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Pure Storage FlashBlade vs SwiftStack [EOL] comparison

Pure Storage and NVIDIA are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Additionally, 97% of Pure Storage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NVIDIA users who would recommend it.
Pure Storage FlashBlade
Read 37 Pure Storage FlashBlade reviews
  • 4,252 Views
  • 3,089 Comparison Views
97% willing to recommend
SwiftStack [EOL]
Read 8 SwiftStack [EOL] reviews
    100% willing to recommend
     

    Comparison Buyer's Guide

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    Executive Summary
    We performed a comparison between Pure Storage FlashBlade and SwiftStack [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

    Find out what your peers are saying about MinIO, Red Hat, Dell Technologies and others in File and Object Storage.

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    File and Object Storage
    March 2025
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    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
    Average Rating
    8.8
    Reviews Sentiment
    7.9
    Number of Reviews
    37
    Ranking in other categories
    All-Flash Storage (17th), File and Object Storage (6th)
    SwiftStack [EOL]
    Average Rating
    8.6
    Number of Reviews
    8
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
     

    Featured Reviews

    Eric Black - PeerSpot reviewer
    The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us
    The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.
    Read full review
    Scientif48eb - PeerSpot reviewer
    It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers
    * You can bring your own drives, which don't have to be certified. This usually means that they cost significantly more to insert a certified drive with the manufacturer who is selling you your solution. * It is platform independent, so you bring your own hardware. It doesn't matter if you get a Dell EMC, HPE, IBM, etc. Its hardware agnostic capabilities are great. Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo are obviously big players, but sometimes they don't have the best prices. You are not tied to any one particular vendor, and it gives you great flexibility as far as pricing is concerned. You can go out, and say, "Give me the most capacity in the smallest number of use spaces." Sometimes that's not the big vendors, it's the small vendors who provide this. * The forward thinking in their cloud solution creates a global namespace across the major public clouds. It allows you to go from on-premise to the cloud seamlessly. They have made it easier to move data between the different cloud vendors and move those flows from on-premise to the cloud, then from the cloud back to on-premise. That freedom that they facilitate is hard to put a price on, because it gives you flexibility. * The metadata search capabilities are something that we look forward to being able to use, though we haven't fully had a chance to get into them. However, in the life sciences area, it could be tremendously beneficial. * Ease of operation: We got it up and running, and it's been solid. We can upgrade the capacity of our drives at any point in time. * The flexibility that the solution provides, both for hardware and on-premise, then to the cloud. That flexibility is great.
    Read full review

    Quotes from Members

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

    Pros

    "Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."
    "We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."
    "It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."
    "The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."
    "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."
    "The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."
    "The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."
    "Speed and ease of use are the two most valuable features."
    More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros
    "The performance is good. It is a secondary storage platform designed for archive and backup, so performance for the right use cases is very good. We have been pretty happy in that regard."
    "The scalability is phenomenal. It seems infinite, as long as you put enough storage in place, add enough nodes."
    "The graphs are most valuable. They have a lot of graphs and reports that you can run to see what's happening in the background to configure OpenStack Swift."
    "The SwiftStack Controller, which is the web UI, provides out of band management. This has been one of the best features of it. It allows us to be able to do upgrades and look at performance metrics. It is a top feature and reason to choose the product."
    "In terms of the hardware flexibility, with SwiftStack not being a hardware company, I literally buy any hardware that's the least expensive, from any vendor... from a flexibility standpoint, I think it's fantastic. I can go to anybody, anywhere - any vendor - and get my hardware."
    "The general consensus on what we've done is that the restores coming back from it have been faster than they were from our prior vendor. Ingest speeds are fine. The restore speeds have improved."
    "It has helped us with the ability to distribute data to different data centers. As part of our DR strategy, we have nodes automatically replicating data from one data center to the other. This makes it easier for us to not have to shift tapes around."
    "The most valuable feature is its versatility. We use 1space and we can use it for almost anything: for our cloud service, for backups of VMs."
    More SwiftStack [EOL] pros
     

