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Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

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
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell PowerFlex is 13.3%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 16.4%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Ayodeji  Oyewole - PeerSpot reviewer
A hyper-converged infrastructure that is like a mini data center of its own
There are two categories, namely, the appliances and the racks. The partners are able to set up the Dell PowerFlex appliances, but not fully. The partners are able to physically set up the appliances, while the OEM will set them up logically. The PowerFlex racks are fully set up by the OEM, both physically and logically. The solution's initial setup is not pretty straightforward in emerging markets at the moment.
Lipaz Hessel - PeerSpot reviewer
Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation
I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."
"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."
"Dell PowerFlex is a complete hyperconverge that makes automation easy to manage and extremely stable."
"Saves us a lot of space in the data center."
"The program is stable."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is integration."
"The most valuable feature is high availability."
"This solution has a dashboard that you can log into and control if you need too while the VM is getting created."
"We find it easy to deliver this solution."
"The solution fits well with my requirements."
"The valuable features of vSAN are that you can get it up and running quickly, you get redundancy built-in, and it's pretty much the perfect solution for a cluster."
"You get the benefit of local storage, but you have the protection of shared storage."
"VMware vSAN is an easy to use and easy to manage storage solution. Deploying and upgrading are easy. Technical support is very good."
"Flexibility, growth, and expansion are probably the more important features for us. As our environment grows, the more users come on, the more VDI workstations that we need, we can easily expand either horizontally or vertically with the environment"
"Very easy to implement in any existing environment."
 

Cons

"The solution’s automation and pricing could be improved."
"They should provide continuous support for data migration."
"We are still hoping for better ways to incorporate AI. We have to extend third-party access to PowerFlex by calling the API. It would be easier if the product had built-in AI integration. If PowerFlex can contribute more to AI, it would be more useful."
"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."
"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."
"Including instrumentation would be a helpful improvement."
"They need to work on improving the overhead for protecting the data."
"The solution must be more flexible."
"When designing the implementation for vSAN, I have noticed that it requires a minimum of six nodes, and this creates a problem when it comes to maintenance. If, out of the six nodes, I put one node in maintenance mode, then vSAN does not create other VM components."
"More focus has to be put on deduplication and compression with a hybrid architecture."
"I would like for the next release to be a bit cheaper."
"Enterprise customers get discounts on the solution's licensing pricing, but it is too expensive for SMB customers."
"Its installation should be easier, and its price should be cheaper. It would be good for the product if they can include the data locality feature."
"This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work."
"I see room for improvement with vSAN in particularly in the reporting realm. Now, with vSAN 6.7, they're starting to include vRealize Operations components in the vSphere Client, even if you're not a vRealize Operations customer. So, that's really good. It exposes some really low-level reporting. I would like to see more of that. However, you have to be a vRealize Operations customer to obtain that. I would like to see more include of this included in the vSAN licensing."
"Hardware load balancing is available on the enterprise version of the solution, however, it's extremely expensive and therefore out of our budget."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."
"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"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."
"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."
"I would like to use more advanced models of the solution but the price needs to be reduced. There are some extra costs for this solution including a license."
"There is a license required for this solution, it is a one-time payment. However, if they want support for the solution, it can be paid annually or for three years."
"The licenses are very expensive. The renewal of licenses has extra costs attached to it."
"The cost of VMware vSAN is reasonable."
"The price of the solution package depends on the nodes and other factors. The cost some of our customers paid was $500,000. The licensing cost for the components is very good."
"Perhaps a bundle, like Essentials, would allow more businesses to make the leap to the product."
"There is a license to use this solution and we pay approximately $30,000 annually. There were not any additional fees required other than the license. The solution is expensive."
"I feel the pricing to be reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
52%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?
From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users.
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
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...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
 

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex
vSAN
 

Overview

 

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
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerFlex vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.