Dell ObjectScale vs SwiftStack [EOL] comparison

Dell Technologies and NVIDIA are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NVIDIA users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 26, 2025

SwiftStack [EOL] and Dell ObjectScale are competing in the object storage solutions market. Dell ObjectScale seems to have the upper hand due to its robust feature set, offering superior value with advanced data management and strong data distribution capabilities.

Features: SwiftStack [EOL] is characterized by scalability, easy integration with existing infrastructure, and multi-cloud environment support. Dell ObjectScale provides advanced data management, seamless scalability, and robust data distribution.

Room for Improvement: SwiftStack [EOL] could benefit from enhanced advanced features. It lacks the comprehensive capabilities found in more modern solutions. Dell ObjectScale might improve upon its complexity in initial deployment and simplify its integration process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SwiftStack [EOL] is known for straightforward deployment and a focus on customer service aiding seamless integration. Dell ObjectScale offers a sophisticated deployment process with comprehensive documentation, appealing to larger, complex enterprise needs.

Pricing and ROI: SwiftStack [EOL] is appreciated for its attractive setup cost, providing fair ROI for those focusing on lowering initial expenses. Dell ObjectScale, while involving a higher setup investment, promises strong ROI through its advanced features, offering great value for long-term objectives.

To learn more, read our detailed File and Object Storage Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

September 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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Managing efficiently with user-friendly interfaces for monitoring and managing resources

We normally recommend Dell ECS to enterprise customers and government customers Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer. They can monitor the DPS, access failures, bandwidth, failed requests, and latency.…

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reviewer1759539

System administrator at a library with 11-50 employees

A nicely-done product that provides a lot of graphs and reports to see what's happening in the background and makes configuration easier

It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The scalability is good."

"The support is good."

"It is a stable platform."

"I would rate scalability ten out of ten since you buy what you want."

"Dell's technical support team is good."

"Dell ECS is a very stable solution and most of the S3 APIs are supported."

"The most valuable feature for me is off-site storage."

"What I like best about Dell ECS is its stability. I also like that you can use it for large-scale data purposes. The solution works fine for me, and I haven't encountered any issues with it."

More Dell ObjectScale pros

"The general consensus on what we've done is that the restores coming back from it have been faster than they were from our prior vendor. Ingest speeds are fine. The restore speeds have improved."

"The scalability is phenomenal. It seems infinite, as long as you put enough storage in place, add enough nodes."

"The most valuable feature is its versatility. We use 1space and we can use it for almost anything: for our cloud service, for backups of VMs."

"In terms of the hardware flexibility, with SwiftStack not being a hardware company, I literally buy any hardware that's the least expensive, from any vendor... from a flexibility standpoint, I think it's fantastic. I can go to anybody, anywhere - any vendor - and get my hardware."

"The SwiftStack Controller, which is the web UI, provides out of band management. This has been one of the best features of it. It allows us to be able to do upgrades and look at performance metrics. It is a top feature and reason to choose the product."

"The biggest feature, the biggest reason we went with SwiftStack, rather than deploying our own model with OpenStack Swift, was their deployment model. That was really the primary point in our purchase decision, back when we initially deployed. It took my installation time from days to hours, for deployment in our environment, versus deploying OpenStack Swift ourselves, manually."

"It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers. As part of our DR strategy, we have nodes automatically replicating data from one data center to the other. This makes it easier for us to not have to shift tapes around."

"The performance is good. It is a secondary storage platform designed for archive and backup, so performance for the right use cases is very good. We have been pretty happy in that regard."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pros

Cons

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"The speed could be improved."

"The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"The solution is expensive."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"There are some limitations with integration with certain cloud providers, particularly with Google Cloud Platform in Saudi Arabia."

"You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%."

"However, hardware failures can impact the cluster, making it read-only."

"They could provide centralized reports."

"If Dell ECS would be available as standalone software, so you can use any hardware with it, would make the solution better. It would also be good if Dell ECS had more integrations with other products."

"One area for product improvement would be the garbage collection process. It takes longer than expected, so speeding up that process would be beneficial."

"The setup is very complex."

"Dell ECS is not fully compatible with S3, as it supports around ninety percent of S3 APIs, which can be improved. Additionally, sometimes there is an issue with memory where it hangs, and they can improve garbage collection, which takes up a lot of space during cleanup."

More Dell ObjectScale cons

"[One] thing that I've been looking for, for years as an end user and customer, for any object store, including SwiftStack, is some type of automated method for data archiving. Something where you would have a metadata tagging policy engine and a data mover all built into a single system that would automatically be able to take your data off your primary and put it into an object store in a non-proprietary way - which is key."

"I would like to see better client integrations, support for a broader client library. SwiftStack could be a little bit more involved in the client side: Python, Java, C, etc."

"The file access needs improvement. The NFS was rolled out as a single service. It needs to be fully integrated into the proxy in a highly available fashion, like the regular proxy access is. I know it's on the roadmap."

"They should provide a more concise hardware calculator when you're putting your capacity together."

"The biggest room for improvement is the maturity of the proxyFS solution. That piece of code is relatively new, so most of our issues have been around the proxyFS."

"On the controller features, there needs to be a bit more clean up of the user interface. There are a lot of options available on the GUI which might be better organized or compartmentalized. There are times when you are going through the user interface and you have to look around for where the setting may be. A little bit more attention to the organization of the user interface would be helpful."

"It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st."

"At the moment we are using Erasure coding in an 8+4 setting. What would be nice is if, for some standard configurations like 15+4 and 8+4, there were more versatility so we could, for example, select 8+6, or the like."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The price is a little high."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."

