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Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs VMware vSphere comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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
6.3
Organizations reduced costs and improved efficiency with Nutanix AHV by consolidating roles and simplifying infrastructure management.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere enables cost savings by reducing physical servers, optimizing resources, and decreasing setup time and operational costs.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.6
Nutanix AHV Virtualization support is praised for efficiency, expertise, proactive monitoring, and high customer satisfaction despite occasional delays.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere's support is praised for knowledgeable service but criticized for variable response times and declining quality over time.
They provide prompt and quality responses.
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
My team solves most tickets, needing support only about once or twice a year.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Nutanix AHV Virtualization offers scalable, flexible infrastructure with high ratings, though may pose cost challenges for small companies.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware vSphere offers seamless scalability and flexibility, efficiently handling large environments with minimal performance issues and strategic adaptability.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Nutanix AHV Virtualization is praised for its stability, reliability, and effective Life Cycle Manager, despite minor compatibility concerns.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere is highly stable and reliable, with minor issues often due to hardware or third-party integrations.
The solution is very stable.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
 

Room For Improvement

Nutanix AHV needs better application redeployment, support, compatibility, GUI usability, pricing, integration, flexibility, and cloud technology support.
VMware vSphere users seek improvements in cost, support, interface, integration, performance, setup complexity, automation, documentation, and fault tolerance.
These menus often show options like host, memory, and disk, however, they fail to provide insight into what's happening.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
 

Setup Cost

Nutanix AHV offers cost-effective virtualization with no licensing fees, competitive pricing, and strong integration and features compared to competitors.
VMware vSphere pricing is high but offers value in stability; consult VMware or resellers to customize licensing.
The pricing was reasonable compared to other competitors, though the storage was expensive.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
 

Valuable Features

Nutanix AHV provides user-friendly virtualization with integration, security, customization, and centralized control, appealing to tech-savvy users.
VMware vSphere excels in ease of use, robust features, and efficient resource management, ideal for diverse virtualization needs.
The technology behind the backups is very efficient, enabling a reliable virtual environment.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
VMware vCenter is extremely useful as we can manage between 100 and 1,000 hosts using just one management tool.
The high availability feature is significant.
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix AHV Virtualization
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSphere
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
452
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Server Virtualization Software category, the mindshare of Nutanix AHV Virtualization is 8.7%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSphere is 19.6%, up from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Lightweight, integrates well, and the technical support is responsive
Many backup solutions that we use today are available for purchase, be it IBM, VMware, Veritas, or anything else. They usually have very good vSphere and Hyper-V support. Because there isn't much AHV deployment in place, we typically have issues with the integrations that AHV has with backup solutions. We would like to see AHV's backup solution integration improved so that we can take VM-level backups directly from Nutanix. The issue is that it provides a higher VM level for VMware and other areas. When it comes to AHV, however, you must purchase a separate set of third-party software, which can then supplement that backup via your IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. One issue we frequently encounter when using AHV is that if you want to install specific software, you must first gain compatibility. If you want to install an operating system, or OS, on top of your AHV, only a few operating systems are supported. That is one area where I would like to see some progress. VMware typically supports almost all of our systems, as does Hyper-V, but when it comes to AHV, we must apply specific patches in order to run it on top of AHV. Operating system support must be improved out of the box. If you want to install software, you must first ensure that it is compatible with Nutanix AHV; not all software is compatible. It is not possible to integrate it with everything. There is limited compatibility with the software that can be installed on top of Nutanix AHV, for example. If you want to install a specific operating system, you must first check to see if it is listed in the compatibility list; only then will you be able to install it, and that is one issue for now.
Vikas Dhumale - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems
Speaking about the application deployment process, I work at the L1 level in my company. In my company, the L3 is a different department that manages the application deployment process, and most of them go for tools apart from the ones under VMware to manage the VMs. I am only creating new VMs and assigning RAM space, and if something comes up, then I create new RHEL-based systems. When it comes to the application deployment process, my company manually deploys the applications. For automation purposes, our company uses Jenkins to collect the logs and provide a GUI with the help of a username and password to the end user, after which they can collect the logs from Jenkins. I work at an L1 level in my company. The integrations and infrastructure-related areas of the product are managed by another team in my company. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. Nowadays, people don't prefer to go for cloud-based solutions. Most of the companies prefer VMware as they want some level of security in the environment. VMware allows users to have in-house products. Most companies or banks are not moving over to cloud-based tools. VMware is used in banking systems. I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
30%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Nutanix AHV compare with VMware vSphere?
To understand which is better - Nutanix AHV or VMware vSphere - you need to do a product comparison. Both products support hypervisors. However, Nutanix supports some of the most popular ones and m...
What do you like most about Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
Integration is the most valuable feature of the product.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix AHV Virtualization?
The setup cost for four nodes was about $200,000 (in US currency). The pricing was reasonable compared to other competitors, though the storage was expensive.
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms. It is used a lot inside virtualization platforms like VMware VSphere. It pr...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux and Windows. For us, VMware does not offer any advantage. Moreover, KVM is free.
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
 

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix AHV Virtualization vs. VMware vSphere and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.