Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 8.8% mindshare in the category. NetApp is ranked #1 in CI , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 11.7% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 29 Dell PowerFlex reviews

8,681 Views
7,900 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

2,640 Views
1,135 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and FlexPod XCS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

October 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

Dell PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd)

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 8.8%, down 12.2% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 11.7% mindshare, up 9.6% since last year.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerFlex	8.8%
VxRail	14.9%
VMware vSAN	13.0%
Other	63.3%

HCI

Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FlexPod XCS	11.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem	16.2%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance	12.8%
Other	59.3%

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Serdar De

IT Manager at ÜÇGE Shopfitting & Design

Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing

We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future. I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…

Read full review

John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems

The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

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 overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."

"The support team responds quickly."

"We're doing a lot of VMware for IT so this solution is really valuable from a VMH point of view. We're trying to assist our customers mainly with management, because that's what they want. The most important aspects are ease of management, as well as ease of configuration, allowing them to attach additional nodes and resources for the applications."

"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the storage space it offers."

"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."

"The resiliency and data protection are the most valuable features."

"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"It runs very well lights out. Set it and forget it."

"It has never fallen out from under us when we were trying to do a critical push."

"I live by the Validated Designs. I do exactly what those designs say and I haven't had a problem as a result. For example, they used to do the FCoE. They figured out there was a problem and they went over to the NFS. I moved over and I agreed with them. It worked better."

"The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution."

"This sounds dumb, but it just works. I don't want to have to deal with support, and I don't need to because, again, it has just worked."

"It scales easily. We went through an upgrade of adding additional chassis, and it wasn't a big deal."

"FlexPod impacted us by making things easier to deploy. The solution is a private, hybrid, and multi-cloud environment. That's very important to us. We're doing a lot of hybrid cloud."

"FlexPod has affected the workload of our network admin team awesomely. We have fewer employees. It's good."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."

"The biggest issue with the solution is that it doesn't support Hyper V. It's a big problem."

"For customers with a budget, it is a ten out of ten for the product, though it becomes challenging for those with mid or low budgets since it is very costly compared to other solutions such as PowerStore."

"I am not really impressed by the technical support of this solution."

"We've had some issues around the licensing."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."

"I think there might be some room for improvement when it comes to pricing, because although I know how to convert customers, at the end of day, it's quite expensive. Sometimes your feature architecture is still coming out much cheaper than hardware costs for your infrastructure."

"The initial deployment was complicated and required a lot of data nodes, IPs, internal vLANs, data vLANs, and many other things."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"There were several different management consoles that we had to deal with: UCS, VMware, and separate ESXi installations. Maybe one interface council where we could manage everything from might be a little easier."

"Parts of the initial setup were complex, especially on the networking side."

"This is an expensive solution."

"Mainly, the interface needs improvement. I'm not a big fan of UCS Manager, sometimes. I believe they released the new one, and it seems like in every version something changes and something else doesn't work. When they switched to HTML5, I believe we had issues in version 3.2. They fixed it in the next version. The amount of work to upgrade a system for change control is tedious to have issues every time. I would recommend more regression testing, then testing the different browsers in that."

"Upgrades are always scary because you just don't know. Nobody has six or seven different systems sitting around that you can test on before you go into production data."

"I would like to see drag and drop connectivity to Azure and Amazon."

"We would like one-click upgrades."

"The solution has not reduced our data center costs."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is medium."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."

"The price could be improved."

"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"If your company really needs to be up 100% of the time, and you need to do a private data center, I don't know if I could realistically actually recommend another blueprint."

"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."

"We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month."

"It is cheaper than other products. For example, Dell EMC VxBlock is more expensive."

"Sometimes you may end up spending a little more to get it in the first place, but you gain it back in terms of infrastructure upgrade costs and troubleshooting costs. The solution also lasts a surprisingly long time."

"It is expensive. My company is small. When you look at the price point, this is a big thing for us to invest in."

"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."

"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."

More FlexPod XCS 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

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

22%

Performing Arts

10%

Educational Organization

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	182

Questions from the Community

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The support is highly responsive.

See all answers

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

Dell PowerFlex is a premium software-defined infrastructure solution and while the initial investment may seem higher than traditional SAN or mid-tier HCI solutions, the long-term TCO is competitive.

See all answers

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

See all answers

Comparisons

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 38% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

HPE ConvergedSystem vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 16% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 14% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

VxRail vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

November 2025

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

November 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

No data available

Overview

Dell PowerFlex is a software-defined storage infrastructure delivering modern architecture and versatile deployment for on-premises or cloud. It achieves high performance, scalable storage, and workload consolidation through advanced automation.

PowerFlex's VMware compatibility ensures seamless integration, offering flexibility in compute and storage scaling. With its hyper-converged infrastructure, it caters to AI, cloud, and database environments, providing robust automation, resilience, and security. Flexible deployment options are complemented by a single-window management system, prioritizing cost optimization. However, enhancements are needed in monitoring tools, user interface, and AI functionality. Migration from Hyper-V and licensing flexibility also require attention, while improved documentation could simplify usage. Integration with services and streamlined upgrade processes are essential.

What are the key features of Dell PowerFlex?

VMware Compatibility: Ensures smooth integration and flexibility in deployment.
Scalability: Independently scales compute and storage resources as needed.
High Availability: Maintains continuous availability across deployed systems.
Low Latency Performance: Optimizes storage and compute operations for minimal delays.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: Combines compute, storage, and networking for streamlined operations.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Ease of Management: Simplifies administration with a unified management interface.
Cost Optimization: Provides opportunities for reduced operational costs.
Flexibility: Offers diverse deployment options tailored to specific needs.
Automation Tools: Enhances efficiency through robust automation capabilities.
Robust Storage Capacity: Supports growing data requirements with substantial storage options.

PowerFlex is essential in industries requiring support for mission-critical workloads and large-scale applications. It is instrumental for deploying storage, compute nodes, hyper-converged infrastructure, and private clouds. The platform integrates compute, storage, and networking, optimizing performance for modern applications like AI video analytics and disaster recovery.

Dell Technologies

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: October 2025.

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