like better integration of XenServer into the AOS and Prism Central."

"It would be ideal if it was more secure."

"The new features are not free. You need to pay for each feature."

"As far as what could be improved, they have some built-in backup functions already, but any built-in isolation features like vision security features and free LAN features become a security concern."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is affordable."

"When comparing Azure to Amazon and Google, it appears that Azure offers the most cost-effective solution."

"In terms of costs, it is a standard price, and there is no negotiation."

"I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive."

"The premium version is too costly."

"The cost of Azure Stack is much cheaper than VCE."

"Pricing could be improved so I rate it an eight out of ten."

"IaaS’s pricing is high."

More Azure Stack pricing and cost advice

"I don't feel that I am receiving the performance which I am paying for."

"The price of the solution is expensive. However, the price to performance is good. The cost for development and installation is very low."

"When we purchase a new physical server or a couple of physical servers into our cluster, we always purchase it with Nutanix licensing. We are receiving the license from Nutanix directly and not from the vendor. In the way we're dealing, with the licenses it is a bit costly for us but as the company is getting larger, day by day or year by year, those licensing costs become lower each time for us. We are purchasing the licenses for three years for some of our clusters and for some others for five-year licenses and the licenses are still costly. We have good discounts for the licenses, but it is still expensive."

"Extra features should not be so expensive. We would love to be able to use or even just try some of the extra features without having to buy them. Buying those features is just as expensive as buying vSphere licenses, so the cost savings is nullified."

"Our Nutanix license is for five years. There is a support arrangement there, but that aspect is more or less taken care of during the initial installation. With HCI architecture, whenever we do any kind of auto scaling or scaling of servers and resources, there is a significant amount of software licensing involved."

"It is not cheap, but if you look at the return on investment and the total cost of ownership, it is worth the price."

"The one disadvantage is relative, financially Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a little bit more expensive than the old solution."

"It's a bit expensive, but it's worth it."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

35%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Stack?

For hybrid cloud operations, the seamless transition it enables is key. Most enterprises have a lot of workloads on-premises, and they want a smooth way to move into the cloud. Some things are on...

See all answers

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

Azure Stack is a very expensive solution. The costs are very opaque and coming out of control quite quickly.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Stack?

The solution's transparency over cost management could be much easier because it's very difficult to manage costs.

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

See all answers

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?

Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware Cloud Foundation vs Azure Stack

Compared 51% of the time

AWS Outposts vs Azure Stack

Compared 27% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs Azure Stack

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Software Defined Data Center vs Azure Stack

Compared 2% of the time

Google Anthos vs Azure Stack

Compared 2% of the time

More Azure Stack Competitors

VxRail vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 9% of the time

VMware vSphere vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 8% of the time

Hyper-V vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 7% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 7% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack

January 2025

Download Azure Stack product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 2025

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report

Download Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis

Learn More

Microsoft

Nutanix

Overview

Information not available

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure.

NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

AOS storage
Flexible and open compute
Automated and secure networking

Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

Integrated disaster recovery
Full-stack lifecycle management
VMware with Nutanix
Intelligent operations

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.
Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.
Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.
Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.
Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.
Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.
Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).
Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.
Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.
The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.
The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.
Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

Reviews from Real Users

According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

Sample Customers

Weblink, Fathym, Sage, CFD Support Ltd, The UberCloud Inc.

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.

Buyer's Guide

Azure Stack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 2025

Free Report: Azure Stack vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

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