Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs VxRail comparison

Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes and VxRail are both solutions in the HCI category. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is ranked #24, while VxRail is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes holds a 0.5% mindshare in HCI, compared to VxRail’s 19.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of VxRail users who would recommend it.

Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

Read 2 Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes reviews

478 Views
371 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VxRail

Read 131 VxRail reviews

20,382 Views
13,420 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

VxRail

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

VxRail and Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes are hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. VxRail seems to have an upper hand with features and user satisfaction, while VxFlex Ready Nodes provide a more robust and scalable architecture for specific infrastructure demands.

Features: VxRail features seamless VMware integration, simplified management, and automated lifecycle management, fitting well in VMware-centric environments. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes offer flexibility with multi-hypervisor support, a highly scalable design, and robust performance, providing superior adaptability for various architectures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VxRail offers a streamlined deployment and strong customer support, reducing setup complexity. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes have a more complex deployment model due to customization options, requiring more initial effort but enabling tailored solutions. VxRail has an advantage in deployment ease.

Pricing and ROI: VxRail typically has a higher upfront cost, with integration efficiencies and lifecycle tools contributing to quicker ROI in VMware ecosystems. Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes present variable pricing based on configuration, potentially offering lower costs for specific setups and long-term ROI benefits for adaptable infrastructure needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs. VxRail Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs. VxRail

March 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 844,944 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 VxFlex Ready Nodes

Ranking in HCI

24th

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VxRail

Ranking in HCI

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

131

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is 0.5%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 19.0%, down from 21.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Al Vasek

Executive Business Development Manager, Cloud and Managed Services at Presidio Networked Solutions

Ease of acquisition, simple deployment, and priced well

The support from Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is okay. It could be better, they have to work on their approach. The approach they have I call "pass the baton". Every manufacturer does this, such as Cisco, Dell, and Microsoft. You call in, receive a call handler, and give them your problem. The first person you talk to can never fix your problem. They just collect information. There's probably a 5 percent chance that they could fix your problem. Then they pass it off to the next person, there is a lot of passing. That's why I call it "pass the baton". The company I work for the maintenance services is at 98 percent, we receive over 50,000 incidents a month, for those customers who have support through Dell, Cisco, or someone else, 98 percent of our incidents or ticket requests get resolved by your first point of contact. We try to take out that frustration. Knowing that it's possible to fix that model. I don't think it saves them much money, because they're tying up too many resources where if they could route those incidents to the person that could fix them the first time, it would just save a lot of frustration on the customer's behalf. It would make everything a lot more efficient, and a better overall customer support image. It is a bad model that many vendors use.

Read full review

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades

The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.

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 features of Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes are the ease of acquisition."

"Dell EMC VxFlex Ready Nodes can support what we call a heterogeneous environment. So you can have VMware workloads, Hyper-V workloads, bare metal Red Hat workloads, Kubernetes workloads all on the same cluster. You're not pigeonholed into either all bare metal or all virtualized. So it supports basically any platform."

"VxRail does not require fiber switches or external storage. It's easy to replace and manage. It's centralized management through VxRail Manager."

"VxRail simplifies IT infrastructure management by providing a single management console for compute, storage, and network. The second advantage is that VxRail offers a continuously validated architecture from the OEM. This means that Dell thoroughly tests all firmware updates before being released or installed on the product, helping to prevent compatibility issues. The third benefit is its ten-year roadmap. Dell consistently announces a roadmap for the product spanning the next decade."

"VxRail's integration with VMware environments is very good. Our VxRail is built on VMware, and the integration is seamless. We haven't faced any challenges. We can migrate VMs between servers in real-time and replicate them to our DR site without any problems."

"Low-maintenance solution with hyperscale feature so it has the ability to utilize the resources for the VMware cluster setup on which Citrix VDA runs."

"It is very powerful. We find that to be the most valuable aspect. The movement of devices between nodes is very easy."

"This product has given us clear visibility into what we need technology-wise to grow."

"like VxRail because it's fully integrated. The other hyperconverged solutions are also well integrated. They are all highly similar to each other in that regard. But we prefer VxRail for its physical integrations or lifecycle management. It also has vCenter, which integrates the hardware lifecycle management."

"VxRail's technical support is very good."

More VxRail pros

Cons

"Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is a little less sophisticated than some of the other solutions out there. A full-blown cloud foundation has a lot more to it."

"From a technical perspective, it's a pretty rock solid solution. I would say the only area for improvement is around its price."

"At present, VxRail is a hyperconverged state of the art product being installed in a legacy way. We need hyperconverged install teams."

"If they can provide deduplication compression through the traditional hard drives, as Cisco does in the HyperFlex system, it will be very cost-effective, especially when it comes to archiving workload. VxRail doesn't allow the mixing of old flash clusters and hyper clusters. When I'm starting with an old flash cluster and it comes to archiving workload, I will also need to attend the new cluster. So, I either manage two different clusters, or I pay and upload my work with the archiving mobile hard drive, which is not cost-effective at all. The main key is to allow mixing between two types of clustering, like Nutanix, or allow deduplication of completion over the period of shared hard drive on SAV. It will be much better."

"if we're looking at costs, Nutanix will win because it allows flexibility in the type of hardware you can use."

