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Azure Local vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
3.8
Azure Stack HCI offers strong ROI by enhancing cost-efficiency, performance, stakeholder engagement, and understanding beyond IT domains.
Sentiment score
6.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure users achieve ROI within 2-3 years, citing cost, energy savings, and operational efficiencies with stable infrastructures.
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 Stack HCI support receives mixed reviews, with excellent resolution praised but delays and expertise issues causing dissatisfaction.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure support is praised for quick, knowledgeable service, resolving issues swiftly with multilingual capabilities and proactive monitoring.
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
The second one was a licensing issue because when I switched from the SMB package to another package, I had to change the way of licensing, and that was horrendous.
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
The technical support from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is excellent, deserving a nine out of ten rating.
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.3
Azure Stack HCI provides scalable, reliable cloud integration, supporting multiple nodes and configurations for efficient application scaling without performance issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers exceptional scalability, allowing seamless expansion, dynamic growth, and effortless workload management for enterprises.
The scalability of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) deserves an eight out of ten rating, as there is no solution that is 100% efficient and there is always room for improvement.
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
5.9
Azure Stack HCI is stable and scalable, built on Hyper-V, yet needs improved documentation and integration with some idiosyncrasies.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers stable, reliable performance with minimal downtime, efficient workload handling, and high user satisfaction.
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
Compared to VM, we find it most stable.
Assistant Manager at Isuzu Hicom Malaysia Sdn Bhd
Regarding stability, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) a seven out of ten.
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Stack HCI needs enhancements in networking, integration, ease of use, pricing, encryption, and deployment process for better performance.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure needs improvements in setup cost, storage, integration, compatibility, networking, oversight, and pricing transparency for competitiveness.
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
We hope Nutanix can integrate inside our current license module.
Assistant Manager at Isuzu Hicom Malaysia Sdn Bhd
It could be interesting to offer back another small business pricing that would be more suitable for small companies.
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
They should add AI features in the future.
Manager at Seoul Institute of the Arts
 

Setup Cost

Azure Stack HCI costs mainly involve OS licenses and hardware, with potential cost offsets via Windows Server Datacenter rental.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers cost-effectiveness with comprehensive solutions, despite initial costs, appealing to enterprises for long-term ROI.
The licensing is quite expensive because it's per call.
Solution Architect DC at Natilik
At first, it is cheaper than cloud services, so the cost is a major benefit.
Manager at Seoul Institute of the Arts
The pricing is renewed every year, at almost $100,000 per year.
Assistant Manager at Isuzu Hicom Malaysia Sdn Bhd
It costs more compared to VMware due to different licensing areas.
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
 

Valuable Features

Azure Stack HCI enhances hybrid cloud with efficient networking, Kubernetes support, cloud integration, and cost-effective, robust edge computing.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure excels in ease of use, scalability, data protection, and seamless management, enhancing performance and reducing costs.
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
When technology development or devops teams request server provisioning, the setup time has been reduced from hours to less than 20 minutes.
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
The performance was really better for applications and access times to the data.
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
The replication method between Nutanix clusters is a valuable feature.
Assistant Manager at Isuzu Hicom Malaysia Sdn Bhd
 

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
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
200
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (6th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

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 Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 8.8%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)8.8%
Azure Stack HCI3.2%
Other88.0%
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.
OB
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
Infrastructure efficiency has improved significantly with quick server provisioning, though physical to virtual migrations need a streamlined in-house tool
From my experience with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), there is one area that needs improvement. When moving a critical infrastructure from a physical machine to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), we currently have to use a third-party tool to convert the physical machine to a VM. We have to use VMware converter to perform this conversion before moving it to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). I would suggest that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) should develop their own P2V (physical to VM) tools instead of requiring users to rely on third-party solutions.
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
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 Business92
Midsize Enterprise77
Large Enterprise82
 

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 do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Local vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.