"The solution could be cheaper."

"It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."

"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."

"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."

"If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four."

"We are not paying for the license at this stage."

"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."

More Dell ObjectScale pricing and cost advice

"All in, with hardware and everything else - and I hate to say a dollar amount because it's been awhile since I computed it - I know I'm under the $300 to $500 per terabyte mark. I call that my "all in" price, which has replications built in and protections built in."

"The pricing model is great and makes sense. We have talked about how to get into more of a frequent billing cycle than once a year. That would be an interesting concept to add into the product, having the ability to have monthly billing instead of having to do a one-year licensing renewal. However, the way the license works by charging for storage consumed is definitely what makes them the most competitive."

"The pricing and licensing are capacity-based, so it's hard to put my finger on them, because so many different vendors charge in different ways. We are still saving significantly over any of the other options that we evaluated because we can choose the best hardware at the best price, then put SwiftStack software on it. So, it's hard to complain, even though a part of me goes, "It would be nicer if it were less expensive.""

"It's pricey for us because we're a nonprofit. I'm not privy to any amount or cost, but I have been told that it is pricey. There are no costs in addition to the licensing fees, and it seems to come with the support."

"One of their advantages of being a commercial open source platform is, for the scale that they offer, the pricing is pretty competitive."

"The annual support and maintenance costs compared to our old solution for backups had about a two-thirds savings, so about a 60% annual savings on our support and maintenance contract. That savings funded additional expansion for what it was costing us for the support and maintenance contracts on old solution."

"We are able to dynamically grow storage at a lower cost. We can repurpose hardware and buy commodity hardware. There is a huge cost savings, on average $100,000 a year compared to traditional storage for what we have at our size."

"COST_SAVING; We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

17%

Performing Arts

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	11

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

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC ECS?

The tool is easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?

The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?

There are some limitations with integration with certain cloud providers, particularly with Google Cloud Platform in ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Qumulo vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 3% of the time

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Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 14% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 14% of the time

MinIO vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 10% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 3% of the time

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Peaxy vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 47% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell ObjectScale

September 2025

Download Dell ObjectScale product report

Buyer's Guide

SwiftStack [EOL]

August 2025

Download SwiftStack [EOL] product report

Also Known As

No data available

EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Dell ObjectScale is a next-generation S3 object storage platform known for scalability, performance, and efficiency. It integrates with Dell EMC products, combining hardware and software for seamless user experience in the AI era.

Dell ObjectScale implements the S3 protocol, integrating smoothly with Dell EMC solutions like ISILON. Its architecture supports data compression and interoperates with multiple protocols for enhanced performance. Enterprise features include immutability, geo-replication, and user-friendly management. However, it needs better integration with other systems, enhanced security, and disaster recovery. Write performance and scalability improvements, competitive pricing, and documentation enhancements are key areas for progress. The interface could be more straightforward, with more remote management features and native analytics.

What features does Dell ObjectScale offer?

S3 Protocol Implementation: Brings industry-standard access with wide application compatibility
Seamless Dell EMC Integration: Ensures stability and ease of use with existing systems
Data Compression and Protocol Interoperability: Enhances performance and storage efficiency
Immutability and Geo-Replication: Provides enterprise-level data protection
Optimized Pricing: Balances cost with comprehensive support

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Scalability: Supports expanding data requirements effectively
Integration Flexibility: Works with many existing systems for better interoperability
Ease of Management: Streamlines hardware and software operations
Enterprise-Level Features: Delivers advanced protection and efficiency

Industries leverage Dell ObjectScale for cloud-based object storage, archiving, and backups. It's favored for unstructured data management, CCTV integration, and document archiving. Strong in data analytics, it integrates well with high-capacity applications, enhancing data retention strategies across fields.

Dell Technologies

SwiftStack [EOL] offers robust cloud integration, rapid deployment, and hardware-agnostic capabilities, making it a preferred choice for organizations needing scalable and flexible storage solutions. It supports a variety of storage needs from object storage to enterprise-grade backup systems.

SwiftStack [EOL] is recognized for its seamless cloud integration and platform independence, enabling rapid deployment and superior scalability. Its metadata search, proxyFS, and 1space feature enhance versatility and backup efficiency. SwiftStack Controller provides an enhanced management experience with easy system upgrades and performance monitoring. While the management UI and ProxyFS maturity have room for improvement, users seek more organized interfaces and better REST API support. Enhancements in erasure coding configurations and data archiving, along with improved client library integrations, are highlighted needs. The demand for NFS integration improvements and options for data movement between storage policies is noted.

What are the key features of SwiftStack?

Rapid Deployment: Fast and efficient system setup.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing storage needs.
Flexibility: Hardware-agnostic and platform independent.
Resiliency: Robust data protection mechanisms.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with cloud services.
Metadata Search: Facilitates efficient data retrieval.
ProxyFS Capability: Offers versatile storage solutions.
1space Feature: Enhances backup efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should be expected in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces deployment and operational costs.
Performance: Fast data ingestion and access speed.
Enhanced Management: Simplifies system management with advanced tools.
Versatility: Supports diverse storage needs from backups to cloud services.

SwiftStack [EOL] is implemented in industries as a backup platform for Commvault and Veeam, cloud storage similar to Amazon S3 or Azure Blob. It's essential for SaaS platforms, data sharing in research, preproduction object storage, data center operations, and archival management for OpenStack Swift servers in educational and research institutions.

NVIDIA

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Atos

Pac-12 Networks, Georgia Institute of Technology, Budd Van Lines

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

September 2025

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