"Sometimes during implementation, you can some scripting errors. And there are some issues when we update the version. There are some issues like the version will not get updated or stable at some time. Dell needs to resolve these problems, we don't waste time fixing them."

"The SCL database sends out a warning and you have to download the adjacent file from the Dell website. You have to upload it and retest it. We cannot always connect our systems to the internet which means we sometimes miss these important updates."

"The price should come down a little bit. It has become better than it was at the beginning. There was a really big price difference between a hyper-converged infrastructure and the classic servers and storage. The gap is lessening, however, it's still there."

"It would be nice if its installation can be simplified, but it is currently not too bad. They can provide deduplication and compression in hybrid configurations. To the best of my knowledge, these features are not there, and it would be nice if these are added. Some of its competitors already have these features, so it will help VxRail to have a better feature set and compete more effectively."

"The tool needs to improve its price."

More VxRail cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes is a cheaper solution than Nutanix and HyperFlex."

"The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there."

"VxRail is expensive because it's based on VMware and V-SAN. The price is not the cheapest. The technical support is expensive, but it is a good service."

"At about $200,000, this solution is a little bit pricey but it is more economical than others such as Nutanix or Cisco Hyperflex."

"The product is expensive compared to other solutions."

"It's a highly expensive solution"

"I live in Brazil, and my customers are from Brazil. It is quite an expensive solution. It is more expensive than the traditional environment."

"The pricing is very accurate, and we haven't had any problems with the licensing costs."

"Compare the VxRail product to Nutanix. Nutanix has more features, but its pricing is higher."

More VxRail pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Retailer

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

Comparisons

Dell PowerFlex vs Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes

Compared 25% of the time

More Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes Competitors

Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail

Compared 32% of the time

VMware vSAN vs VxRail

Compared 22% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail

Compared 7% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs VxRail

Compared 1% of the time

More VxRail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HCI

March 2025

Download Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes product report

Buyer's Guide

VxRail

March 2025

Download VxRail product report

Also Known As

VxFlex Ready Nodes

VCE VxRail

Overview

VxRack FLEX and VxFlex Ready Nodes, also known as the Flex family, create a server-based SAN by combining virtualization software, known as VxFlex OS, with Dell EMC PowerEdge servers to deliver flexibility, scalability, and capacity on demand. Local storage resources are combined to create a virtual pool of block storage with varying performance tiers. The platform enables you to start small (with as little as four nodes) and scale incrementally. The Flex family provides enterprise-grade data protection, multi-tenant capabilities, and add-on enterprise features such as QoS, thin provisioning, and snapshots. VxFlex OS is the key enabler and provides an unmatched combination of performance, resiliency and flexibility to address enterprise data center needs. The unique features of VxFlex OS make it an excellent complement to Kubernetes for stateful applications, such as databases, continuous integration, logging and monitoring platforms.

Dell Technologies

VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance based on VMware virtual SAN Software and is jointly engineered and built with VMware, for VMware, to enhance Vmware. VxRail software-defined architecture simplifies compute, storage, virtualization, and management. It will safeguard performance, reliability, and flexibility across your organization with a broad range of workloads and applications from business-critical to next-gen. With VxRail, you are covered.

VxRail is a single turn-key appliance that is a validated, fully integrated, pre-configured, pre-tested solution and offers non-disruptive scaling. Every node includes compute storage and IO. All-flash configurations can contain between 12-28 cores per node. The storage capacity options run from 7.6 TB to 19TB with either 256 GB or 512GB of memory. Hybrid appliances may have 6-20 cores per node, 3.6 TB to 10 TB of storage capacity, and 24GB to 256 GB of memory.

VxRail offers high availability fail-over, an active/active stretch cluster, and VSan Kernal integration. VxRail is a power-edged server with APIs built on automation. There are over 15 million different combinations of hardware available with VxRail. VxRail provides a simple, cost-effective solution that solves a large range of use cases. Additionally, you also get a mixed workloads automated system that is backed with fully automated system updates, and complete end-to-end lifecycle management all in a single two-rack appliance.

VxRail is a value-added suitable solution for distributed small to mid-sized enterprises, remote offices, private clouds, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). You choose the deployment option that best suits your organizational needs, from appliance to integrated rack offerings, with or without networking, and it will be delivered to you, ready to deploy out-of-box.

If you know VMware, you know VxRail.

VxRail Features and Benefits

Seamlessly accelerate deployment to a hybrid cloud
Fast data center modernization
Create developer-ready Kubernetes platforms

Powerful performance and reliability
Improve and simplify operational efficiency
Excellent integration
Save time
Reduce costs

Reviews from Real Users

VxRail is an all-in-one solution: "You don't have to worry too much about the hardware and you don't have to work on integrating a storage device. We instead have this as an all-in-one solution and everything is available as a box."

VxRail is remarkable: “The cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail…”

VxRail is a powerful performer: “...VxRail delivers a very high number of IOPS for a hybrid configuration or an all-flash configuration. The processors that are available in the Xeon family are very powerful. They are multi-core with typically 2 gigahertz, 2.4 gigahertz, or higher frequency, so the performance is very much appreciated.”

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Boys Town

World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox

Buyer's Guide

Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs. VxRail

March 2025

Free Report: Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs. VxRail

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell VxFlex Ready Nodes vs. VxRail report.

See our list of best HCI vendors.

We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.