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HPE SimpliVity vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Sponsored
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
189
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
153
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 9.7%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 8.0%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Q&A Highlights

Janet Peng - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 10, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Hosni - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 24, 2024
Provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor
You can maintain and update it with little to no fuss, even the free version is incredibly capable whilst it brings the cost of a Highly Available HCI solution down to a very cost-effective point. Having used Starwind Virtual SAN for many years both for clients and for internal systems, it has always done exactly what it set out to do. It provides a cost-effective way to run an HCI storage platform for almost any hypervisor, but it is most effective with Hyper-V. It's simple and easy to use, The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation.
Xavier Perez - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 3, 2024
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.
Sisir Ghosh - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 17, 2023
Scales easily, helps with consolidation, and enables us to clone a VM
Usually, there are separate administration teams that take care of servers, but in our organization, servers are usually looked after by the application owner. However, the application owners cannot reinstall the software, OS, and other things. That only aligns with the role of the HCI administrator. If these rights can be provided, it will be very easy. Previously, it was there, but after certain updates, we found that they have withdrawn those services. For example, you requested a VM, and based on the business use case, I approved it and gave you a bare-metal server. Now you are the owner of that particular VM, so whatever you need, you should be able to do over there, but currently, you have to request me for the installation of the OS that you need, and I have to do it. It is an overhead for the HCI administrator. If that can be offloaded to the VM owners, that will be much easier for us. I have already shared this feedback with Nutanix.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"Implementing Starwind in our organization has been a game-changer, particularly in terms of cost savings. By leveraging Starwind's virtual tape library (VTL) solution, we have been able to use virtual tapes for our backups, which are then saved in Azure Blob storage."
"The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."
"The ease of reaching the support team and their promptness for support is great."
"This solution made it possible to deploy a new infrastructure in the shortest amount of time, at a low cost without purchasing expensive hardware storage, and use unused servers."
"Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."
"One of the most valuable features is the way it sets up the virtual SAN, because we don't have to buy a separate appliance for storage. It uses the existing storage on the servers, which is definitely a cost savings for us."
"The primary purpose of this software is to create a virtual SAN between local storage on Hyper-V hosts. I find this feature most valuable since it accomplishes this quite well."
"The storage efficiency is valuable."
"It comes all in one box."
"​Stability is pretty good. We have no complaints as it has been running seamlessly with no downtime.​"
"It has a proven track record of stability."
"We can get backups faster. We have a smaller footprint for hardware, which takes up less space. So, we use less electricity and floor space."
"The way it does backups is its most valuable feature. It replicates snapshots with very low bandwidth. We only have a 50 megabit link to that site, and it doesn't really use much of it at all. Therefore, it is a really good fit for getting our backups done."
"Its deduplication and backup functions are reliable."
"HPE SimpliVity is simple, it's very friendly."
"There are a lot of things I really like. Perhaps the best part is taking a snapshot of a virtual machine. It's very quick. Another useful part is replication and creating a protection domain: using the protection feature to replicate a machine to a remote site for DR purposes."
"We like that the size of the box is 1U or 2U only, and all the servers are fit into that box. The ease of operation is there. All the servers and the SAN storage are inside the box."
"The tool is simple, stable, and easy to upgrade. It also requires few resources to manage, which simplifies our work. The solution's ease of upgrading is its valuable feature. AHV, provided by Nutanix, is excellent in performance and ease of use. It's based on an open-source product called KVM, which I also use for other services."
"It's easy to use and has a very smooth onboarding process."
"The most valuable features are easy cloud administration and management."
"It consolidates our servers, and improves our electricity consumption and cooling as well."
"The most valuable feature is the integration of all parts in Prism Element, the browser-based management tool."
"In terms of scalability, adding a number of nodes, I find that it will not be any issues."
 

