Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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
8.5
HPE SimpliVity significantly reduces costs, offers quick ROI, and enhances performance for financial benefits and operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.4
StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, high-performance data solutions, with quick deployment, reduced downtime, and excellent return on investment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
2.5
HPE SimpliVity's customer service is praised for knowledgeable support, despite transition challenges, with room for improved documentation.
Sentiment score
8.4
StarWind Virtual SAN offers highly responsive, 24/7 support with quick resolutions and expert guidance, ensuring a stress-free experience.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
HPE SimpliVity is scalable and suitable for small to medium businesses, but may not fit larger enterprises' needs.
Sentiment score
7.8
StarWind Virtual SAN excels in scalable growth with flexible, efficient handling and enhanced performance through licensing for evolving needs.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
HPE SimpliVity offers stable, efficient performance with minimal disruptions, effective support, and reliable zero downtime even in large deployments.
Sentiment score
8.6
StarWind Virtual SAN offers reliable performance and support, excelling in uptime and data management even amidst hardware failures.
 

Room For Improvement

HPE SimpliVity struggles with limited integration, complex upgrades, slow restoration, costly pricing, and lacks flexibility in scaling and management.
StarWind Virtual SAN requires improved documentation, enhanced tools, user interface, management features, and better cross-platform and cloud integration.
 

Setup Cost

HPE SimpliVity offers competitive pricing and value with straightforward licensing, appealing to organizations focused on efficiency and consolidation.
StarWind Virtual SAN offers flexible, cost-effective pricing with scalable, low-cost setup and valued support, ideal for budget-conscious enterprises.
 

Valuable Features

HPE SimpliVity offers efficient storage optimization, integrated backup, user-friendly management, and scalable performance with vSphere integration.
StarWind Virtual SAN excels in high availability, seamless integration, cost-effectiveness, and performance, ensuring uninterrupted operations and scalability.
 

Categories and Ranking

HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
189
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 9.6%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

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.
MIT - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up and maintain with good performance capabilities
Feature-wise we are only waiting for the release of a "planned disaster" feature that would allow us to patch a hypervisor node without having to take the full storage offline. ATM (20220609) is still necessary, since taking a node offline without properly activating the maintenance mode on the vSAN would trigger a full sync of the vSAN nodes. This is fine and a good thing since it ensures data integrity. However, there is something in the making that would ensure integrity without a full sync after a node goes down, which, as stated above, one could "abuse" to patch (and boot = take down) the hypervisors during business hours 😁 Other than that, the thing is rock stable and chugging along without issues. We are an SMB so we "only" have around 50 VMs on our FO cluster, which is a medium load for SSDs. If you plan to go more to the "max" side of performance use, do proper testing!
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

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 StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
Choose StarWind Virtual SAN, it is the most flexible, reliable and cheap solution.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
While using StarWind Virtual SAN so far, I have not found anything missing. It is true that we are using it in a very strict project in which we were looking for a solution that would satisfy a str...
 

Also Known As

SimpliVity, HPE HCI
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.