No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs Rubrik comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rubrik
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (3rd), Cloud Backup (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager - Resp.Department at Parvalorem
High performance solution that makes it easy to efficiently manage VM resources
In our case as a credit recovery company working with the state, our infrastructure is fixed and stable as we don't have the same need for growth as other types of companies. That said, one of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application. Since we as a company will only be operating for perhaps the next ten years, when our HyperFlex solution comes to its end-of-life in 2024 our next step will likely not be with HyperFlex or any other solution from Cisco. Instead, from a financial point of view, we will likely turn toward a cloud solution because, that way, we won't have to spend so much money on physical infrastructure. We are, after all, only a small company and HyperFlex can be very expensive for other companies of our size, whether in Portugal or elsewhere like the United States. One other area for improvement is in regard to HyperFlex's integration with VMware. HyperFlex integrates with a specific version of VMware in such a way that HyperFlex doesn't always resolve security issues with VMware at the same pace as what you see in native implementations of VMware. This has happened in one or two situations in the past. On the other hand, the integration is otherwise adequate, especially in terms of availability and virtualization features (such as being able to split up each of our four hosts within VMware).
KB
Information Technology Specialist at LIGHTHOUSE DOCUMENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC
Technical support has improved my data management process but I encounter GUI and cost challenges
The solution is available in the Azure Marketplace, but approaching directly is more cost-effective. The Marketplace approach incurs additional platform and reporting costs. We initially built Rubrik at host level and DB level. We encountered latency issues when reverting back, with numerous snapshots available. This resulted in increased costs and occupied spaces. I performed manual deletion of snapshots and verified with the Rubrik team for confirmation. The GUI reporting functionality lacks flexibility. For instance, obtaining specific server reports considering drive space and backup quantities is not possible, as it only provides overall reporting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It increases efficiency, decreases the cost, and manages the network in one single way. That's the most important thing."
"The scalability has been very good for us since we were stuck on our old platform with old drives and hardware, and HyperFlex has given us flexibility where we can scale up and down, allowing our servers to react and do large scales for data storage, which helps a lot."
"The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is essential to our vSAN solution; it's integrated."
"Cisco HyperFlex is helping us to put everything in centrally so that we can manage in one place."
"The technical support has been helpful. We are always able to get through to the right person."
"It is scalable and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is full integration with Cisco API and UCS, which means you can have complete networking and storage from Cisco."
"The product's protection against ransomware is a significant benefit."
"Disk mount that lets a restore happen immediately, no need to re-hydrate."
"With an easy backup process, simple and fast recovery process, ability to scale out and still keep a single deduplication domain and a fast storage appliance, all I can think of to say is to shut up and take my money."
"Rubrik has led to improvement by reducing the amount of failed backups, leading to a reduced workload in IT operations."
"Rubrik is a very scalable and high-performing backup restore solution."
"Overall, it makes operational life way easier."
"Rubrik has allowed our Managed Backup product to be elevated from a home-brewed concoction of free backup products wrapped in our special glue to a modern, intelligent, single-pane-of-glass orchestration engine."
"The system is able to determine when it is the best time to do backups. This is SLA-driven, and if it is not possible to maintain this SLA, the system will tell you too."
 

Cons

"Does not support the stretch cluster, and the interface is not good."
"It needs improvements in terms of I/O. Sometimes I have felt it is slightly slow while we are trying to provision VMs or access VMs."
"Their technical support is very bad. We had an issue where instead of an engineer we got a PDF "doctor" that didn't know anything about our problem which was very frustrating."
"The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers. It takes getting used to the learning curve."
"When it comes to customer needs, the licensing price could be better."
"You have to get the same servers with the same storage; they need to be identical. However, in vSAN or in VMware we don't have to do that."
"I would like to see the capacity to choose the replications, RFS sectors to all machines, not only on the cluster. Additionally, the solution should provide more detailed documentation."
"This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity."
"Global management of multiple systems is lacking, as is reporting across multiple installed units."
"In terms of what could be improved with Rubrik, we need to improve the backup for remote sites. The competitors are stronger in terms of their remote office back up. Rubrik needs to improve to be stronger for backup. This is the main thing."
"It needs to support more applications natively, like MySQL/MariaDB."
"I would like to have a built-in index searching ability of files/system files within the Rubrik interface to determine if a file or item exists, rather than just recovering it, and then doing a search for the file afterwards."
"When errors do occur, it can be a somewhat painful process to get to the bottom of issues."
"At the time of this review, Rubrik is still missing several components to their Office 365 backup offering."
"The same test case in Rubrik takes more than six to seven times longer, meaning the on-premises SLA is significantly faster."
"The solution could improve by having fewer VM Stuns."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."
"We have a yearly license."
"I would like a clearer licensing model. It should explain a bit more what you receive if you buy the more expensive license rather than the standard one."
"Its price is high. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Nutanix or VMware are cheaper products, and they provide almost the same functionality. Its price is a big road blocker when we are working with an end customer, and Nutanix and VMware are in competition. If they can reduce its price, it is actually a better choice for customers."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a bit pricier compared to other brands in the market...There is a need to make additional payments towards the maintenance and support of the solution."
"The price is a bit high. It could be better, but the product is worth the cost."
"I rate the pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
"I rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten."
"Rubrik was probably the most expensive solution but in the long run, it's justified by the value of the data that it protects."
"Rubrik's support is definitely on the expensive side, but I consider it to be top of the line. We incur no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."
"Rubrik is not cheap. Hopefully, you can archive your data on cheap storage to keep the investment minimal."
"There is a license requirement for the solution. If you expand or if the maintenance period expires, there's a license renewal as well."
"The cost was less than our previous provider, and this is a much better product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
11%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

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...
How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
Which would you choose - Rubrik or Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting it up is a relatively simple affair. For the most part it prompts you from scre...
What do you like most about Rubrik?
It's easy to manage and has an innovated solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik?
Regarding pricing, Rubrik is a costly solution, and I would rate it an eight.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
Driscoll's, Red Hawk Casino, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Wabash National, Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Galliker Transport & Logistics
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: March 2026.
885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.