VMware vSAN Reviews

Name: VMware vSAN
Brand: VMware
Rating: 4.2 (231 reviews)

Vendor: VMware

4.2 out of 5

231 reviews
87% willing to recommend

6,484 followers

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What is VMware vSAN?

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.

Get the VMware vSAN Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about VMware vSAN, VxRail, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and more!

VMware vSAN is the #2 ranked solution in HCI Software. PeerSpot users give VMware vSAN an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. VMware vSAN is most commonly compared to VxRail: VMware vSAN vs VxRail. VMware vSAN is popular among the midsize enterprise segment, accounting for 46% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a educational organization, accounting for 39% of all views.

Helped 856,873 peers since 2012

Featured VMware vSAN reviews

Pramod-Talekar

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

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.

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Shaijith KB

Senior System Engineer at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)

vSAN has a significantly higher license cost post-merger. Its scalability is lower compared to solutions like Nutanix. The regeneration time after a hard disk failure is much longer than that of competitors. The pricing is not clearly published. It requires more clarity in terms of the cost associated with expanding the solution, adding nodes, and overall predictability of data storage capacity.

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Manu Madhusoodanan

Technical Head at Kerala Communicators Cable Limited

Integration is one of the best things. The product’s ecosystem is better than Nutanix’s. It is one of the best things I have seen in VMware vSAN. The interface is easy to use. Compared to legacy systems, the tool is easy to implement. Replication and securing data is easier in vSAN. The main objective of vSAN is scalability. The product is highly available within our 3-node cluster.

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VMware vSAN mindshare

As of June 2025, the mindshare of VMware vSAN in the HCI category stands at 14.9%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

PeerResearch reports based on VMware vSAN reviews

Type	Title	Date
Category	HCI	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Product	Reviews, tips, and advice from real users	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Comparison	VMware vSAN vs VxRail	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Comparison	VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)	Jun 15, 2025	Download
Comparison	VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex	Jun 15, 2025	Download

Title	Rating	Mindshare	Recommending
VxRail	4.3	17.8%	94%	132 interviews Add to research
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)	4.3	8.9%	94%	198 interviews Add to research

Valuable Features

VMware vSAN's most valuable features include seamless integration with VMware solutions, excellent scalability, performance comparable to traditional all-flash options at a lower cost, simplicity in set up and management, policy-based storage per VM, and centralized management. Users appreciate the ease of scalability, reducing large upfront expenses, and the ability to incrementally scale out storage. The storage policies enhance operational efficiency and ensure redundancy without the need for additional storage units.

"I would suggest customers use VMware vSAN because VMware offers a stable solution with good hypervisors and the best features compared to other solutions."
"The setup is straightforward."
"A one-stack solution from one vendor is the main benefit here."

Room for Improvement

VMware vSAN faces challenges in areas such as hardware compatibility, with users calling for a wider support matrix. Users suggest enhancing management and monitoring features, citing issues with the current dashboard and need for improved performance visibility. Stability and scalability are recurring concerns, especially with updates and integration. There is a demand for better deduplication and compression capabilities in hybrid configurations. Licensing costs are highlighted as too steep, and a more intuitive user interface is requested.

"I am not satisfied with VMware support, particularly with the reaction times, SLAs, and those kinds of issues."
"Maybe incorporation of automation to build clusters in a more automated way would be beneficial."
"vSAN has a significantly higher license cost post-merger."

ROI

Many saw VMware vSAN's value in cost efficiency, citing reduced hardware expenses and increased staff productivity. Users reported time savings with simplified management, though some found operating costs high. Implementation led to a decrease in reliance on traditional infrastructure, improving uptime and stability. The timeframe for achieving financial gains varied, with some meeting targets quickly while others faced challenges. Overall, VMware vSAN offered indirect advantages through reduced administrative tasks and enhanced performance.

Pricing

VMware vSAN pricing for enterprise buyers can be intricate, with licensing typically based on CPU and core counts, potentially leading to increased costs with broad network expansions. While often considered a more economical option compared to traditional storage arrays, some users cite high initial expenses and note price increases, especially post-Broadcom acquisition. Despite these costs, the perceived benefits include reduced complexity and significant long-term savings, with licensing models offering both perpetual and subscription options tailored to enterprise needs.

"The solution is relatively expensive compared to similar products."
"The licenses are very expensive. The renewal of licenses has extra costs attached to it."
"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."

Popular Use Cases

VMware vSAN is primarily deployed for virtualization, particularly in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and server environments, offering storage management and redundancy. Users leverage it in hybrid infrastructures to optimize storage utilization, integrate with VMware ecosystems, and support general-purpose computing. It's favored by industries like healthcare, government, and education for cost-effective storage consolidation, enhanced performance, and ease of maintenance without requiring third-party storage systems.

Service and Support

VMware vSAN's customer service and support receive mostly positive feedback. Many find the technical support quick, knowledgeable, and effective. While some users highlight exceptional assistance during critical issues, others note occasional slow responses or initial challenges with less experienced support staff. Many express satisfaction with the support for complex issues, attributing it to experienced engineers and efficient escalation processes. However, some mention room for improvement in promptness and support availability for less severe concerns.

Deployment

VMware vSAN's initial setup is often described as straightforward by users familiar with VMware. Many find it easy and quick to implement, especially when the prerequisites are met. Some users experienced a learning curve initially but found the process simple after obtaining some guidance or experience. While some encountered complexity due to hardware configurations, most appreciated its user-friendly approach. The experience can vary based on the user's prior knowledge and the specific setup environment.

Scalability

VMware vSAN is widely recognized for its scalability, supporting clusters up to 64 nodes. Users find it straightforward to add nodes or adjust storage, offering flexibility in scaling based on needs, whether for performance or capacity. While several users report no issues, a few mention limitations or challenges with specific use cases. Notably, it is often highlighted for ease of scaling and adaptability within diverse environments, particularly in comparison to traditional storage solutions.

Stability

Users report VMware vSAN as highly stable, with efficient support from VMware. Initial issues such as bugs and stability have been resolved, leading to excellent performance. Stability correlates with adherence to hardware compatibility and proper configuration. Some users encountered minor issues due to hardware compatibility or updates. However, many appreciate VMware vSAN's reliability and data persistence, especially in well-maintained environments. Stability ratings often rate high when configurations align with requirements. Performance has improved significantly in newer versions.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

Download our VMware vSAN Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers

By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

39%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Comms Service Provider

University

Healthcare Company

Retailer

Energy/Utilities Company

Construction Company

Media Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Non Profit

Wholesaler/Distributor

Insurance Company

Hospitality Company

Recreational Facilities/Services Company

Transportation Company

Outsourcing Company

Performing Arts

Pharma/Biotech Company

Legal Firm

Consumer Goods Company

Compare VMware vSAN with alternative products

Learn more about VMware vSAN

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 vSAN was previously known as vSAN.