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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 (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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 is that it is something small that can be more easily deployed than a full data center set of servers."
"I find the usability very valuable."
"With our four HyperFlex HX hosts (consisting of processor, memory, and disk), the performance is very fast and we have no problems at all. In all of the five years that we have been using HyperFlex, we haven't needed to increase our budget to buy additional hosts."
"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."
"It's very easy to use and quite a mature product."
"It is a solution that best suits thre needs of our organization."
"The integration between the storage and the server applications is the most valuable feature of this solution. It cuts down on the necessity to buy a secondary storage system.. It saves money in the long-run."
"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."
"For data security, anomaly detection, site monitoring, and threat hunting are very important features that help customers."
"The security and the ransomware protection are most valuable."
"The solution’s ransomware recovery, from a security perspective, is one of the biggest features of the product. We don't have to worry about the operational complexity of air-gapped backups and can rely more on the immutability approach. It is a highly valued feature in this solution."
"Automation functions, image based backup, and the ability to instantly recover anything from files to databases."
"The main benefit is that we are secured in terms of workloads. We know that if we need to restore any VMs, or even any files inside a VM, that we will succeed 100 percent. This means that we don't need to spend much time administering the backup environment because we know it is self-healing and efficient. So, we are spending that time on something else, which is always a plus."
"The product's protection against ransomware is a significant benefit."
"Rubrik has brought all of our backups under a single pane of glass and made recovery extremely simple."
"The management and ease of installation are the most valuable features."
 

Cons

"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."
"Unlike other options, you need to pay a subscription to Cisco yearly instead of paying for the hardware outright, which makes it more expensive in the long run."
"I have been receiving a memory overflow message every day when I use the solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see them able to connect to the public cloud."
"Does not support the stretch cluster, and the interface is not good."
"There is a VMware plugin for HyperFlex, which sometimes it hangs up in our environment, and doesn't function well."
"We would like to have the ability to not have to reboot while doing updates. Being able to work through updates with as minimal amount of impact to users."
"We need to be able to scale out and not just up. When you want to scale up or scale out, you are quite limited."
"Price-wise, Rubrik needs improvement as it is considered expensive compared to similar competitors."
"The main pain points we experienced was the stability of the system. We received a lot of instability when we have upgraded from a certain version to a new version. The newer version was completely filled with bugs and we needed to purge the system every week until we update to a newer version that was available one year later. The stability of the code is the main problem, they need to make it better."
"The solution needs to be more secure and needs to better protect against ransomware."
"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."
"It is a lot more expensive than other solutions, but you get what you pay for."
"One improvement I would suggest for Rubrik is to have an inbuilt media layer facility for direct backups to tape."
"They should give more access to the backend capabilities. From a customer point of view, you do not have access to all the features on the system. You have to engage their support to perform some of the tasks. It would be helpful for an experienced engineer to be able to go and do some of those tasks prior to contacting the support."
"The web interface could benefit from some improvement, particularly in terms of alerting and dashboard clarity. The cloud web interface is somewhat confusing and could use more development attention. Additionally, it's essential to ensure that local on-premise management options remain available alongside cloud-based solutions, as internet availability can affect backup management. Regarding features, cross-hypervisor restore functionality would be a valuable addition, allowing for greater flexibility in restoring VMs across different environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive. Other solutions are cheaper."
"There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."
"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."
"They are not the cheapest on the market. But there's an old saying I like to quote: "If you know that you are getting what you pay for, it's fine if it's expensive.""
"The price is a bit too high."
"It is highly priced compared to other vendors."
"There is a recurring cost for the VMware license and the HyperFlex licenses."
"The cost is expensive, but there is a chance to save money in the future."
"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."
"Its price tends to go up with time. Its pricing definitely has room for improvement. If you negotiate right with them, you might get a good price. Support is a part of the package, and every three years, when we renew our contract, we get new hardware."
"It is an expensive product."
"Rubrik is a little bit expensive, but it's worth the price."
"The initial setup cost includes support and maintenance costs, followed by a monthly fee."
"We pay annually for the license for Rubrik. There are no additional costs. Initially, we needed to set it up, negotiate and finalize the offer."
"Rubrik is an expensive solution."
"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
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?
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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: March 2026.
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