Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #4 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 7.0% mindshare in the category. NetApp is ranked #2 in CI , and holds a 12.3% 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

8,176 Views
7,440 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

3,863 Views
1,932 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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

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

Dell PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (4th)

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 7.0%, down 12.9% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.3% mindshare, up 8.6% since last year.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerFlex	7.0%
VxRail	13.2%
VMware vSAN	10.7%
Other	69.1%

HCI

Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FlexPod XCS	12.3%
HPE ConvergedSystem	11.7%
Dell VxBlock System	9.4%
Other	66.6%

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

"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."

"The tool's most valuable features are its price and flexibility. It has high performance."

"The solution was connected to alternate storage. It provides great scalability and reliability."

"PowerFlex allows us to scale compute and storage resources independently, which is extremely valuable for optimizing costs and right-sizing infrastructure based on workload demands, particularly in environments with variable AI and database workloads."

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

"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."

"The solution is scalable."

"My overall product rating would be nine out of ten."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"The assurance and the peace of mind that we get from knowing if we had an issue with either the NetApp equipment, Cisco equipment, or our VMware enviroment, we can call one number for support, then everyone works together and nobody is pointing fingers all over the place."

"The solution’s validated designs for major enterprise apps are also extremely important in our organization. We don't always have time to research products and solutions ourselves. By going with a validated design, we're assured that it's the latest and greatest. It's supported by the three major vendors that we deal with."

"There are very many features, but from experience, the single point of contact for support has been valuable to our customers."

"The Validated Designs are very good because they act as a reference to see whether we have done things properly."

"It's a kind of one-stop shop as far as support goes."

"Our footprint is lower than it used to be."

"The flexibility, operational efficiency, and scalability of FlexPod has been a huge factor for us because our customers have workloads that need to run on classical HTTPs, flash storage, or possibly in the cloud. This flexibility and enhanced ability of the solution is very important for this. We trust in it."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate different products into one validated design. That allows customers to understand and get the value out of the hardware, as it was designed."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"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."

"They should provide continuous support for data migration."

"It could be easier to learn."

"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."

"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."

"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."

"The level of support needs improvement as the front-line support staff lack knowledge when we raise cases."

"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities."

"The biggest thing that I would like to see is more cost-effective FlexPod solutions."

"It would be great to see some form of interoperability between the FAS units and the E-Series, specifically for replication, even if it is just one more replication from a FAS to an E-Series. That would be amazing."

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

"For the next release, because I know that we are using Pure Storage, what I want to see is the GUI interfaces on this UCS monitor."

"Our environment does not always require this solution, so we are not reaping the optimal ROI."

"Not a perfect ten because it could use better integration on the network side between UCS and the switching layer. The fact that LACP is not supported on UCS blades isn't so great. It would be nice if it was."

"One of the things that I've wanted would be availability of a health status, similar to Active IQ from my converged platform, on an app. I have dashboards so I can see the health of the system when I'm in the office, but when I'm not in the office I can't."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."

"The solution's price is medium."

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

"The price could be improved."

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."

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

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

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"We have seen an 80 percent improvement in application performance."

"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."

"Storage is very expensive. To buy MIC cards and additional storage either on-prem or in the cloud, the IT department does not have money for it, so you need a more niche product or a more flexible way to store your data. That is the benefit that you get from this product."

"We pay approximately $1,400 USD in total for between five-thousand and ten-thousand ports."

"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."

"We have seen a five to ten percent savings on new service deployments."

"The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for."

"Anytime that you are buying any storage make sure you understand storage. Do not just buy storage based on what somebody sells you in terms of IO or throughput."

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

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare Company

Marketing Services Firm

31%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Performing Arts

Educational Organization

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 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 needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerFlex?

Area of Improvement: While PowerFlex Manager is powerful, the UI could be more intuitive, especially for first-time users or non-technical admins. Streamlined navigation, contextual help and guided...

See all answers

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Comparisons

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 41% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

Scale Computing Platform vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

HPE ConvergedSystem vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

Fujitsu PRIMEFLEX vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 7% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

February 2026

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

February 2026

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: January 2026.

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