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 (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (4th)
 

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

"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
"It is a stable and scalable solution."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is essential to our vSAN solution; it's integrated."
"Its most valuable feature is its flexibility."
"The compute storage and virtualization come all in one box."
"It increases efficiency, decreases the cost, and manages the network in one single way."
"It is a complete package; for any kind of on-premises hyper-converged solution, we usually have to separate networks, but Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a complete solution with its own network and storage, and the storage part is the most valuable feature."
"The primary use case is for backup virtualization, active directory servers, and backup file servers."
"The big thing, the big benefit, it gives us is that it just works."
"Rubrik has led to improvement by reducing the amount of failed backups, leading to a reduced workload in IT operations."
"You need to understand what you're getting for the price: you are getting a backup solution which is state of the art and works absolutely flawlessly, with the storage needed to store your backups and all the sexy features that a modern backup solution can provide you, like deduplication, erasure coding, compression, fast execution time, secured data, and top-notch customer support, so while it might be expensive on paper, when you analyze what you are getting and the time you can spend on other stuff, then Rubrik is very cost-efficient."
"It has the ability to test DR in a controlled, inexpensive way and to restore between environments."
"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."
"Rubrik backup is more than twice as fast as our previous solution, and its deduplication rate is significantly better."
"Rubrik has made the process to manage backup and recovery painless."
"In the event of any issues or questions, the support is top-notch. We rarely need to use support, but when they are needed, they are always quick to respond and very knowledgeable."
 

Cons

"Cisco technical support often makes things too complicated."
"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."
"The deployment could be made a little bit easier, as we still seem to struggle with it for a day or so to get it running."
"Cisco is a bit more challenging to setup. You need to be knowledgeable in order to implement the solution."
"Lacks some integration and documentation could be improved."
"Maybe a better version is required to gather all of the information to allow HyperFlex to bring everything online more rapidly."
"The initial setup of profiles and templates could be improved. Maybe some end profiles that you can use based on your type of deployment would be good."
"Technical support is very good. Not excellent, but good. There's still not enough data available on the web."
"They have what's called an organization which means different groups of access to Rubrik, but the alerting only goes to the admins. My suggestion to Rubrik is to make sure that the separate organizations or groups of users get the appropriate alerting."
"The reporting, in particular the customization of reports, needs to be improved."
"It is a lot more expensive than other solutions, but you get what you pay for."
"If I could take a snapshot from a physical and be able to stand it up as a virtual immediately without the need to rebuild an entire system and restoring files, that would be HUGE."
"The recovery of Oracle databases is too complicated. It is not something that helps the DBA, the Database Administrator, but it should be done by the backup person like many other solutions. Everything is ready for the DBA to recover the database. It is a way of doing things, but I don't think you should give the backup people the ability to do it."
"It needs to support more applications natively, like MySQL/MariaDB."
"The open source database needs to be supported."
"Improving PowerShell integration would greatly simplify Rubrik management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is highly priced compared to other vendors."
"Its price is rather fair when compared with other solutions like VxRail, vSAN, and HPE SimpliVity. We got a fair amount of discount from Cisco for Cisco HyperFlex. It is cost-effective. We have renewed storage till next year, and we have already paid the vendor. When we talk about HyperFlex or any HCI solution, storage is the part where we can reduce a lot of costs. At the current moment, we are already using NetApp storage, which did not allow us to go for a full Cisco HyperFlex setup. We are planning to go to a larger scale next year. Then we will be able to see how cost-effective it really is for us."
"There is a recurring cost for the VMware license and the HyperFlex licenses."
"There is a license required to use this solution."
"HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."
"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."
"Rubrik is not the cheapest solution, but we've been happy with the time savings that we have seen. At least from what we have spent so far, we have been happy with the return on investment."
"Rubrik was probably the most expensive solution but in the long run, it's justified by the value of the data that it protects."
"Due to this effective, faster backup and recovery solution, we are now able to focus on other creative tasks to meet our entire pipeline. So, we have seen ROI in terms of the improvement of productivity in our team. We save around one million dollars a year."
"Rubrik is an expensive solution."
"We are on an annual license to use Rubrik and it is priced well."
"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."
"Rubrik is priced high, but it was the solution that was providing us encryption and was secure. The solution price is high, but you get what you pay for."
"It is an expensive product."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
886,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
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.
886,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.