Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN comparison

The compared Red Hat and VMware solutions aren't in the same category. Red Hat is ranked #2 in SDS , with an average rating of 8.9, and holds a 20.0% mindshare in the category. VMware is ranked #2 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 14.6% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Red Hat Ceph Storage and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. VMware vSAN

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 861,524 peers since 2012

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

Mindshare comparison

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

HCI

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

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

Rifat Rahman

Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited

Offers reliable performance and availability for large deployments

I would like to see improvements in Red Hat Ceph Storage not because I necessarily think it needs improvement, but because I generally prefer to do things manually rather than following the containerization part. Current deployments are based on containers, but I deploy manually with my scripts and controls. If there are no Kubernetes-like requirements, I often prefer to deploy a whole manual process. I don't ask for improvements in the deployment model because Red Hat has its own philosophy about making things, but it's my personal choice that I prefer things manually. Some features are available only in the containerization part, so if those are also available in manual deployment, that will help.

Read full review

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Enables efficient multi-environment cluster deployment and resource management with versatile features

While VMware vSAN is quite comprehensive, if we are running multiple infrastructures, applications, databases, and other elements, having a diagnostic tool to identify the actual problem area, whether application-side or infrastructure-side, would be beneficial. A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

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

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

"The product is scalable and easy to expand."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The solution is pretty stable."

"It's a very performance-intensive, brilliant storage system, and I always recommend it to customers based on its benefits, performance, and scalability."

"Ceph has simplified my storage integration. I no longer need two or three storage systems, as Ceph can support all my storage needs. I no longer need OpenStack Swift for REST object storage access, I no longer need NFS or GlusterFS for filesystem sharing, and most importantly, I no longer need LVM or DRBD for my virtual machines in OpenStack."

"What I found most valuable from Red Hat Ceph Storage is integration because if you are talking about a solution that consists purely of Red Hat products, this is where integration benefits come in. In particular, Red Hat Ceph Storage becomes a single solution for managing the entire environment in terms of the container or the infrastructure, or the worker nodes because it all comes from a single plug."

"Ceph Storage allows us to add value related to cost and offers a unique experience compared to traditional storage."

"Ceph’s ability to adapt to varying types of commodity hardware affords us substantial flexibility and future-proofing."

"High reliability with commodity hardware."

"The high availability of the solution is important to us."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pros

"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."

"We've found the solution to be scalable."

"The ability to have an HA cluster in the absence of a shared storage device or SAN."

"It is easy to find information out there, not only from searching the web, but even the times I have engaged VMware support."

"vSAN is integrated into VMware."

"I like the orchestration feature."

"Easy to deploy and manage."

"It is easy to work with, easy to handle, and easy to manage."

More VMware vSAN pros

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."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"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."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Rebalancing and recovery are a bit slow."

"The licensing cost is excessively high. This is a significant issue from my perspective."

"If you use for any other solution like other Kubernetes solutions, it's not very suitable."

"I have encountered issues with stability when replication factor was not 3, which is the default and recommended value. Go below 3 and problems will arise."

"It needs a better UI for easier installation and management."

"The product lacks RDMA support for inter-OSD communication."

"When it comes to the capabilities of Red Hat Ceph Storage such as object, block, and file storage, I am not fully satisfied."

"If troubleshooting is needed, the response should be faster."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage cons

"I am looking for more of a software-defined storage platform that uses different protocols, such as iSCSI, NFS, and CIS, and maybe also has an object as part of that. They should 100% make it more of a storage-based product where it is not linked just to VMware, and it also has NFS and iSCSI built-in at a scalable level. They should turn it more into a dedicated storage-as-a-service platform instead of just being built into the VMware kernel. Their level one and level two support is not at all good, and it should be improved."

"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."

"We would like to see additional backup and recovery options added. In particular, integration with popular applications like databases."

"Troubleshooting tools could be improved."

"If we have some complicated issues, you have to use the command lines interface. Not everything is possible to be fixed in the GUI. This is a drawback, that some things have to be fixed via command-line interface and should be able to be done in the GUI."

"This is quite an expensive solution."

"I would like to be able to limit IOPS."

"Because of virtual storage, the system reaches reserve storage for its functions. It also consumes a certain amount of storage, which then results in the creation of a fault tolerance for the system. All of this adds to a lot of capacity being consumed in terms of storage for each drive for vSan. I find this to be one drawback of using vSan."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price could be cheaper."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The price is a little high."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The price of this product isn't high."

"I rate the product’s pricing an eight out of ten."

"There is no cost for software."

"Most of time, you can get Ceph with the OpenStack solution in a subscription as a bundle."

"The other big advantage is that Ceph is free software. Compared to traditional SAN based storage, it is very economical."

"If you can afford a product like Red Hat Ceph Storage then go for it. If you cannot, then you need to test Ceph and get your hands dirty."

"The price of Red Hat Ceph Storage is reasonable."

"We never used the paid support."

More Red Hat Ceph Storage pricing and cost advice

"It is not a subscription model. It is a purchase model, but it is very important that you also buy technical support from VMware. This is probably the only disadvantage of vSAN. It depends on the use case, but it can be very expensive."

"There is a license to use this solution and we pay approximately $30,000 annually. There were not any additional fees required other than the license. The solution is expensive."

"We pay for a license to use the solution through our company CapEx and then we continue to pay annually."

"With the new pricing model, it's expensive for the customer."

"The price of the solution package depends on the nodes and other factors. The cost some of our customers paid was $500,000. The licensing cost for the components is very good."

"Enterprise customers can customize their licenses according to their own needs and budget."

"I would like to use more advanced models of the solution but the price needs to be reduced. There are some extra costs for this solution including a license."

"It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Defined Storage (SDS) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

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 out...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

See all answers

How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Ceph Storage?

The high availability of the solution is important to us.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Ceph Storage?

Areas of Red Hat Ceph Storage that have room for improvement include more promotion. Many people do not know about th...

See all answers

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 e...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Dell ECS vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 5% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 38% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Red Hat Ceph Storage

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat Ceph Storage Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN

Compared 15% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs VMware vSAN

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage

June 2025

Download Red Hat Ceph Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

June 2025

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Ceph

vSAN

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

Red Hat Ceph Storage is an enterprise open source platform that provides unified software-defined storage on standard, economical servers and disks. With block, object, and file storage combined into one platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage efficiently and automatically manages all your data.

Red Hat

VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

VMware vSAN Features

VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.

Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.

Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.

High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.

Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.

HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.

Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

VMware vSAN Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution.

Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance.

Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.

Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly.

Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

VMware

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Dell, DreamHost

Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. VMware vSAN

June 2025

Free Report: Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. VMware vSAN

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Red Hat Ceph Storage vs. VMware vSAN report.

We monitor all Software Defined Storage (SDS) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.