We performed a comparison between Cisco Hyperflex Hx Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Cisco Hyperflex Hx Series seems to be a superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers found Nutanix Acropolis AOS to be more difficult to deploy than Cisco Hyperflex Hx Series. Additionally, Nutanix Acropolis AOS lacks the level of integration that Cisco offers.
"The solution offers easy one-click PowerShell scripts that are ready to run."
"This solution enables us to make better cost-effective use of our existing hardware and leverage the current infrastructure at a higher level than we could before."
"The license price is one of the cheapest in the market."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support. They are excellent and you can learn a lot from the support team."
"In our case, the cost and high availability are the two most important factors which we were looking for in a solution."
"This product now allows us to migrate virtual machines between nodes as if we had a dedicated $100,000 SAN in the mix without the additional cost and management of the SAN."
"When we need additional storage but want to keep the size of the SANs manageable, the StarWind Virtual SAN has allowed me to do everything needed."
"Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."
"Performance-wise, everything is good. So far, we haven't had any issues. There has been no downtime at all."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the time to deliver a VM takes me five minutes. In comparison, my cloud team's response is a couple of days based on all their overhead policies, procedures, and ticket requests. This is substantial."
"The workload can handle anything and has an extended capacity."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."
"The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money."
"Cisco offers very good quality."
"The technical support has been very good for this solution."
"The compression and deduplication are very high. Therefore, we can use the size of the product more efficiently than other storage solutions."
"Nutanix has the best virtual desktop infrastructure."
"The stability is good. This is the number-one product in that regard."
"It has a user-friendly dashboard and interface."
"SRM capabilities for replication have been proven reliable and very useful for our organization."
"The most valuable feature is Move, which allows you to migrate virtual machines from VM to AHV."
"The most valuable feature is the solution's ease of upgrading."
"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is its low cost, guaranteed to failover and failback with only a few clicks."
"Most beneficial feature is simplicity, ease of use."
"An extended trial period would serve as a way to get clean insights into the technology's adaptability and alignment with their specific needs before committing to long-term integration."
"This product could be improved with the inclusion of new health check procedures."
"It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes."
"It runs until it does not - and disaster recovery documentation is sparse and mostly unclear."
"It would be good to have a little more access to control certain aspects within the UI."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"Having more support plan options would be nice."
"While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell."
"We would like to see better integration in the next release of this solution."
"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."
"I would have liked it to be able to back up the system to a cloud, to be able to work from any other place"
"The additional feature I would like to see included in the next release of this solution is more security. We want to add more data servers to all the hosts all over the world. We have 140 hosts that connect to one data center in Manila."
"I would like a lighter product; something which can be carried by a mere human. The typical size still looks like a stack of data center-sized servers, which is typically fine, but not so good if you want to carry it around."
"There should be the opportunity to create more than one div group"
"Cisco is a bit more challenging in terms of deployment. The admin must be knowledgeable in order to complete the task. Without that knowledge, it will be difficult to complete."
"Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag."
"I would like them to update their licensing to provide more features with their basic license."
"The initial setup can be a bit difficult."
"It does not have good backup feature tools, like having templates or being able to back up every two or three days."
"The compatibility and integration of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could be improved. For example, we have a WAF application firewall and it does not work on this solution. Not all the OS's run on AOS. You need to have a newer version of an operating system if you want Nutanix to perfectly run all the different options."
"In the future, I would like Acropolis to add support for publishing external storage."
"Limits on increasing space with the inability to have or attach external storage."
"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 would be great if they could improve the GUI features."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in HCI with 90 reviews while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 3rd in HCI with 194 reviews. Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is rated 8.0, while Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] writes "A fast and easy deployment that allows secure access to our medical applications ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "A powerful solution with easy deployment, upgrades, and management". Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, Dell PowerFlex, HPE SimpliVity and Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, whereas Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, VMware vSphere and Dell PowerFlex.
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With Nutanix you have the freedom of choice. You can deploy it with several server hardware vendors or completely in the cloud.
I don’t know Hyperflex at heart, though.
Also, support at Nutanix is outstanding.
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-converged infrastructure at scale. We looked into it but then ultimately chose Nutanix Acropolis.
We liked Hyperflex’s virtualization feature and the unified network fabric it provides. The Integrated Managed Controller was a nice feature to have. It is expandable, stable, and has good redundancy. If you require more processor cores per box, Cisco HyperFlex is a good solution for you. Support will depend on the type of contract you have, with some requests taken care of immediately and others taking longer according to the engineer’s expertise.
While Hyperflex is designed for any company size, I wouldn’t recommend them for small businesses. It also requires a solid knowledge of Cisco products, as the UI can be difficult to manage. Upgrading to a newer version can also be cumbersome and could use some improvement.
We chose Nutanix because it is easier to use and is more cost-effective. Nutanix allows us to deploy, run and scale applications both on-premises and in the cloud. It has excellent support. You can log the query straight to a technical expert, which is good if you have staff not familiar with AOS. It is easy to scale by adding new nodes, and the company is constantly adding new features.
Nutanix is not for everyone, though. The Nutanix Cloud System can be complex to maneuver when at the command line or when troubleshooting.
Conclusions
Nutanix is better for medium-sized companies and when you need a cost-effective solution. Cisco Hyperflex is a complete solution but is better suited for large enterprises. It works better if you are already a Cisco user.