    Cons

    "There could be improvements in public cloud integration."
    "We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."
    "To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."
    "Its configuration should be easier."
    "It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."
    "The features provided for SMB customers are limited."
    "In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."
    "An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."
    More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons
    "It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st."
    "I would like to see better client integrations, support for a broader client library. SwiftStack could be a little bit more involved in the client side: Python, Java, C, etc."
    "The file access needs improvement. The NFS was rolled out as a single service. It needs to be fully integrated into the proxy in a highly available fashion, like the regular proxy access is. I know it's on the roadmap."
    "They should provide a more concise hardware calculator when you're putting your capacity together."
    "The biggest room for improvement is the maturity of the proxyFS solution. That piece of code is relatively new, so most of our issues have been around the proxyFS."
    "[One] thing that I've been looking for, for years as an end user and customer, for any object store, including SwiftStack, is some type of automated method for data archiving. Something where you would have a metadata tagging policy engine and a data mover all built into a single system that would automatically be able to take your data off your primary and put it into an object store in a non-proprietary way - which is key."
    "On the controller features, there needs to be a bit more clean up of the user interface. There are a lot of options available on the GUI which might be better organized or compartmentalized. There are times when you are going through the user interface and you have to look around for where the setting may be. A little bit more attention to the organization of the user interface would be helpful."
    "At the moment we are using Erasure coding in an 8+4 setting. What would be nice is if, for some standard configurations like 15+4 and 8+4, there were more versatility so we could, for example, select 8+6, or the like."
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."
    "I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."
    "It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."
    "The price is a little high."
    "I feel that the price could always be lowered."
    "The product is very expensive."
    "The price of this solution could be made more affordable."
    "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."
    More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice
    "We are able to dynamically grow storage at a lower cost. We can repurpose hardware and buy commodity hardware. There is a huge cost savings, on average $100,000 a year compared to traditional storage for what we have at our size."
    "One of their advantages of being a commercial open source platform is, for the scale that they offer, the pricing is pretty competitive."
    "The annual support and maintenance costs compared to our old solution for backups had about a two-thirds savings, so about a 60% annual savings on our support and maintenance contract. That savings funded additional expansion for what it was costing us for the support and maintenance contracts on old solution."
    "We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."
    "Dollar per gigabyte, it costs us more because we are storing more. However, if you look at it from a cost per gigabyte perspective, we have dropped our costs significantly."
    "All in, with hardware and everything else - and I hate to say a dollar amount because it's been awhile since I computed it - I know I'm under the $300 to $500 per terabyte mark. I call that my "all in" price, which has replications built in and protections built in."
    "The pricing and licensing are capacity-based, so it's hard to put my finger on them, because so many different vendors charge in different ways. We are still saving significantly over any of the other options that we evaluated because we can choose the best hardware at the best price, then put SwiftStack software on it. So, it's hard to complain, even though a part of me goes, "It would be nicer if it were less expensive.""
    "COST_SAVING; We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."
    More SwiftStack [EOL] pricing and cost advice
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    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    Educational Organization
    32%
    Computer Software Company
    12%
    Financial Services Firm
    9%
    Manufacturing Company
    8%
    Computer Software Company
    19%
    Manufacturing Company
    16%
    Financial Services Firm
    10%
    Educational Organization
    8%
     

    Company Size

    By reviewers
    Large Enterprise
    Midsize Enterprise
    Small Business
     

    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 outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensure...
    See all answers
    What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?
    The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and performance it delivers, including quick response times.
    See all answers
    What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?
    Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.
    See all answers
    Ask a question
    Earn 20 points
     

    Comparisons

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    Compared 12% of the time
    MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
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    Compared 11% of the time
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
    Compared 11% of the time
    Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade Logo
    Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade
    Compared 8% of the time
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    MinIO vs SwiftStack [EOL] Logo
    MinIO vs SwiftStack [EOL]
    Compared 57% of the time
    Dell ECS vs SwiftStack [EOL] Logo
    Dell ECS vs SwiftStack [EOL]
    Compared 21% of the time
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs SwiftStack [EOL] Logo
    Red Hat Ceph Storage vs SwiftStack [EOL]
    Compared 12% of the time
    Peaxy vs SwiftStack [EOL] Logo
    Peaxy vs SwiftStack [EOL]
    Compared 9% of the time
    More SwiftStack [EOL] Competitors
     

    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    Pure Storage FlashBlade
    March 2025
    Pure Storage FlashBlade reportDownload Pure Storage FlashBlade product report
    Buyer's Guide
    SwiftStack [EOL]
    March 2025
    SwiftStack [EOL] reportDownload SwiftStack [EOL] product report
     

    Overview

    FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

    Pure Storage

    SwiftStack focuses on handling large-scale unstructured data, providing software-defined storage, and boosting data scalability and durability.

    SwiftStack is known for its proficiency in object storage, seamless workflow integration, and robust support for multi-cloud environments. Its architecture ensures high-performance data access, making it ideal for big data analytics, media asset management, and backup tasks. Users value its flexibility, ease of integration, and strong performance. The solution's high availability and efficient storage capabilities contribute to its strengths. However, areas needing improvement include customer support response time, initial setup guidance, and enhanced scalability during high-demand periods.

    What are SwiftStack's Most Important Features?

    • Robust Scalability: Easily manages growing data volumes
    • Multi-cloud Support: Seamless integration across cloud environments
    • Seamless Data Management: Efficiently handles large datasets
    • High Availability: Ensures data is accessible whenever needed
    • Open-Source: Customizable and flexible with extensive API support

    What Benefits Should Users Look For?

    • Enhanced Performance: Handles demanding workloads efficiently
    • Easy Integration: Adapts well with existing systems and workflows
    • High Durability: Ensures long-term data storage and protection
    • Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces overall storage costs
    • Scalability: Grows with organizational needs

    In industries like media management and big data analytics, SwiftStack’s capabilities in high-performance data access and multi-cloud support facilitate efficient data handling. Backup and archival solutions also benefit from its robust storage and high availability features.

    NVIDIA
     

    Sample Customers

    ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL
    Pac-12 Networks, Georgia Institute of Technology, Budd Van Lines
    Buyer's Guide
    File and Object Storage
    March 2025
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