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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

"On the VDI side, because the storage is local to the HyperFlex, it was very easy and convenient, and the performance is exceptional."
"This solution allows us to get up and running a lot faster than before, as instead of it being multiple days of cabling, multiple solutions, and getting the servers online, it now generally takes one full day to get it up and ready to go."
"This solution has improved my organization because workers are more efficient and the time it takes to complete daily activities has been significantly reduced."
"Initial it costs much but it will pay back with its scalability feature and performance."
"This is not the only product we use, so we have other solutions to compare it with. We can compare different products and different vendors and tell our customers which products have which advantages and disadvantages so that they can leverage these products in their own environment. This product helps us to understand the customer's needs and what issues they can run into."
"Great integration with backup software."
"The product makes management much easier since there's a single pane of glass to use to monitor, manage and upgrade the system."
"We used to have a single customer-facing data center, which was vulnerable to failure, and this product has allowed us to create high availability between two private data centers."
"The most valuable feature is the archive to cloud location and the automation around the PowerShell script. There are also reports and dashboards."
"I think Rubrik is a very good backup solution; it works well, is pretty reliable, stable, and easy to use, and I don't see any negatives in Rubrik, only positives."
"Rubrik is a faster unit from a hardware perspective. Things, like Live Mount, mean we can bring services back straightaway, then have them transition back into the live storage in the background. Because we can use Live Mount to do instant restores, a restore is now a five-minute job. Then, the rest of it is done in the background, rather than doing something for an hour before you actually get the restore back."
"The tech support is extremely helpful."
"Rubrik has made the process to manage backup and recovery painless. This frees up more time to work on other projects."
"I think the best feature is its masterless architecture."
"Instant recovery is a good feature."
"Disk mount that lets a restore happen immediately, no need to re-hydrate."
 

Cons

"Cisco's technical support originally was outstanding, but it has declined over the last 12 months. I've heard they're trying to do better, but I haven't been overly impressed with their support recently for HyperFlex."
"One of the challenges we have with HyperFlex is that they have a subscription fee for the operating system that runs on it, and if I remember correctly, it costs approximately $15,000 USD per month."
"You cannot just apply the VSXi updates. You are dependent on Cisco HyperFlex for metric services, analytics, and everything else. I don't like that dependency."
"The problem is that we always have to keep an eye out for new releases to make sure that the version we're running is up-to-date."
"The platform itself is very stable and robust, but when it comes to upgrading the system, it's not stable."
"There could be an increase in performance to improve the solution."
"Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."
"The pricing is pretty expensive."
"Needs integration with video CD (coming in the next release) and a multi-tenant GUI."
"The dashboard and user interface could be improved to make them more user-friendly."
"When errors do occur, it can be a somewhat painful process to get to the bottom of issues."
"It is already very well furnished, but live mounts for Nutanix AHV would be amazing."
"We would like to be able to do granular restores directly from Exchange. Also, more granular management of VM backups would help."
"I would like to see the entire Office 365 product suite backed up by Rubrik. For instance, they do SharePoint and Exchange online, but they don't back up Microsoft Teams."
"It is not Windows Cluster-Aware at the moment or Exchange DAG-Aware."
"The only thing that can be improved is catering for open source databases because at the moment it doesn't cater for Mongo, MySQL, and Postgres."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."
"I would like the pricing to be cheaper."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."
"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"It's much more expensive than rack servers. It was an issue, but when you compare it to the number of people who were administrative assistants before, it's on the positive ROI side. It's much cheaper."
"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."
"Our licensing is Hybrid. We have all of our applications for billing and outage management through this."
"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."
"There is just one cost, and it includes software and hardware. So, everything is included. It is better than other solutions in terms of cost. We also have Dell EMC Avamar in our environment, and we have to pay for the hardware and data domain. We also have to pay for the software license for the data protection suite. So, based on my calculations, I find Rubrik cheaper, and we are also getting good performance."
"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."
"Rubrik is a little bit expensive, but it's worth the price."
"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."
"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."
"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 is fairly priced."
"I rate the pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
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?
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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: April 2026.
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