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Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs HPE SimpliVity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
3.7
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes offer 30-40% savings despite integration issues, leveraging existing staff to reduce operating expenses.
Sentiment score
8.5
HPE SimpliVity offers varying ROI timelines, significant cost savings, reduced complexity, and easy VM expansion, reported by users.
The OPEX benefits are around 30 to 40% because the same engineer who manages vSphere can handle Dell vSAN Ready Nodes, eliminating the need for additional support engineers.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.0
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes support is rated positively, though response times can be slow, with varying service quality.
Sentiment score
6.0
HPE SimpliVity is praised for responsive, knowledgeable support, despite minor issues with response times and documentation accessibility.
If we require a replacement part, the engagement is usually within four hours
There is always room for improvement in terms of response time and reaching knowledgeable staff quickly.
Whether we have pro support plus or just the basic level, they are helpful and reliable as long as we provide the necessary details.
The technical support from the HPE side is excellent, and I give them 10 out of 10.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.2
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes offer scalability and flexibility, though costs and resource needs pose challenges for larger deployments.
Sentiment score
6.7
HPE SimpliVity offers easy scalability but may face limitations and flexibility issues in large enterprise environments.
With VCF we have significant automation built-in within the VCF console within SDDC manager as the primary management console.
I would rate scalability around seven because when customers want to expand capacity but all the drive slots are full, they are forced to buy new servers or nodes which adds more costs with licenses and hardware.
With HPE, customers can scale up the HPE SimpliVity solution anytime.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.1
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes are stable and reliable, with high stability ratings, though performance and disk issues require management.
Sentiment score
8.5
HPE SimpliVity is highly stable and reliable, with most issues linked to external factors, earning high user ratings.
A disk group for five disks can be problematic, and customers need to tolerate downtime if the disk is not available.
From HPE's side, it is stable, and customers find it easy to manage and easy to grow.
 

Room For Improvement

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes need better scalability, automation, cost-efficiency, integration, support, and updates to address current customer challenges.
HPE SimpliVity requires improved integration, faster updates, enhanced features, simplified interface, better support, and expanded cloud compatibility.
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes are useful as a product, but the lack of expansion with VMware has led customers to refrain from further upgrades.
A faster firmware lifecycle with the release of validated firmware catalogs more quickly would be a desired improvement.
I would want VMware to ensure that when there's a hardware failure on a host, it should gracefully migrate the VMs to another host available in the cluster without restarting, which would be a great improvement.
In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination.
 

Setup Cost

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes are initially costly but cost-effective long-term, with competitive pricing and annual licensing considerations.
HPE SimpliVity offers cost-effective hyper-converged solutions with competitive pricing and lower total ownership costs compared to alternatives.
As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to our considerable business dealings.
 

Valuable Features

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes offer compact design, scalability, and robust security, enhancing performance and user experience with single-vendor support.
HPE SimpliVity provides efficient data management with deduplication, backup, and recovery, enhancing performance and reducing complexity and costs.
It is stable, and similar to any issues on a standalone machine, there's resilience; if we lose one host, data will not be lost because of the technology on vSAN that allows us to free up that host into maintenance mode without issues.
The ability for single-team management without requiring a separate storage team for managing arrays and fiber channel switches is also a valuable feature.
Dell's technical support is generally very good.
HPE SimpliVity is the best solution for customers because its compression capacity meets customer requirements, and it is a very robust solution.
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes
Ranking in HCI
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
154
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell vSAN Ready Nodes is 2.8%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 8.6%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE SimpliVity8.6%
Dell vSAN Ready Nodes2.8%
Other88.6%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

KuldeepSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience improved efficiency and customer satisfaction with enhanced integration and management capabilities
Scalability involves two types of environments: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and non-VCF environment where we use VMware Validated Foundation. With VCF we have significant automation built-in within the VCF console within SDDC manager as the primary management console. For non-VCF environments, it depends on customer choice. For small environments, we do manual scalability and sometimes use Terraform scripts to keep the host ready and add in the cluster automatically. For large environments with frequent scalability actions, we propose the Terraform solution that builds ESXi, does necessary configuration, and automatically starts up for associating with the existing environment. If scaling is infrequent, with one or two hosts per month, it is a manual job. From a challenge perspective, it seems easier, with just a few pre-checks regarding make and model compatibility, disks, and server health on the hardware level.
Mohammed Lokman Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Has integrated solutions and rapid recovery made management smoother and more reliable
There is the latest update from HPE regarding HPE SimpliVity. For virtualization, HPE has to depend on other manufacturers, OEMs such as VMware or Hyper-V. Recently, HPE declared the VM essential virtualization solution. In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination. Functionality-wise, I am totally satisfied with HPE SimpliVity, but for improvement, if HPE integrates its own virtualization solution, this combination and integration will be beneficial because this integration can be configured with the cloud-based system. A VM can be uploaded to the cloud from this, which will be advantageous for backup to other sites.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business67
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
If I consider the overall product, I would say that it is an excellent solution that offers very good performance and stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
There is no specific licensing model for vSAN ReadyNodes as it is linked with Broadcom VMware's solutions rather than Dell's. As a group under Comcast, we receive very good pricing from Dell due to...
What needs improvement with Dell vSAN Ready Nodes?
The Dell vSAN Ready Nodes can be improved if Broadcom reverts to VMware's previous licensing approach because they've made it difficult for smaller environments to consume the product. Most of our ...
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 ...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
The price is almost equal to VMware vSAN, making it not much cost saving. However, the time-saving during upgrades is notable.
 

Also Known As

vSAN Ready Nodes
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs. HPE SimpliVity and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.