Azure Local vs SteelFusion comparison

Microsoft and Riverbed are both solutions in the HCI category. Microsoft is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.6, while Riverbed is ranked #29. Microsoft holds a 3.2% mindshare in HCI, compared to Riverbed’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

Azure Local

Read 8 Azure Local reviews

1,633 Views
1,633 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SteelFusion

Read 2 SteelFusion reviews

314 Views
301 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Azure Local

SteelFusion

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 21, 2026

SteelFusion and Azure Local offer faster and more efficient IT solutions. SteelFusion is advantageous in pricing and support, while Azure Local’s robust features make it a stronger investment.

Features: SteelFusion provides exceptional WAN optimization, data acceleration, and high performance in remote deployments with effective integration with existing infrastructure. Azure Local offers seamless cloud integration, scalability, and a wide array of Microsoft services, along with advanced analytics and security features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SteelFusion has a straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support. Azure Local uses a more complex deployment model, supported by extensive Microsoft resources for effective guidance and troubleshooting.

Pricing and ROI: SteelFusion offers competitive pricing with an attractive ROI due to cost-effective setup. Azure Local, despite a higher initial price, promises significant ROI through productivity and scalability, justified by its comprehensive feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

December 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

Azure Local

Ranking in HCI

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SteelFusion

Ranking in HCI

29th

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Local is 3.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SteelFusion is 0.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Azure Stack HCI	3.2%
SteelFusion	0.6%
Other	96.2%

HCI

Featured Reviews

Martin Coloumbe

IT Solution Architect at a educational organization with 11-50 employees

Experience with seamless cost-saving capacity, though integration and support need refinement

An area that could be possibly improved with Azure Stack HCI is the stretched cluster functionality, which was included in version 23H2 for disaster recovery purposes. However, this functionality has been put on hold for the next release, and Microsoft has decided to discontinue stretched cluster technology completely, which is disappointing. They promise to bring back a significant or similar solution in a future release, but currently, there is no such functionality for stretched clusters between two sites in the latest versions of Azure Stack HCI, which poses a problem as we were looking forward to utilizing it. The integration with Azure Arc provides a unified management experience, but I find it to be fairly clunky. The integration exists, but it is not smooth or very easy to use. While they've started to integrate the two, the integration lacks maturity and makes it difficult to manage effectively. There are discrepancies between managing VMs through Azure Arc versus managing them directly, as changes made not using the Azure Arc integration are not easily reflected in Azure Arc. For instance, if I have an Arc-enabled VM and make changes to it outside the Arc interface, those changes may not be registered directly in Azure Arc, leading to issues in fully viewing the status and configuration of VMs depending on the management tool used. You either manage VMs fully through Arc or not at all because mixing the two methods results in incomplete visibility and inconsistencies.

Read full review

it_user866178

Chief Technology Officer at MAZZETTI+GBA

Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices

The level of tech support depends on who you get. There are some techs that just read the script and ask you if you’ve rebooted, but once you get past that - or if you have a very technical issue - the support is great. They really know the product and get you up and running again ASAP.

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

"In my hybrid cloud setup, there are three features I've found very efficient. The first is software-defined networking. Similar to Azure where you create virtual networks and software load balancing, Azure Stack HCI lets you configure them with a drag-and-drop experience on the on-premises cluster. That's one of the good feature."

"The scalability is extremely good."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."

"The solution has the latest processor."

"The features of Azure Stack HCI that have proven to be the most beneficial for optimizing our company's data center operations revolve around its performance."

"Some of the best features of Azure Stack HCI are that, as we are primarily a Microsoft Windows Server organization using Microsoft Windows Server on most of our servers, we already own data center licenses for Microsoft operating systems, and the hypervisor, Azure Stack HCI, actually comes with that license, which allows us to switch from VMware to Azure Stack HCI without any additional cost, significantly reducing our operational costs, especially now that Broadcom has purchased VMware, to $0."

"Azure Stack HCI has been very beneficial for disaster recovery operations, though the main data center still has a mix of infrastructure between other products."

"The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent."

More Azure Local pros

"Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices. All services that need to be local to the user exist on local servers. Users run applications and access data locally while the data is constantly being synced to Central, and protected. If an edge device fails, we can recover quickly."

Cons

"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware."

"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."

"The biggest challenge with the tool is not being able to manage everything from Microsoft Azure Portal."

