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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

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

Pure Storage FlashBlade
Sponsored
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (12th), File and Object Storage (8th)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
200
Ranking in other categories
HCI (5th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
VMware Software Defined Sto...
Ranking in Software Defined Storage (SDS)
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 3.4%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 5.4%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Software Defined Storage is 2.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)5.4%
Pure Storage FlashBlade3.4%
VMware Software Defined Storage2.3%
Other88.9%
Software Defined Storage (SDS)
 

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Regin Dalarna
Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades
In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.
OB
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
Infrastructure efficiency has improved significantly with quick server provisioning, though physical to virtual migrations need a streamlined in-house tool
From my experience with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), there is one area that needs improvement. When moving a critical infrastructure from a physical machine to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), we currently have to use a third-party tool to convert the physical machine to a VM. We have to use VMware converter to perform this conversion before moving it to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). I would suggest that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) should develop their own P2V (physical to VM) tools instead of requiring users to rely on third-party solutions.
Mohammad Jundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at QDS
Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery.  Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."
"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."
"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."
"The product is scalable and easy to expand."
"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."
"The onboarding and integrated monitoring tools are pretty good."
"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."
"Flexibility. We're able to mix performance nodes with storage nodes easily. Unlike other vendors where, if we start a hyperconverged solution with them, we have to stick to a specific model, to a specific series with specific capabilities, with Nutanix it's very easy to mix and match the best solution, especially for a dynamic infrastructure like ours."
"The scalability is great."
"Karbon is a must-have as it drastically simplifies the deployment of Kubernetes."
"The HCI environment itself is very intuitive. Everything is centralized under one solution. And, they also have fast server built in in addition to a network analyzer."
"The technology of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is the most valuable feature. You don't need multiple screens to manage."
"I definitely find the reduced power consumption very valuable. Another aspect I really like, when one compares Citrix to VMware, is the interface where you talk directly to your VM from the present software."
"We really love the Lifecycle manager and one-click upgrades."
"The interface is very good. Before we used this solution, we had separate storage and switches, but with the hyper convert, it's all in one."
"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."
"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."
"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."
"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."
"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."
 

Cons

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."
"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."
"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."
"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."
"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."
"I would like to see more deduplication."
"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."
"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."
"I would like to see Acropolis add the ability to migrate VMs between storage containers. I don't know if they've added this in the latest versions, but I haven't seen it yet. It's mainly about AHV. When we use VMware, we can move between storage containers. In VMware, it's just like regular storage, and we can move it."
"The reporting section of the dashboard could be improved to include more detailed reporting about the servers."
"Reduce its power consumption."
"There should be a little more access to Nutanix files."
"There are other services that Nutanix has that could be improved, but I'm not very familiar with the other services of Nutanix, such as Era and Flow. However, they seem a bit hard for us to implement and integrate with the Nutanix Acropolis AOS and other Nutanix tools. We would not dare to implement those other Nutanix solutions into Nutanix Acropolis AOS right now. The implementation of that tool could be the problem, I am a bit hesitant to implement the other tools into Nutanix Acropolis AOS."
"Nutanix can be a bit complex to understand."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure can be improved in terms of the sizing of the solution."
"It would be great if it could emulate some of the features that their competitor VMware has, for example port mirroring or Netflow output at hypervisor level."
"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."
"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."
"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."
"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."
"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."
"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."
"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."
"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."
"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."
"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
"I feel that the price could always be lowered."
"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."
"The price is a little high."
"We used a reseller for the purchase."
"We are aware of the pricing since we renew every year, at almost $100,000 per year."
"AHV is free! This is a great feature that should be taken advantage of."
"The pricing is very competitive when compared with other vendors. As long as Nutanix goes forward with the same price and same type of offering, it will definitely have a large number of customers adopting the same solution very soon."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's core licensing needs to have an upper limit since processors are coming out with incredible numbers of cores on them."
"Pricing varies greatly between license and editions."
"The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."
"Its price is fine. I can't really complain about that."
"It is less expensive than the VMware alternative."
"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."
"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."
"The solution is very expensive."
"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."
"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise77
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?
The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from ...
What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products...
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?
The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...
What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?
There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...
What is your primary use case for VMware Software Defined Storage?
I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Ad...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
VMware SDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Helse Nord, Sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.