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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 high performance and cost savings, enhancing flexibility with reduced downtime and maintenance expenses.
We don't sell a lot of redundant servers, so it's not a massive ROI, but the ability to rely on their technical support and the software's ease of setup allows us to reduce labor costs and go to market competitively.
 

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's customer service excels with prompt, knowledgeable support, proactive solutions, and effective communication in technical scenarios.
When we set it up, they validate our settings and configurations to ensure we don't miss anything.
 

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 offers scalable, adaptable storage expansion for any size, supporting growth with minimal downtime and high performance.
I believe that scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially.
 

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 is highly stable and dependable, ensuring continuous uptime even during server or 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 improvements focus on clarity, automation, integration, performance monitoring, deduplication, encryption, scalability, and user-friendly management.
A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.
Having more visibility on what's actually happening when an error occurs would be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

HPE SimpliVity offers competitive pricing and value with straightforward licensing, appealing to organizations focused on efficiency and consolidation.
StarWind Virtual SAN is cost-effective with straightforward licensing, suitable for diverse environments, and highly valued for support.
 

Valuable Features

HPE SimpliVity offers efficient storage optimization, integrated backup, user-friendly management, and scalable performance with vSphere integration.
StarWind Virtual SAN provides easy installation, excellent support, high availability, cost-efficiency, and flexibility with user-friendly management and fast replication.
StarWind Virtual SAN helps us keep customer satisfaction and provides the solutions we need without having to hire many IT specialists.
Thanks to its seamless integration with Proxmox, the implementation of high availability servers has drastically reduced downtime, which is crucial for our security-focused company.
 

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
191
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 9.0%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, up from 1.9% 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.
WJHG - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integrations, high availability, and offers a free version
Although I am generally satisfied with VSAN and its performance, there are some areas that could be improved to enhance its effectiveness even further. One area that could benefit from improvement is scalability. While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments. Additionally, I would like to see additional features in the next version, such as better support for automated resource management. This could include proactive suggestions for optimizing storage and memory usage, as well as preventive alerts about the health status of the servers. A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
61%
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?
I can't give a sincere opinion on the installation and licensing costs because, as I have mentioned repeatedly, I am currently using the free version. However, I can say that I have submitted a req...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
Although I am generally satisfied with VSAN and its performance, there are some areas that could be improved to enhance its effectiveness even further. One area that could benefit from improvement ...
 

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: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.