"A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved."

"There are a lot of areas for improvement. Since I've been working very closely with this product, there are many areas, especially in software-defined networking. We had to improve multiple areas because we depended on the service fabric cluster to manage the software-defined network. That means we're already running a hypervisor inside a VM, and we're managing the control plane of the software-defined network. That's another cluster. So, multiple layers make the complexity more. So, from an operational perspective, it's very difficult to manage."

"The implementation was very difficult for the operation team at that time, as the necessary skills to implement and integrate this product were not available."

"Setting up disks for use is a multi-step process that could use some refinement. Setting up a core-to-core replication or DR strategy is also cumbersome."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main licenses are the OS licenses, the OEM licenses, and so on. They are very much aligned with the cost of expectations. We never had any challenges with the licensing at all."

"The pricing is high compared to other tools."

"Price is an issue – this is expensive stuff. My advice is to beat up Riverbed as much as possible on price. These things are expensive and there is room for negotiation."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Stack HCI?

The solution has the latest processor.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stack HCI?

This solution costs €10 per core per month. The whole stack is free if you are renting Windows Server Datacenter.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Stack HCI?

There could be improvements with Azure Stack HCI regarding the license and price, as they have significantly higher prices compared to other competitors. The end-to-end encryption provided by Azure...

See all answers

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Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Azure Local

Compared 23% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Azure Local

Compared 22% of the time

VxRail vs Azure Local

Compared 8% of the time

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs Azure Local

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Azure Local

Compared 5% of the time

More Azure Local Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs SteelFusion

Compared 53% of the time

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs SteelFusion

Compared 47% of the time

More SteelFusion Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Local

January 2026

Download Azure Local product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

December 2025

Download SteelFusion product report

Overview

Azure Local integrates on-premises infrastructure with cloud services, offering tools for software-defined networking, Kubernetes deployment, and VM management. It ensures cost efficiency through existing Microsoft licenses and robust disaster recovery, despite some complexities in deployment.

Azure Local is designed for businesses needing a blend of local and cloud services while remaining compliant with data privacy regulations. It excels in environments demanding high computing power, software-defined networking, and seamless scaling through Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure DevOps. Although it offers excellent VM management and analytics capabilities with Microsoft Fabric, deployment complexity and operational challenges remain. Businesses looking for a robust edge computing solution find significant benefits, especially with efficient local Azure storage and advanced hardware such as the latest processors and SSDs. There are areas needing improvements like multi-cluster management, stability, and Initial setup, which can be cumbersome. Pricing can be a concern against competitors, and enhanced support and training are needed for smoother user experience.

What are the key features of Azure Local?

Software-Defined Networking: Facilitates management with drag-and-drop setup.
Kubernetes Deployment: Provides Azure Kubernetes Service for managing microservices.
VM Management: Reduces server count and enhances efficiency.
Integration with Azure Arc: Seamless collaboration with Azure Arc for hybrid deployments.
Infrastructure as Code: Utilizes Azure DevOps for deployment.
Analytics Capabilities: Microsoft Fabric enhances insights and decision-making.

What benefits should businesses expect from Azure Local?

Cost Efficiency: Leverages existing Microsoft licenses for financial savings.
Improved Disaster Recovery: Advanced edge computing features bolster resiliency.
High Performance: Enhanced by the latest processors and SSDs for demanding applications.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Smooth transition capabilities between local and cloud environments.

Azure Local finds application in sectors like manufacturing and maritime operations where robust edge computing helps in seamless data management and analytics. Factories benefit from compliance with data privacy rules while blended local and cloud services improve efficiency on ships, providing an alternative to VMware with support for virtual desktops and SQL Managed Instances.

Microsoft

Riverbed SteelFusion is the first and only hyper-converged infrastructure for branch IT, enables 100% consolidation of branch data and servers from remote sites into data centers, delivering complete data security and centralized data protection, without compromising on any of the benefits of running branch services locally for your users. SteelFusion eliminates the need for physical servers, storage and backup infrastructure at branch locations, creates the ability to instantly provision and recover branch services, and provides full visibility and superior performance of on-premises and cloud-based applications, leading to dramatic increases in data security, business continuity, agility and operational efficiency.

Riverbed

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Roxtec, Engen, Bobst, CBP, IUCN, Mahoning County, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet

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