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

Portworx Enterprise vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Portworx Enterprise
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Software Defined Storage (2nd), Data Storage for Kubernetes (1st)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
229
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Paulo Jose  Bosco Otto - PeerSpot reviewer
May 30, 2023
A solution backed by strong customer support, that is stable and scalable
As a company managed in a Kubernetes environment, being trusted by a Kubernetes vendor, Red Hat creates barriers against using other certified solutions that work. Because IBM is a competitor of Pure Storage, things seem to be getting worse. I don't have plans to use Portworx Enterprise in the future because, at the moment, I am working with Ondat, and I have to follow NetApp's direction on that. When evaluating Portworx, one should make sure their company has already chosen Pure Storage. Still, if they are evaluating the solution on Ondat or Dell or other platforms, they should get a roadmap statement from Pure Storage, that they will continue to develop storage hardware diagnostics. I rate Portworx a nine out of ten.
Lipaz Hessel - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 16, 2022
Expensive solution that requires professional services for installation and implementation
I'm still using a different solution. I only took two servers with vSAN to support one application that needs one feature that only VMware has. If not for that feature, I wouldn't touch VMware. Now, I'm looking at products like Nutanix, Silver Peak, Flexione, and FortiGate. For products that I choose, I don't need a specialist of that vendor. In VMware, I need a specialist in VMware. That's the issue I have with VMware. It's not like I can take any IT person, and they will know what to do. I need to make sure he will do the call, get the certificate and time to practice.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Portworx is a simple solution. It's similar to Pure Storage products. They're all easy to use and install. You need to have a little expertise with containers to use Portworx, but it will be no problem for you if you understand containers."
"A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"Portworx virtualizes the aspects of the underlying block storage. That is good because they can also use block storage for their future deployment instead of just NFS."
"I like that you have a small dedicated file system that is fast and resilient for containerized workloads."
"The best thing about Portworx is the Stork, they have called the VPS (Volume Replacement Strategy) and they also have topology awareness, and these are the three features I like."
"It easily integrates with all types of storage."
"This product has very good performance when it comes to virtualization storage and works well with solutions such as SAP HANA, Exadata, Hadoop, and Big Data Analytics."
"The valuable features of vSAN are that you can get it up and running quickly, you get redundancy built-in, and it's pretty much the perfect solution for a cluster."
"It is more stable now than it was before. It's not like it was in the first year. Now it is stable, and we trust it more."
"One of the valuable features of vSAN is it has a universal type of technology that allows you to deploy it on any server or hardware. Competitors, such as Nutanix, provides the AOS and can be deployed only on certified hardware. For vSAN, it does not require any kind of certified hardware."
"The most important functionality is the ability to extend cluster storage and cluster computing power securely without loss of data."
"The most important thing is the simplicity of the product. It is a well-established product with good stability."
"The solution is quite stable."
 

Cons

"They have not integrated Portworx with Ondat since they are too focused now on Pure Storage APIs and not on users like us."
"The documentation could be better."
"I would like to see a more native mapping to mainframe-type systems."
"It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately."
"I think the vendor could provide more training for new users who may not be familiar with containers."
"The integration has room for improvement."
"I lose a node in a cluster vSAN, which is also used as a cluster HA. I lose not only the storage part, which is not necessarily serious (depending on the configuration of the vSAN cluster), but on the other hand, I lose also a node of Compute, which can make things complicated quickly."
"I would like to see it be more hardware-agnostic. Other than that, the only other complication is - and it has gotten better with the newer versions - that lately, once you're running an all-flash, if you need to grow or scale down your infrastructure, it's a long process. You need to evacuate all data and make sure you have enough space on the host, then add more hosts or take out hosts. That process is a little bit complex. You cannot scale as needed or shrink as needed."
"Some intelligence can be added to the newest version to provide more flexibility between storage tiers."
"They can package it in a way that is specific to the hardware infrastructure and the hardware platform. It should stay fairly up to date with the drivers and the manufacturer issues. The problem with uncoupling the proprietary technology and component capabilities is that by uncoupling them, you run into some concerns or challenges over the poor performance model. These concerns really come when you start talking about high performance, high bandwidth, and high availability types of environments. While vSAN is a leader, in a critical view, it is not about being cost-effective. It is more about the immediate impact of money loss to the business in critical applications where we want to maintain a continuous operational 59 model. It is, however, good for QA/QC tasks. I don't necessarily know how it works in regards to VDI or virtual desktop infrastructure."
"Virtual machines disk size cannot cap more than a single node. For a VDI user, it may not save enough to hold a file server or exchange server on a single node storage space."
"As a software-based product, it requires a lot of system resources."
"There is a lot that VMware could improve from a marketing perspective. The cloud is still new for many people, so extending storage should be effortless. It shouldn't be so complicated to extend the storage so workloads can access it no matter where they go."
"I would like for the next release to be a bit cheaper."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has two offerings. One is free, which is limited to only five nodes. The other is enterprise, which is a bit pricier."
"I'm not sure how the licensing was broken out, but I don't think our offering of the Portworx was more than USD $20,000."
"The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM."
"The price of Portworx Enterprise is high."
"The solution requires a license. The payment is on a yearly basis and It is not overly expensive."
"The licenses are very expensive. The renewal of licenses has extra costs attached to it."
"​I would like to see this technology be made available to smaller businesses, who might benefit from high availability but struggle with the entry fee.​"
"I have been told that if I used VxRail it would be cheaper than the system we are using now with buying the products separately. The solution is expensive overall."
"Its reasonable, compare with other storage vendors"
"Users may also start off with the demo version of the tool. After you learn to use the solution, you can buy it if it is beneficial."
"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."
"With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Software Defined Storage solutions are best for your needs.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Portworx Enterprise?
A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portworx Enterprise?
The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM.
What needs improvement with Portworx Enterprise?
It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately. It would ensure a comprehensive and streamlined approach ...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
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 interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NIO, GE Digital, DreamWorks Animation, Lufthansa, beco, NEW CONTEXT
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about Portworx Enterprise vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.