StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs VMware vSAN comparison

StarWind and VMware are both solutions in the HCI category. StarWind is ranked #13 with an average rating of 10.0, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8. StarWind holds a 0.8% mindshare in HCI, compared to VMware’s 16.7% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of StarWind users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of VMware users who would recommend it.

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Read 66 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reviews

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464 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

VMware vSAN

Read 229 VMware vSAN reviews

19,643 Views
14,087 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

StarWind HyperConverged App...

VMware vSAN

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

VMware vSAN and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance are competitive products in the hyperconverged infrastructure category. VMware vSAN seems to have the upper hand in integration and scalability, while StarWind HyperConverged Appliance excels in flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

Features: VMware vSAN offers strong integration with VMware products, high availability, and impressive speed. It provides centralized management and the ability to scale by simply adding servers. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is noted for its high availability features, cost-effectiveness, and ease of management, along with proactive support and flexibility in hardware choices.

Room for Improvement: VMware vSAN could improve its management console and deduplication capabilities, and offer better hardware compatibility and more flexible configurations. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance could benefit from a more comprehensive user interface, enhanced real-time monitoring, and improvements in technical support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware vSAN requires careful planning for deployment, which can be complex depending on the environment. Despite its reliable customer service, some feedback points to slow response times. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is praised for its straightforward and fast deployment process, often completed with vendor assistance. It is commended for its prompt and effective customer support.

Pricing and ROI: VMware vSAN is seen as expensive, potentially deterring smaller businesses, though it offers significant value for larger enterprises by reducing storage network costs and complexities. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is viewed as cost-effective with competitive pricing and transparent costs, offering high ROI with its turnkey solutions and appealing to enterprises mindful of their budgets.

To learn more, read our detailed StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. VMware vSAN

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Ranking in HCI

13th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (9th)

VMware vSAN

Ranking in HCI

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

229

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 16.7%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

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.

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Lipaz Hessel

Integration Manager at Gilat Satellite Networks

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.

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

"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 initial setup is straightforward once you know what you're doing."

"It did not hurt that the price for the hardware and three years of support cost less than the disparate hardware the cluster used to run on."

"The StarWind command centre is a very handy tool to have. It allows less skilled staff to have a view and manage our virtual machines."

"Overall, the solution has improved our system's performance. I was concerned about the physical-to-virtual conversion of our database server. It's actually much faster now, as a virtualized host on this Hyper-V cluster."

"The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful."

"The initial setup seems to be very straightforward."

"Reliability and overall uptime are key as we're also hosting client environments in addition to our own."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

"The most valuable thing about vSAN is that all of its features have been working well for us for the past two years. We haven't had an issue with them."

"The solution is simple to use compared to other solutions, such as Hyperflex, VxRail, and Nutanix"

"Adding new nodes and expanding vSAN forward is simple and non-disruptive for a lot of our customers."

"If we decide to expand, vSAN could offer us some flexibility. We are researching ways to set this up from a new data center, which is located somewhere different from the current location right now."

"The newer versions of this solution are much more stable and easier to manage."

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

"We have found the solution to be very scalable."

"The scalability has been quite good."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"That situation, where Dell EMC servers were going down, has been my only real difficulty... it ended up being something that the wider audience of Dell EMC was actually aware of as an issue. Neither the StarWind technicians nor the Dell EMC technicians were able to actually identify that problem sooner than a week or so... The communication between Dell EMC support and StarWind support, in that particular scenario, left something to be desired, for me. I did express those concerns to StarWind and they were very responsive to that."

"A desired feature or service is the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with the hyper-converged software."

"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."

"The web-managed interface (a separate VM) could be better."

"Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse."

"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."

"Perhaps the initial configuration and documentation could be a little clearer and simpler to follow."

"Updates need improvement."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

"VMware vSAN needs to improve its features because other solutions have more advanced features."

"I think it needs to be more cost-effective. I would also say that even though the capacity is good, there is also room for improvement there. Also, they could improve the security of the system."

"This solution is not great for large file shares/object/rich media repository."

"It is an expensive solution."

"I would like to see more comprehensive lifecycle management. The current path and process for upgrading or updating the firmware, as well as the storage controller software to interact with that firmware, is fairly manual and not very well documented. A little more time and effort spent on the documentation of the lifecycle management for vSan would be really great."

"It could be more robust. The latency is also an issue for us, and the reliability. I would like it to be faster and a little more flexible."

"Licensing costs are a little too high for smaller sized companies."

"As no product is 100% perfect, the price for VMware vSAN could still be improved, though it is good when compared to some of its competitors."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."

"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."

"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."

"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

"The HCA price is all-inclusive (setup, hardware, support, warranty), except for your standard Microsoft Server licensing."

"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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."

"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."

"Its price could be improved."

"If they could reduce the cost, it would be better. Licensing costs are something that they could take care of. If you are a smaller and strong IT team, then VMware vSAN is a very good product. If you want to expand in the service provider space, then you will have to go for an open-source solution like OpenStack. We are now looking at OpenStack because we sell licensing costs. We are a service provider, so the IT component data is a substantial component in our overall costing. We feel that OpenStack might help us to cut down the licensing cost. Therefore, we are looking at SAS storage instead of vSAN. SAS is open source, but it is not wise to have open source without having the backend support. We are using RedHat SAS, and it is an open-source solution. You can also have a free version, but we are using it with support from RedHat so that we have somebody to back us up in case we have a problem. If you do normal business, then IT expense is 1% or 2% of the total turnover. The higher licensing costs sometimes don't make difference to the big companies who are not service providers and are using it only for their internal use. For them, the IT cost is 1% or 2%, but for an IT service provider, the IT costs will go up to 15% to 16% of the total cost of the operations. This is where the licensing costs become irrelevant. For example, the licensing cost of using VMware, VC, and vSAN is 8% of my monthly revenue. Every month, I pay about $35,000, and, with the revised plan, it will be something like $50,000 or revenue of 600k per month, which means almost 8% of the revenue is going into VMware licensing. In a very competitive world, 8% as a cost element is huge. So, if I can bring it down to 2%, I save 6% in revenue expenditure. In terms of profit, 6% of 30% is something like another 25% increase in my profit. My profit can be almost 25%. It would be 20% to 25% in case I am able to handle the licensing costs and bring them to a very low level. Because these IT costs are substantial for us, that is why we are going with OpenStack. OpenStack has a limitation that it requires more hardware. There will be some increase in the hardware cost, but overall we will save 5% to 6% of our licensing cost by using OpenStack."

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

"The solution requires a license. The payment is on a yearly basis and It is not overly expensive."

"It is cheap. It is $0.02 a gig."

"The product's price has been increasing lately...VMware vSAN is expensive."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Educational Organization

15%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

52%

Computer Software Company

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 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

StarWind's proactive support is my favorite feature.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

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 engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...

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 interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

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 researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...

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Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 39% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 15% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 12% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 10% of the time

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN

Compared 15% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

November 2024

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

November 2024

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

vSAN

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StarWind

VMware

Overview

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA.

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."

Sample Customers

Sears Home and Franchise Business

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Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs. VMware vSAN

December 2024

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