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Azure Local vs VxRail comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 21, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
3.8
Azure Local boosts ROI by reducing costs and support reliance, integrating well with Microsoft, enhancing business efficiency and engagement.
Sentiment score
4.4
VxRail improves efficiency and reduces costs, offering scalability and cloud integration, justifying its investment through long-term savings.
There has been some return on investment in terms of just time usability and reduction of footprint.
Solution Architect DC at Natilik
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.8
Azure Local's customer service is praised for effectiveness, but delays occur with resellers; Premier Support recommended for best outcomes.
Sentiment score
7.7
Dell EMC support is highly rated for effectiveness, though some users note issues with response times and international consistency.
They have more advantages than VMware, especially for containerization, and they provide good support as well.
Iinfrastructure Architect at Ministry Of Justice
Not every support team member is very knowledgeable about Azure Stack HCI, creating delays in resolution.
IT Solution Architect at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
A key area for improvement for VMware would be response time.
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Dell has good technical support in Saudi Arabia.
Presales + Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The support is all provided by Dell, and it is quite good.
Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.3
Azure Local provides scalable, reliable performance with effective cloud integration and seamless transitions, supporting numerous VMs and user demands effortlessly.
Sentiment score
7.6
VxRail offers impressive scalability and flexibility, ideal for large and medium environments but challenging for smaller setups.
There are limitations, such as the inability to upgrade from a single to dual CPU in certain configurations.
Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Scalability is easy with VxRail.
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Scalability is good with VxRail.
Presales + Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.9
Azure Local, stable and scalable with Hyper-V, has improved installation speed and matches VMware's performance despite minor issues.
Sentiment score
8.4
VxRail is praised for its stability, reliability, seamless maintenance, and minimal issues, even during updates and hardware failures.
It does not feel like a well-oiled machine yet, with too many idiosyncrasies and insufficient documentation and integration, feeling more like software that is still in beta.
IT Solution Architect at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
After achieving good maturity, it became easier.
Iinfrastructure Architect at Ministry Of Justice
It is a very stable and mature product, with centralized management and upgrades being perfect for us.
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
The product is very stable, and I rate its stability as nine out of ten.
Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Local needs improvements in setup, management, integration, architecture, performance, disaster recovery, and competitive pricing.
VxRail needs improved VMware integration, pricing, automation, upgrades, security, scalability, and streamlined processes for enhanced customer satisfaction.
Microsoft has decided to discontinue stretched cluster technology completely, which is disappointing.
IT Solution Architect at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware.
Solution Architect DC at Natilik
There could be improvements with Azure Stack HCI regarding the license and price, as they have significantly higher prices compared to other competitors.
Iinfrastructure Architect at Ministry Of Justice
VxRail could be enhanced through additional integration with NVMe technology.
Presales + Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues.
Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Stabilizing the update procedure further would make it better.
Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH
 

Setup Cost

Azure Local users find costs high but competitive, with potential savings on total stack via Windows Server Datacenter rental.
VxRail is a costly yet cost-effective VMware solution with integrated licensing, offering competitive pricing and reduced operational expenses.
The licensing is quite expensive because it's per call.
Solution Architect DC at Natilik
The cost varies for us as a large company because we receive special offers from Dell.
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Purchasing VxRail is quite expensive compared to a simple Dell server.
Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH
Previously, the cost was higher, however, recent changes in VMware pricing have reduced it.
Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Azure Local offers robust features for efficient networking, container management, cost-effectiveness, and seamless integration with Azure services.
VxRail offers centralized management, scalability, and rapid deployment with VMware integration and third-party compatibility for optimal performance.
Azure Stack HCI has been very beneficial for disaster recovery operations.
Iinfrastructure Architect at Ministry Of Justice
The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent.
Solution Architect DC at Natilik
Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.
Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The features of VxRail that we find most useful for our customers include the easy update mechanism and the support for both VMware and hardware.
Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH
The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN.
Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Local
Ranking in HCI
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
134
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 VxRail is 13.8%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VxRail13.8%
Azure Stack HCI3.2%
Other83.0%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

MC
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.
Saleh Khalid - PeerSpot reviewer
computer scientist at Imam University
Experience improved integration and cost-efficiency while facing support challenges
The best features of VxRail are its compatibility with VMware, its hyper-converged solution capabilities, and its single line of support. These are the most beneficial aspects of VxRail. I switched from the previous HP solution to Dell solution because it was a good decision. With HP servers, we dealt with a vendor for the compute servers, another vendor for the storage servers, and another vendor for the networking, which required us to manage multiple vendors. Now, we have a single team who can handle VxRail and a single line of support. We don't need anything other than that, and these are the differences we noticed after we switched.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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...
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...
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...
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Local vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.