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HPE SimpliVity vs Rackspace OpenStack comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

HPE SimpliVity
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
HCI (6th)
Rackspace OpenStack
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. HPE SimpliVity is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 8.6%, down 10.4% compared to last year.
Rackspace OpenStack, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 4.3% mindshare, up 2.1% since last year.
HCI
Converged Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Xavier Perez - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a deployment phase that is straightforward but needs improvement in the area of scalability
The main issue with HPE SimpliVity is that you are very attached to VMware or VMware dependencies because the tool works with VMware technology. HPE SimpliVity is an add-on from VMware. Nowadays, my company has a lot of concerns about VMware's licensing policy. Another big concern of the tool is related to security because one has to continuously update patch vulnerabilities that are appearing continuously in VMware's different versions. Actually, the foundation of all the architecture is VMware and that is one of the main issues with the tool. My company is analyzing our virtual infrastructure strategy to see if we can move to Nutanix because maybe it may work better and might have another approach. Nutanix is absolutely independent of VMware. I could add that since HPE SimpliVity is very precisely dependent on VMware, it is not open to containers unlike Nutanix, for example. The aforementioned area is a concern that needs to be resolved by HPE.
Hai Dinh Van - PeerSpot reviewer
Open-source nature enables seamless cloud management and customer transition
We deploy layer three managed services, and our customers manage layer two services. We combine the two-layer services and deliver them to our customers The open-source nature of OpenStack provides significant value. It allows for three-word cloud management, maintaining a stable customer…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The rate of compression for the data in SimpliVity is the most valuable feature."
"SimpliVity works well in a UAT environment.."
"The built-in backup and quick restore are good features."
"The compression and deduplication features are most valuable because they allow us to have a small footprint for storage. It is a very stable product, and we are also able to get all that we need in terms of reporting."
"Its simplicity is most valuable. The management is easy, and you don't have to have a lot of knowledge about storage, network, etc. It is simple to manage and simple to implement, and that's its key feature."
"No SAN switches and having a native backup is pretty cool."
"SimpliVity has hardware acceleration, which frees up CPU utilization."
"The ease of managing this system."
"Rackspace OpenStack is stable and reliable, often compared favorably against other solutions."
"The initial setup isn't too difficult."
"The open-source nature of OpenStack provides significant value."
"There are many services that can be directly used which are not available in VMware."
"The documentation was plentiful and very helpful.​"
"I like its integration with GitLab and its simplicity. OpenStack has a lot of third-party libraries that it uses."
"The solution is stable."
"It was a very flexible and scalable solution. It was very useful because we were not dependent on a single vendor's solution. Increasing the number of machines or changing the hardware configuration was very easy."
 

Cons

"If there was anything I would like to see, it would be indexed backups."
"I think that they should have their own hyper-converged system."
"The stability and scalability of the product are areas of concern where improvements are required."
"We have had some failures out-of-the-box. We have had some failures with the OmniStack module. One thing that we didn't fully understand was how much of the internal memory was used up by the OmniStack piece, which basically makes up SimpliVity."
"I would like some reporting about backup and replication."
"They should optimize the administration stack because it is consuming too much memory. It ends up consuming 20% of memory. They have another product for this feature, but I would like to have this feature within HPE SimpliVity."
"An area for improvement would be the flexibility of server configuration."
"We had minor problems with the initial setup but it was with our internal infrastructure."
"The seamless integration between MySQL services and the rabbitMQ database can be revised during the debugging phase."
"OpenStack is difficult for the novice in terms of beginning to use cloud tools."
"VMware has a side-to-side replication feature, which is still more mature than Rackspace OpenStack's which can't be used in a production environment."
"OpenStack's UI, while user-friendly, could be improved to offer a more intuitive experience."
"The deployment process could be easy."
"The pricing of Rackspace is quite high in the Vietnam market."
"The pricing of Rackspace is quite high in the Vietnam market."
"The line migration is a problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Scaling isn't cheap"
"For three years, it is $60,000 for three nodes. It is quite pricey."
"The solution is expensive; not every budget can fit in there."
"The only thing that I think we are paying for is the VMware licenses, but we are enterprise, so it is not horrible."
"HPE SimpliVity is much more affordable than Nutanix or VMware vSAN...The first pair of servers was about 90,000 EUR, including three years of warranty. It is 30,000 EUR per year."
"There is not a license required for the solution."
"The licensing cost could be lower."
"For the VMware licensing, it is approximately $10,000 a year."
"I use it as an open-source tool."
"The pricing is low."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Computer Software Company
20%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Rackspace OpenStack?
Apart from the main features, I really appreciate OpenStack's microservices architecture and its flexibility for deployment with different tools.
What needs improvement with Rackspace OpenStack?
The pricing of Rackspace is quite high in the Vietnam market. It would be beneficial to see developments in features like threat prevention and analytics tools for network security within OpenStack.
What is your primary use case for Rackspace OpenStack?
We deploy layer three managed services, and our customers manage layer two services. We combine the two-layer services and deliver them to our customers.
 

Also Known As

SimpliVity, HPE HCI
OpenStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
X.commerce
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: April 2025.
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