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Azure Stack HCI vs Dell XC 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

Azure Stack HCI
Ranking in HCI
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell XC Appliance
Ranking in HCI
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Stack HCI is 3.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure Stack HCI3.7%
Dell XC Appliance0.7%
Other95.6%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Nicholas Diesel - PeerSpot reviewer
The storage for local usage is very efficient for an HCI product but virtualization needs improvement
Azure Site Recovery is brilliant. The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent. Additionally, Azure storage for local usage is very efficient for an HCI product. There has been some return on investment in terms of time usability and reduction of footprint, and obviously, HCI two emissions and other factors.
Enables seamless integration with multiple software and outstanding AI tools
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it. I find it overly reliant on VMware. In cases of company mergers involving different platforms, software that can handle a multi-hypervisor environment would facilitate quicker integration.

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 solution has the latest processor."
"The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent."
"The scalability is extremely good."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."
"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."
"The solution's best feature is its simplicity. It's so simple to deploy it. You've got the VMware, and it's own appliance. It is really helpful. The system is online within half a day and saves so much time."
"What I like the most is that it is easy to implement, easy deployment and that it's easy to manage."
"The solution's hardware is great."
"The most valuable feature is the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it."
"The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly."
"When we compare it to normal hardware servers, I'd say it is quite easy to configure and deploy."
"It's an extremely stable solution, and I highly recommend it."
"The most valuable features are the deduplication and the compression features."
 

Cons

"A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved."
"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."
"Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware."
"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"Dell needs to do a lot of work to simplify the maintenance and life-cycle upgrades for the product."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"The solution's storage size could be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers."
"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is high compared to other tools."
"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 for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"We received a good price from Dell."
"The pricing is dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"The pricing is good."
"The price point is very fair for a product in this category but can vary depending on the components selected within the family of products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

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?
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 h...
What advice do you have for others considering Dell XC Appliance?
My advice for people who are selling this product is to first make sure that you educate the customers. The customer doesn't often know much about HCI and what the need to be using it for. If they ...
What needs improvement with Dell XC Appliance?
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's applian...
What is your primary use case for Dell XC Appliance?
Dell offers several benefits with its appliances. Primarily, I can combine them horizontally and vertically, reaching up to sixty-four nodes. Additionally, Dell employs its own artificial intellige...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Cardlytics, AEW Energie, Aubert, Zhongtong Information Service, Commune de Villepinte, Teikyo University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Stack HCI vs. Dell XC Appliance and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.