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Citrix XenServer vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Citrix XenServer
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (9th)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Citrix XenServer and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Citrix XenServer is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 4.9%, up 3.6% compared to last year.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 8.0% mindshare, down 8.8% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Siva Kuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 29, 2024
Allows us to allocate CPU, memory, storage, and network resources across VMs and minimizes downtime in case of hardware failure or maintenance
It is a scalable product and provides great benefits for virtualization needs. However, there are a few considerations: * Cost: Citrix Hypervisor can be fairly expensive. * Complexity: There's a learning curve, especially for those coming from a Microsoft background. Setting it up and managing it can introduce some complexity. * Hardware Support: Not all major hardware vendors fully support Citrix Hypervisor. * Third-party Integration: Integrating Hypervisor with other technologies within a large ecosystem can sometimes be challenging. * Community Support: Compared to solutions like Microsoft Hyper-V, the community support for Citrix Hypervisor is somewhat less extensive. It is not vast. If there are any issues or errors, the community support is not that good. Those are definitely important disadvantages.
Sisir Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 17, 2023
Scales easily, helps with consolidation, and enables us to clone a VM
Usually, there are separate administration teams that take care of servers, but in our organization, servers are usually looked after by the application owner. However, the application owners cannot reinstall the software, OS, and other things. That only aligns with the role of the HCI administrator. If these rights can be provided, it will be very easy. Previously, it was there, but after certain updates, we found that they have withdrawn those services. For example, you requested a VM, and based on the business use case, I approved it and gave you a bare-metal server. Now you are the owner of that particular VM, so whatever you need, you should be able to do over there, but currently, you have to request me for the installation of the OS that you need, and I have to do it. It is an overhead for the HCI administrator. If that can be offloaded to the VM owners, that will be much easier for us. I have already shared this feedback with Nutanix.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I find most valuable, is its performance"
"The ability to move a virtual machine while it is running is a big advantage."
"Citrix Hypervisor does a great job overall, such as the virtualization of the host. It's very easy to manage the virtual machine, to create, and configure high availability."
"What I like the most is the support of the GPU Graphics and the VM Live migration."
"It is quite flexible and rugged. It is also easy to understand and user-friendly. It is not as complicated as some of the other solutions. It has its technicalities, but it is easy to understand. You can easily pick up in a short period of time and understand how to manage the infrastructure."
"There's no complexity in using the tool, especially with the VBI integration. It works very well and has proven to be a stable platform. I have experienced attacks, such as ransomware, but my Citrix Hypervisor virtual machines were protected. This is due to its hardened operating system and DNS, which successfully protected the virtual machines on that platform."
"Ability to move your virtual machines from one host to another."
"The solution is easy to deploy. It's very easy to understand problems and read logs."
"It's easy to use and has a very smooth onboarding process."
"The snapshots, cloning, and replication are all effective in helping to reduce downtime. It can replicate cluster data for disaster recovery and it provides high availability in case a node or a disk fails."
"The speed of the operations and of creation of VM is fantastic."
"The most valuable features are the user-friendly dashboard and that we don't need to move resources manually when adding new nodes into running clusters."
"Simplified management: It provides us more time to work on other tasks."
"You need to send commands through the command-line interface(CLI). This could be improved. The commands are done better in VMware."
"It is 100% stable. It's the most stable infrastructure that we have."
"It's much easier and faster even when you want to create a server from a template or clone."
 

Cons

"Network management needs improvement because it is not very stable."
"The USB support for the virtual server needs improvement."
"The product could be faster and licensing options could be improved."
"The self-service user portal needs to be more granular and be more customizable."
"Live migration is something that can be improved."
"It needs to have a more robust backup solution."
"I think the technical support could be better."
"The licensing costs are too high on the solution. They should work to make the costs more reasonable."
"Could have better visibility with the main OEM backup integrators."
"It already has the capability to integrate with the major cloud providers but, in an upcoming release, if there is a possibility to have it integrate with other cloud providers like IBM, Alibaba, and other moderate-level cloud providers, that would be good."
"The solution has more features than required"
"When we have issues with the solution, they tend to be around networking."
"Areas for improvement would be the memory setting and the CPU setting reserve features, which are not available on Acropolis. I also feel that the DR solution, the reporting, and the component that is combined with the Nutanix OSP need to be improved."
"The licenses for Nutanix are very complicated."
"The storage and back-up facilities could be improved. We need day-to-day encrypting of the database."
"They need to improve the look and feel of the interface. The functionality is fine, but the appearance could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required to use this solution. You need a license on every server, but the license is more for support than anything else. The cost is not expensive, it is a fraction of the cost of VMware. When you look at the cost overall and features, Citrix Hypervisor has a very attractive offering."
"The cost of this product is not high."
"There are free and paid versions. The free version is limited in features but not by time limit. The paid version has more features."
"Citrix Hypervisor can be fairly expensive."
"This solution is open source, it's free."
"To subscribe to the paid version with support, it is approximately $6,000 per year."
"I am fine with their license support. What we have right now is permanent, so I don't have a problem with their license."
"The pricing and licensing is so important. Customers do consider the price seriously."
"This product is less expensive than some of the competing HCI solutions."
"When compared to the competitors, the price is reasonable."
"The price of the license for Nutanix Acropolis AOS is less expensive than the competition. There is a favorable cost saving. Having only the need to deal with a single vendor, the management of the customer's entire stack is cost-effective."
"We renew our license on a yearly basis and have no costs in addition to the standard fee."
"The software only licensing model is priced normally, but the licensing model that comes with hardware is priced very high. You can choose to pay the license yearly, or you can pay every three years, or every five years."
"Pricing varies greatly between license and editions."
"The price of the solution is expensive. However, the price to performance is good. The cost for development and installation is very low."
"The solution could be a little less expensive."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Citrix Hypervisor?
The core function enables multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server. This maximizes hardware utilization and efficiency.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Hypervisor?
I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being very inexpensive and ten being very expensive.
What needs improvement with Citrix Hypervisor?
It would be very helpful if I could browse the data store directly in the GUI, similar to VMware and Hyper-V. This feature would be particularly useful when something goes wrong with a virtual mach...
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...
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...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
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...
 

Also Known As

Hypervisor
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

U.S. Army Shared Services Center, SoftLayer, Educational Services of America, Independent Bank, and SK Telecom.
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: November 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.