Cons

"Security on the ISCSI protocol could be improved by adding features like OS-type control access, especially for the data center environment."
"StarWind really needs to market its product more."
"There is no Italian-language version of the software available."
"Maybe in the future, the replication will be supported in more cloud providers."
"There is no IPv6 support. That is our only issue at this time."
"StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used."
"Regular updates to the software are required, and subtle design changes would be welcome."
"Though I have learned some of the nuances with the upgrading of firmware/windows/etc., it would be nice to have a more efficient method of doing so."
"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."
"Bottleneck is the main issue."
"I think the licensing cost could be lower."
"The Omni Card consumes a lot of memory and CPU."
"SimpliVity needs to improve the support for native backups, like SQL and Exchange."
"We should have something called micro segmentation inside the SimpliVity box, which can be easily implemented."
"A lot of our customers are using VMware and also are using Hyper-V. Hyper-V is not very stable on the HP SimpliVity."
"Scalability is something that needs to be improved because if you need more storage then you have to add more nodes."
"They need to improve the look and feel of the interface. The functionality is fine, but the appearance could be better."
"Nutanix now supports four hypervisors but they are not all at feature parity."
"The file services that they also provide need some more features, like on the Windows file server."
"Compatible with third party hardware, but it's still very limited."
"One disadvantage of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it doesn't support external storage. Connecting external SAN storage to Nutanix, it's not supported."
"One of the improvements I would like to have is related to naming. It is getting confusing because they are using three-letter acronyms, which are more or less misleading. What I do not like is that they changed names and reused names. They had a meaning in the past and they are still using the names for something similar."
"I would like to see more Kubernetes and container-related workflows and multiple cloud-partner management. I would also like to see how they will synergize all these AI/ML functionalities that are available on other platforms."
"The patch updates of Nutanix Acropolis could be improved. I'm work on the corporate side, but I get feedback from our IT team that patch updates and other updates are taking a significantly longer time. This definitely needs to be resolved. We are in discussion with Nutanix regarding certain configuration issues we are having, so maybe something can be changed to ease these patch updates."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."
"The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
"It's priced fairly. It was definitely cheaper than the competition. The licensing terms are straightforward and reasonable."
"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."
"It is not too expensive, but it is quite expensive for me."
"The product is expensive."
"Scaling isn't cheap"
"Cost of this product is high."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis. The licensing cost also includes vCenter at a cost in the cloud solution."
"It has helped to reduce our VMware licensing costs due to host consolidation."
"For most use cases, look to see if you can use all-flash as the price point, as it has come down significantly."
"The price should be cheaper."
"This product is expensive, but they do have discounts. At one point, I saw that they were giving a 70% or 80% discount, which is a good thing, but maybe they should have a more realistic price and then a 5% to 10% discount."
"We just have a support license for Nutanix."
"Many of my customers have issues with Acropolis' licensing model because they are charging the customers based on two things— the CPUs and the capacity in the solid stack disk — and that's a problem. Nutanix's competitors are not licensing that layer, so this is something that they should change. They should abandon this licensing model because it's too complex. Technical support is bundled with the subscription."
"The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."
"The price of the solution is high."
"The solution could be a little less expensive."
"Able to grow with smaller, more linear increments of investment"
"There is a license required for this solution and my clients usually purchase a two-year license with extended support. The price of the solution could be reduced, it is more expensive than competitors."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Answers from the Community

Janet Peng - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 10, 2019
Jun 10, 2019
It depends very much on your use case. When I look at HP, they position their HCI offer primarily in the ROBO space for enterprise DC solutions. HP pushes its Synergy platform. Nutanix is well positioned in the data center space and has made huge strides there whilst HPE has lost a little bit of momentum with their HCI offer. You need to be aware that the native Nutanix hypervisor has its limit...
2 out of 17 answers
EI
May 29, 2019
In a Nutshell, to keep it simple, they are both SaaS (Storage as a Service) Solutions in a sense, but SimpliVity is “ONLY” SaaS locked on HPE serves and no awareness of Hypervisor metrics, whereas Nutanix is best suited to different workloads that REALLY traverse all the realms of Hyperconverged technologies, from Data Center Consolidation/Migration, to VM consolidation reducing the “V-Tax” that come with different Hypervisor offerings (Nutanix is shipped with free AHV), to specific workloads with NO guess-work like VDI or Kubernetes in-premise cloud. So my take is make a list of what you need and then compare apples to apples, two hints: 1. Check this document https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/products/simplivity-vs-nutanix.html 2. Try our sizing online tool to Assess: https://sizer.nutanix.com/#/ If you feel you have more questions, take your time to touch base with representatives alternatively, just one note, at Nutanix, because we USE hypervisors to deliver our Storage Controller, we have a unique insight of HOW different workloads behave for different customers, and that gives us an advantage on what we are able to do for them, whilst an ONLY SaaS solution is one that will only give you yet another tool to optimize your workloads. It is up to you to figure out HOW that set of resources benefit your specific needs.
KH
May 29, 2019
Nutanix is the only SW based HCI vendor in the market today giving customers the freedom of choice. You can deploy our HCI SW on your choice of hardware and hypervisor (we also have our own KVM-based hypervisor that is included with the product). Whereas with SimpliVity, you are tied to HP and VMware. What if you deploy on HP today and your organization makes a strategic choice to change to Dell, Cisco or Fujitsu? Nutanix is the only vendor that allows you to port your licenses between different HW vendors. Doesn’t hurt that we already created the HCI space and are the leaders. HP is also one of our close partners so you can deploy Nutanix on Proliant.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
57%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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) combin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
If you are comfortable with the solution and you feel that you don't need support, you can begin with the free licenc...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
Areas for improvement in StarWind Virtual SAN include simplifying the setup process, especially for users with limite...
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 resea...
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...
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 interfa...
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 ...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE SimpliVity vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.