FlexPod XCS vs Oracle Private Cloud Appliance comparison

NetApp and Oracle are both solutions in the Converged Infrastructure category. NetApp is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.4, while Oracle is ranked #4 with an average rating of 10.0. NetApp holds a 9.2% mindshare in CI, compared to Oracle’s 15.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Oracle users who would recommend it.

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

1,666 Views
583 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Read 6 Oracle Private Cloud Appliance reviews

680 Views
646 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 2, 2025

FlexPod XCS and Oracle Private Cloud Appliance compete in the private cloud infrastructure category. FlexPod XCS is advantageous with pricing and support satisfaction, while Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is highlighted for its feature set that many find justifies its cost.

Features: FlexPod XCS is notable for scalability, versatile integration, and robust data management systems. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance features powerful automation, streamlined configuration, and comprehensive solution orchestration.

Room for Improvement: FlexPod XCS could enhance its setup process and streamline deployment. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance might benefit from improving initial cost barriers and expanding support for a wider range of integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Oracle Private Cloud Appliance offers a simplified deployment model with efficient customer service, while FlexPod XCS provides a more extensive setup process with responsive support services.

Pricing and ROI: FlexPod XCS ensures competitive setup costs and attractive ROI through cost-effective scaling. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, though higher in initial investment, offers substantial returns by handling demanding workloads, promising long-term savings.

To learn more, read our detailed FlexPod XCS vs. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS vs. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

July 2025

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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

FlexPod XCS

Ranking in Converged Infrastructure

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Ranking in Converged Infrastructure

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Converged Infrastructure category, the mindshare of FlexPod XCS is 9.2%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is 15.2%, up from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

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.

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Offers comprehensive support and performance but initial deployment requires expertise

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance ( /products/oracle-private-cloud-appliance-reviews ) is a complete solution that includes built-in hypervisor management and Appliance Manager, and integrates with Oracle Cloud ( /products/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-oci-reviews ) Infrastructure. It simplifies the management of virtual machines, networking, compute, and storage, allowing me to create multiple virtual machines easily without logging into the storage system. It offers free licensing of Oracle Linux ( /products/oracle-linux-reviews ) and Solaris, and provides high-performance capabilities through extreme performance storage options. Additionally, the product ensures comprehensive customer support.

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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

"The ease of expansion is the most valuable feature."

"We have seen a 20 percent improvement in application performance."

"The solution has granular scalability."

"I really like the architecture and I like the fact that on the storage side I can swap it out. Right now I'm on NetApp, I might go to Pure Storage. I have the flexibility. But as far as the equipment itself, the way it's all bundled together, from the UCS perspective, its rock solid."

"I have never seen a more resilient HA product out there then NetApp's solution. If I want to know that I'm putting my workload on a solution, from a storage perspective, that is going to be up 100% of the time, I'm going to choose NetApp."

"It is a very well-thought-out solution with great virtualization. A good option we have is mapping a storage LUN onto an ESX cluster. That way, in case a particular ESX is down, it can migrate (using vMotion) to another host in the cluster, resulting in high-availability."

"We save days of work when doing new service deployments. With LUN clones we have a template provisioned for the image of our hypervisor on our NetApps, and we can deploy a brand new hypervisor in under an hour. Everything is scripted. We just clone a template LUN and boot from SAN, so there are no single points of failure."

"FlexPod has improved our company as far as ease of management, stability, and redundancy."

More FlexPod XCS pros

"The most valuable features include distinct storage within the Oracle PCA."

"It has helped us to reduce Oracle licensing costs for database and applications."

"You will find the high availability and License Team with Oracle very valuable."

"Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is a complete solution that includes built-in hypervisor management and Appliance Manager, and integrates with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure."

"Supports connection to most of network topology, such as VLAN and network segmentation."

"It is scalable as the box can be increased by one compute node, if required."

Cons

"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."

