Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Storage Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Dell Technologies holds a 11.5% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 42.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerPath

Read 8 Dell PowerPath reviews

204 Views
58 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp ONTAP

Read 78 NetApp ONTAP reviews

809 Views
238 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Dell PowerPath

NetApp ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerPath and NetApp ONTAP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Storage Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP

March 2025

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Helped 845,040 peers since 2012

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 PowerPath

Ranking in Storage Software

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp ONTAP

Ranking in Storage Software

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 11.5%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 42.4%, up from 42.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Storage Software

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel

Senior Manager of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability

People who want to buy the solution must create a scorecard of Dell PowerPath against other products. They must run database tests. They must consider factors like pricing, performance, ease of use, visibility, and reliability. They must also run tests to understand which product recovers faster. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

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Christopher Cagayan

IT Server and Storage Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

A solution that comes with several valuable features and excellent SAN storage

NetApp ONTAP is scalable. They have two types of scalability, "scale up" and "scale out." With "scale up," you can get up to petabytes of data if you have the money to buy those servers and add them to the system. And "scale out" also, you can buy additional controllers, up to 12 nodes, which is pretty good when you are a big company. I rate the scalability a nine out of ten. NetApp is one of our organization's main storage systems. Every application is scattered on all of our NetApp devices. Applications won't run without it because they need to pull data from NetApp ONTAP.

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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 provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."

"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form."

"The product is very reliable."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."

"The user interface is good."

"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."

"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."

"The product is good at deduplication. Also, the new automation feature is good, as it saves us a lot of time."

"I would rate this solution a ten because of what NetApp provides us from a quality layout. The partnership that they provide us and their assistance is very important and the work that they communicate with us on a regular basis is outstanding."

"They have very good tech support who always answers our questions and troubleshoots our issues. They're great."

"The initial setup and deployment were straightforward"

"The single management plane in NetApp ONTAP, with BlueXP and Cloud Insights, is valuable. It allows us to see globally all physical and cloud-hosted systems within one management plane, which is a big plus."

"It most valuable feature is its stability. A product has to be stable."

"The scalability is very good. It enables us to use different product lines within the same operating system."

"We are saving more disk space which saves us more money."

More NetApp ONTAP pros

Cons

"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."

"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."

"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."

"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."

"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."

"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade."

"I would like to see more evolution towards the cloud."

"It's very expensive."

"Technical support is not in person nowadays. We have to wait a long time to get an engineer. Then, most of the time, their engineers are not good enough to understand our problems. While we might not be able to explain the problem well, or they are not able to understand the problem well, their solutions are slow to resolution. The response time for tickets is bad nowadays."

"The additional features I would like to see in ONTAP, and NetApp in general would probably be the single pane of glass software. Over the years that's probably the biggest area that we've struggled with. NetApp has had a lot of good products, but a lot of them haven't necessarily seamlessly integrated with each other and you have to go to multiple management consoles to manage their software or their hardware. From a customer point of view, I think that single pane of glass where you could just add modules and enable functionality would be the most beneficial thing that NetApp could add."

"I'm waiting for the NVMe, end-to-end."

"With our current use case, we will need something faster. E.g., if you have a huge scale, having SSD-based backup is better."

"With NetApp ONTAP, the technology is all there, but its management process needs some simplification."

"You really need OnCommand to do a lot of cool stuff with NetApp, and they make it hard to get."

More NetApp ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."

"The product is a little bit expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"There are no additional costs associated with the product."

"The price of the solution is fair."

"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."

"The licensing prices are really high."

"The solution has helped us reduce the overall cost of storage by doing an OPEX agreement with NetApp, we are paying based on utilization. Instead of fronting 30 petabytes worth of storage, we are paying for what we're using."

"We have seen ROI as we can fit a lot more storage in one rack."

"This solution helped our organization reduce our overall cost of storage. Because idle data which was residing on high cost tiers, once we sifted the ONTAP, we were able to scale and place it where it should be, then offload the data which was unnecessary to different locations."

"It helps us save money using compression and deduplication."

"NetApp is streamlined, reducing costs."

"We received a super deal for our new machine, so we were happy with the price."

"We have seen ROI, especially with the deduplication. We have a high ratio of deduplication and are way past 70 percent of our VDI, as we have almost 400TBs on our VDI. We have been able to save at least a quarter of a petabyte of space."

More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

13%

Healthcare Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Retailer

11%

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerPath?

The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerPath?

The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell PowerPath?

The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products l...

See all answers

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?

Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp ONTAP?

We do not face any glitches or downtime.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ONTAP?

NetApp provided the features required within our cost limit.

See all answers

Comparisons

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Dell PowerPath

Compared 41% of the time

More Dell PowerPath Competitors

DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 56% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP

Compared 19% of the time

More NetApp ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath

March 2025

Download Dell PowerPath product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp ONTAP

March 2025

Download NetApp ONTAP product report

Also Known As

PowerPath

No data available

Overview

EMC PowerPath: Host-based software for automated data path management, failover and recovery, and optimized load balancing. PowerPath automates, standardizes, and optimizes data paths in physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments to deliver high availability and performance.

AUTOMATE FAILOVER/RECOVERY

PowerPath automates data path failover and recovery to ensure applications are always available and remain operational.

OPTIMIZE LOAD BALANCING

Adjust I/O paths constantly to leverage all available data paths and to monitor and rebalance the dynamic environment for the best application performance.

STANDARDIZE PATH MANAGEMENT

Simplify and standardize data path management across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments.

Dell Technologies

NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimize their operations.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company

1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP

March 2025

Free Report: Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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