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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

January 2026

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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

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

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Mahmoud Abuherra

Manager, Technical Services at AXS

Offers seamless protocol integration for diverse solutions with flexible API communication

We recommend Dell ECS to customers looking for GeoDrive, archiving, long-term retention solutions, or S3 protocol. It is proposed to sectors like government, education, and banking. Overall, I would rate Dell ECS eight out of ten, as it has shown a lot of enhancement compared to previous solutions like Centera and Atmos.

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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

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

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

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Competitive object storage platform that's stable and scalable."

"The impact of Dell ECS on my organization has been positive, improving user experience, security, and reliability."

"The technology is very good, it performs well."

"Some of the best features with Dell ECS are that it's scale-out storage with compatibility, which are the main drivers, along with very good support from Dell EMC that usually makes customers happy."

"This solution is very easy to use, and is very reliable."

"We face very few hardware failures."

"It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward."

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

More Dell ObjectScale pros

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

"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."

"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."

"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 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 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."

"The graphs are most valuable. They have a lot of graphs and reports that you can run to see what's happening in the background to configure OpenStack Swift."

"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

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"I want efficiency. FlashBlade doesn't have efficiency now."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"We have had issues when the ECS is expiring or the NetBackup is expiring images."

"In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."

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

"The solution’s stability could be improved."

"The solution could be more cost-effective and secure."

"The initial setup is not so easy."

"While there can be occasional issues with routing to the wrong region that lead to slight delays, it's typically business as usual."

"From an improvement perspective, Dell ECS should aim to offer a better pricing plan to its users."

More Dell ObjectScale cons

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"[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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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 have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The product is very expensive."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price could be cheaper."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."

"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."

"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."

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

"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."

"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."

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

More Dell ObjectScale pricing and cost advice

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

"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 find the pricing rather steep. Of course, you get quality for your money, that's absolutely true... [But] when you look at the prices of the licensing and the prices of your hardware, it's quite substantial."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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."

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

More SwiftStack [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Performing Arts

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

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?

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...

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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?

I cannot think of anything as an area for improvement with Dell ECS. I do not see any pricing or usability concerns.

See all answers

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 18% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Amazon AWS vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 24% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 8% of the time

MinIO vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 5% of the time

Scality RING vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell ObjectScale Competitors

Cloudian HyperStore vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 27% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 22% of the time

More SwiftStack [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell ObjectScale

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

SwiftStack [EOL]

February 2026

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

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January 2026

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