"FlexPod XCS' pricing could be cheaper. You need to find the right person for support."

"Parts of the initial setup were complex, especially on the networking side."

"I would like to have the installation of the top virtualization on its own rather than doing it through the admin. For example, if FlexPod is configured after the configuration of the host, the ESXi is installed also, but it should be part of it rather than doing it as a separate system."

"There have been issues upgrading the firmware."

"If they could reduce some of the complexity at the system manager level for ONTAP. I find it gives a lot of flexibility. You can do as much or as little as you want. But to be able to do as little as you want, you do have to do a lot. So, if they could bring that down to a more manageable effort level, that would be nice and simplify it a bit."

"As the industry as a whole is moving more toward the simplification of IT, that is something where both Cisco and NetApp could look to improve further. Just simplifying the day to day management, the day to day issues that arise, and building more intuitiveness into the interfaces would help."

"I want to use the expansion to its fullest extent, scaling by deploying 10 to 15 virtual missions in a given FlexPod."

More FlexPod XCS cons

"In comparison to competitors like VMware, there's a perceived need for Oracle to enhance OVM, making it more flexible and user-friendly."

"The deployment process of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is complicated and requires significant knowledge for initial configuration."

"Patching processing takes a long time. Only one compute node is patched at a time."

"OVM Manager Interface is using HTML5. It should be reconverted to be a Java interface."

"The initial setup was very complex."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your company really needs to be up 100% of the time, and you need to do a private data center, I don't know if I could realistically actually recommend another blueprint."

"We purchased FlexPod though Datalink."

"Licensing can be interesting with the new version because of the Intersight integration. I don't know what that looks like yet. I have seen some of the different licensing models, but with the new purchasing, all customers are going to have to buy some sort of Intersight licensing with the Blades or FlexPod. I am curious to see how that option shakes out. Previous to the UCS X-Series, the licensing was the same."

"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."

"We have reduced our manpower with the solution."

"Everything is purchased, so we do not do any leasing with this product."

"The main return on investment would be that instead of having to refresh all of our desktop hardware we have been able to go reimage existing machines and use those as thin clients, then also purchase new thin clients rather than buying actual hardware. It also reduces the overhead of having our technicians deploy those systems and maintain them."

"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

"No licenses for the shipped software or firmware."

"It is relatively cost-effective."

"If you have many Oracle products, such as databases, middleware, and apps, it will help you reduce Oracle app licences and support costs."

"It is more expensive than the normal solution or the hyper-converged system."

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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

Manufacturing Company

20%

Educational Organization

13%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

25%

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

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What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

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What do you like most about Oracle Private Cloud Appliance?

The most valuable features include distinct storage within the Oracle PCA.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Oracle Private Cloud Appliance?

The deployment process of Oracle Private Cloud Appliance is complicated and requires significant knowledge for initial configuration. Streamlining and simplifying the deployment process would make ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Oracle Private Cloud Appliance?

I use Oracle Private Cloud Appliance ( /products/oracle-private-cloud-appliance-reviews ) as a complete solution for hypervisor management. It includes a built-in hypervisor, Appliance Manager, and...

See all answers

Comparisons

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VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

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Compared 23% of the time

Rackspace OpenStack vs Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Compared 22% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Compared 20% of the time

Oracle SuperCluster vs Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

Compared 18% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

July 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Buyer's Guide

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

June 2025

Download Oracle Private Cloud Appliance product report

Overview

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

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, is an integrated infrastructure system engineered to enable rapid deployment of converged compute, network, and storage technologies for hosting applications or workloads on a guest OS. It is a data center-class system that provides incremental and scalable performance optimized for consolidation of mixed workloads.

Oracle

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Agnitum Information Technologies, Mediacloud, Xait AS, Atos Global Managed Services, CaixaBI, ICA AB, BT Spain, Secure-24, Xait

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS vs. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

July 2025

Free Report: FlexPod XCS vs. Oracle Private Cloud Appliance

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