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Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 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

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infr...
Ranking in HCI
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Ranking in HCI
14th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

systemar777972 - PeerSpot reviewer
Comes in a small, compact model that does not have any separate management but it is not so stable
This product is not so stable. Maybe it is just not mature enough in its development. When we upgrading from one version to another, there have been some hiccups. There have been a few times where upgraded features cause changes that make problems with existing implementation on the deployment side. I'm not sure if I really need any new features in this product at this point. For us, it is a fixed solution. It's not a full-blown solution and doesn't need to be. It is not really a cloud product, but we use it like some kind of cloud in a box. It is very limited in our use case. It has limited capability in general. You can not really have something like private security domains. Or there are so few servers that you can not really use the different kinds of applications you could with different physical servers. So you cannot select the kind of security that you can have on a cloud with separate layers.
Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with improved speed and resilience
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Both the scalability and stability of this solution are excellent."
"The size of the hardware is what we need because it is very good for small configurations."
"It is stable and scalable."
"The consolidation of the management in one control point is the most valuable. The whole infrastructure management is consolidated in just one console point. The documentation is also pretty good."
"The most useful feature is the solution's automation in terms of how we are able to spin up a certain workload in real-time when we are doing R&D."
"I like that you can add other types of services."
"The software is great. It's very easy to understand. I've not delved into any of the command-line stuff, but there's no real need to script it. Since it went in, pretty much the only thing that I have needed to do is increase device image sizes and that process is very straightforward."
"It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy."
"We have the ProActive Premium Support and it has reduced our monitoring efforts. It has been very useful. They have been able to detect things such as when there's an issue with the cluster or they're getting some kind of weird reading that I have no idea about. They're really quick to let me know about it and even set up a schedule to address it. I've been very happy with their level of support on that."
"The hosts came preconfigured, and it was plug-and-play."
"The StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the redundancy and its cost. I used to have a SAN, a Dell EMC EqualLogic. Unfortunately, it was they call an "inverted pyramid of doom." It was two or three hosts, two switches, and one storage array at the very bottom. But the SAN, the storage array at the very bottom, is a single point of failure..."
"We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself."
"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."
 

Cons

"This product is not so stable. Maybe it is just not mature enough in its development."
"The licensing policy needs to be improved. They have a licensing policy based on the number of CPU sockets. Nowadays what has happened is that the license they are trying to move is based on the number of CPU cores. With the advancement in technology there are now more cores in a single CPU. It's been very challenging in terms of managing the license around everything. Today we have a processor with 24 and 32 cores on the same physical CPU."
"The cloud deployment could be improved."
"The main issue is the initial investment. It is an expensive product, and it should be cheaper. It should also be easier to use and manage. The professional service for this solution is quite complex and expensive."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is very difficult to operate. You have to have a deep understanding of the technical details of the infrastructure to implement it. When you compare it with VMware, it is totally different because the graphical user interface is not that easy to understand. It is not intuitive. To use it, you have to read a lot of documentation and even understand what is going on behind the solution. It is not for someone who has a little bit of knowledge. Currently, it is too complex. I need something that is easy to implement. It should have a basic configuration as well as a complex configuration."
"It should be more user-friendly, in my opinion."
"We need to be very cautious in following every step when updating the physical host. We must move over each VM and drain roles from the servers to ensure everything goes smoothly without interruptions. If this were a more automated process, this would be less taxing each time an upgrade is needed."
"Over the past three years, there were two instances where our cluster had an issue, yet StarWind proactively notified me of those issues and effortlessly guided me through the process of correcting the issue with minimal effort on my part."
"Maybe they could have a support portal that you can have direct access to a current support representative."
"Product shipments did have a few bumps along the way, but that's to be expected when using any shipping company."
"At the moment, the initial configuration is very technical and error-prone. That is the reason Starwind does it for you as a service, which is a great thing. But it would be nice if we could change or rearrange storage assignments ourselves."
"It would be nice if the software told you a new version was available and prompted you to do the upgrade to keep everything up to date."
"It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."
"The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is quite pricey."
"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is an open-sourced, low-cost solution with full features."
"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."
"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."
"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."
"There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time."
"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
"Its cost was reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Educational Organization
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.
What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our inf...
What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...
 

Also Known As

Red Hat HCI, Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Virtualization
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Sears Home and Franchise Business
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