Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs Rubrik comparison

The compared Cisco and Rubrik solutions aren't in the same category. Rubrik is ranked #4 in BRS , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Rubrik users who would recommend it.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Read 90 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reviews

89% willing to recommend

Rubrik

Read 96 Rubrik reviews

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10,975 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Rubrik

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and Rubrik based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

January 2026

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Helped 882,606 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Rubrik

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Backup and Recovery (4th), Cloud Backup (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (5th)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501

Assistant VP, Information Technology at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Effective deduplication feature, but lacks a unified architecture

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series could be improved by reducing the number of nodes. Currently, the architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts. For example, if I need around 200 servers with a requirement of TB of storage, I would need 200 clusters, which can be quite cumbersome. Other solutions like Dell and Nutanix have a single combined unit that includes computing, memory, and storage, which can reduce the number of nodes required and also reduce licensing and power consumption. Therefore, I suggest improving the architecture of the Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series by combining computing, memory, and storage into a single unit, making it more efficient and easier to manage. It will also reduce the number of nodes required and licensing costs and help to reduce power consumption. I would like to see improved internal integration capabilities in the next release. Currently, it is constrained only to VMware only. So, there is no integration part of the RAC or IEL or anything, and it isn't easy to manage it. If I want to hold another partner, then that part will not be possible. So, you have to manage that particular integration. Another feature could be in terms of memory usage.

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Kammara Bheemanna

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.

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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 for our company is that it works internally. We have a lot of internal projects for optimization."

"The most valuable feature is that you can manage the whole cluster from the traffic interconnect."

"It is a stable and scalable solution."

"Cisco provides the ability to configure BIOS, something that no one else can do, on a remote basis. That's really helpful sometimes. The bus-snooping alteration tool for BIOS is fantastic. That's one of the game-changing features that Cisco alone has at this point."

"It consumes a smaller footprint when I compare it with other competitors."

"The UCS, which is by far the best management tool there is on the market, regardless of vendor. It's the only tool I see that gives you the opportunity to size and scale all the assets and capacity you have in your data center, from a unified view."

"The technical support has been helpful. We are always able to get through to the right person."

"The possibility to share the workload is one of its most valuable features. We have many applications which have need of workloads only a few times in a month, so we share HyperFlex with them."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"Mounting recent backups to create new servers rather than cloning servers in VMware drastically cut down required time."

"CloudOn allows for backed up virtual machines stored offsite in Azure to be instantiated as an Azure virtual machine and spun up."

"It is easy to deploy."

"It has also saved us time managing backups. It's pretty stable. So it sends us a report if something goes wrong, then you get a report. You don't really need to manually monitor this software over time. If something happens, you'll get an error and you'll get an email notification and then address it. We found the product pretty stable if it's configured correctly. So it has reduced management time."

"Its reporting is most valuable. I like how it reports that everything is successfully backed up. It provides a summarized report that I can give to auditors and management."

"The feature that I found most valuable is Live Mount. You can either mount a virtual machine from a snapshot, or you can mount a volume from the snapshot. You can mount one disk to the server to retrieve data, or you can mount the whole VM, rename it, and use it as a test VM. If your VM gets corrupted, you just mount one from the snapshot, and you have your production VM's backup. So, Live Mount is definitely the best feature for me as an end-user."

"The most valuable feature of Rubrik is its concept of a 'backup airbag', which provides a robust defense against attacks."

"Rubrik can also serve as a secondary host for emergency recoveries."

More Rubrik pros

Cons

"There are sometimes issues with memory failure."

"The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."

"One aspect that really needs to be looked at, is to fix the bugs issue."

"I would like a lighter product; something which can be carried by a mere human. The typical size still looks like a stack of data center-sized servers, which is typically fine, but not so good if you want to carry it around."

"If we compare it with VMware, the VMware product is basically very open, and it can be easily integrated with any platform. VMware product is also available on the cloud and is not an appliance-based product, whereas Cisco HyperFlex is an appliance-based product. Companies that want to use HCI as a platform or as a service would prefer something without an appliance. A SaaS-based product is better for a customer who is using the cloud and has multiple resources, workflows, and devices on the cloud and wants to go for a hyper-converged solution. This is where improvement is needed. In addition to an appliance-based product, Cisco should provide a SaaS-based product. Its price should be lower. Cisco needs to work on the pricing model for this product. Its price is a big road blocker when competing against Nutanix and VMware, which are its main competitors."

"It needs more detailed documentation."

"The scalability could use improvement."

"There should be the opportunity to create more than one div group"

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"The Polaris piece could use improvement. When you get a report and you have events that are suspicious, you cannot drill down and find out why it's suspicious. You only know it's suspicious, but you don't know the root cause. Other than that, everything works well."

"The product’s user interface needs improvement."

"We would like to be able to do granular restores directly from Exchange. Also, more granular management of VM backups would help."

"The same test case in Rubrik takes more than six to seven times longer, meaning the on-premises SLA is significantly faster."

"The deployment and configuration of the backup service is something that could be streamlined a little bit, particularly when you're trying to do a SQL workload. You have to install a backup service on the server. You only have to do it once and then you're done, but you have to do that on every server that you want to protect."

"Lacks availability in a NFR format of virtual appliances to test them in public cloud environment."

"There could be better reporting and better filtering."

"It needs to support more applications natively, like MySQL/MariaDB."

More Rubrik cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we negotiated with Cisco for the HyperFlex solution, they gave us a good price because they wanted to break into the market in Portugal for the first time. However, in general, I think it's a very expensive solution. It's a huge amount of money to acquire this kind of infrastructure."

"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 no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."

"HyperFlex is a little pricey."

"The pricing is a bit expensive."

"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."

"The product could be cheaper."

"HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"Rubrik is an all inclusive price. No additional implementation costs or licencing."

"The solution is expensive for small businesses."

"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."

"The pricing and licensing of Rubrik is better than products that we've had in the past. It was quite a bit cheaper than Commvault and NetBackup."

"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."

"When we compared the overall costs, Rubrik was cheaper because the engineering and operational side required FAR LESS dedication. So, all in all, they actually were cheaper than the competition."

"Originally, we bought the units on perpetual licenses. Now, we have switched to Rubrik Go. I think the Rubrik Go subscription is a better model, where it is based on your onsite environment and you consume what you use."

"Some people say it is expensive, but you get what you pay for. If you want a Maserati, you have to pay for it. If you want to buy a Porsche, you have to pay for it."

More Rubrik pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Marketing Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Educational Organization

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	57

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	55

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Rubrik?

It's easy to manage and has an innovated solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik?

Regarding pricing, Rubrik is a costly solution, and I would rate it an eight.

See all answers

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

VxRail vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 9% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

Commvault Cloud vs Rubrik

Compared 14% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Rubrik

Compared 9% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs Rubrik

Compared 9% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs Rubrik

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Backup vs Rubrik

Compared 5% of the time

More Rubrik Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

February 2026

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Rubrik

February 2026

Download Rubrik product report

Overview

The Cisco HyperFlex HX Data Platform is a purpose-built, high-performance, scale-out file system with a wide array of enterprise-class data management services. The data platform’s innovations redefine distributed storage technology, giving you complete hyper-convergence with enterprise storage features:

Enterprise-class data management
Continuous data optimization
Securely encrypted storage
Dynamic data placement
Clusterwide parallel data distribution
Linear and incremental scaling
API-based data platform architecture
A simplified approach

Cisco

Rubrik is a backup and recovery solution that can be used as a converged data management platform for physical, virtual, and hybrid environments. The solution works to protect your data and applications from ransomware, operational failures, and rogue employees, and also helps your organization simplify data management and accelerate cloud mobility. In addition, Rubrik is designed for cloud integration and infinite scalability to enable hybrid cloud for all enterprises.

Rubrik’s software is also built to support most operating systems, databases, hypervisors, clouds, and SaaS applications, and the solution integrates with on-premises hardware if necessary.

Rubrik Features

Rubrik has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Instant recovery
Live-restore
Single console
Automatic incremental backups
Policy-driven automation
Instant search
Live Mount capability
Compliance and capacity customized reporting
Quick and efficient snapshots
Multiple backup destinations
Deduplication and file compression
Intuitive web interface
Good performance
Easy to use
Low maintenance
Flexible deployment

Rubrik Benefits

There are several benefits to implementing Rubrik. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Single policy engine: Because Rubrik is policy-driven, it functions through a single policy engine that orchestrates service level agreements (SLAs) across the data lifecycle. Management is automated through one programmatic interface.

Customized reports: With Rubrik, you can create customized reports and utilize data visualizations.

Advanced security: Regardless of location, data remains secure in transit and at rest throughout its lifecycle, as it is stored and backed up.

Compliance: With Rubrik, you gain granular role-based access control while automating compliance reporting, which helps complete various industry and internal audits.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Rubrik users.

PeerSpot user Chadd B., System Administrator at a manufacturing company, says, “The solution is easy to use with an intuitive web interface, helpful support, good performance, and saves us time. The most valuable feature is the Instant Recovery, where we can restore a VM or SQL database or any server or application, and have it up and running on their appliance within a few seconds. The VM backup and the SQL backup are blazingly fast for both backup and recovery.”

A Storage Administrator at a healthcare company explains that the solution “Cut our backup management time significantly, and the near-instant recovery reduces our downtime. He also comments that “The scalability is wonderful. That is one of our biggest advantages with this.”

Burhan S., Systems Engineer at Harvard University, mentions, "There is a live-restore feature, their Live Mount, and the way it works we can instantly recover a VM, a past backup, to be directly attached to our VMware environment. Rubrik will act as a disk for it. It's like an instant restore. Within a few minutes our VM is up and running. And then, if we want to restore it, we can just migrate it to our actual storage."

Kevin M., Head Of Operations at University of Reading, states, “The solution’s SLA-based functionality means we don't have to manually manage backup windows, and recovery times have been notably reduced. Its web interface is really easy to use. It's just click and go. It's fast and intuitive. We've never had any problems in navigating.”

Rubrik

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

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