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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

"When we did benchmarking on this particular product line, the results were great and quite amazing."
"The product is easy to manage and flexible for upgrading without major changes."
"It saves space for data centers, which is good."
"Cisco is key for switching abilities, and the management from the switches to the hyper-convergence solutions, such as the storage or server environment, is quite good and well-developed."
"I will tell potential users that I think it's a good product."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is essential to our vSAN solution; it's integrated."
"It's very easy to use and quite a mature product."
"Our clients have definitely seen a return on investment using Cisco."
"The thing that sets Rubrik apart is the instant recovery feature."
"We are now able to perform fast backups and very quick restores, and we have a tool to restore a virtual machine with Windows Server 2012 R2 from about 1 TB in around 2 minutes up to login."
"With this new product, Rubrik, we walked into it blind, not being backup admins, and it made a lot of sense to us."
"The management and ease of installation are the most valuable features."
"We had some VMware issue as VMware did some changes on the AHCI drivers. Rubrik saved our environment those times."
"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."
"Having said that, we can instantly recover an entire customer's environment in minutes and run happily on the system until a storage vMotion is completed to production storage without any issues."
"I haven't encountered any bugs or glitches using the solution."
 

Cons

"In the next release, Cisco should add more integration and management capabilities as well as some tweaks to the dashboard that make it more user-friendly."
"Single console management (like Hyperflex and FIs management). I mean to say that, we need to log in 2 console one for vcenter and another for Hyperflex manager, this should be on same console page either hyperfex manager settings and monitoring in vcenter or vcenter can be managed by hyperflex console too."
"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."
"The solution could improve by having more customization."
"They should give us a little more information about how to use the CLI and offer more commands."
"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."
"It is quite new solution, so it is not very stable."
"The initial setup is very complex because there were some issues. It is not clear to how set up this solution."
"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."
"I have a personal want which might not necessarily make sense with Rubrik as a company or Rubrik as a software, but it'd be really nice if they could also handle things like item-level backups and restores of Active Directory objects and DNS and DCP objects."
"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."
"They need to find a solution for SMBs. It is currently only suitable for enterprises or big customers. They need to find a solution that suits SMBs."
"At the time of this review, Rubrik is still missing several components to their Office 365 backup offering."
"The licensing cost is quite high. That is something that needs to be worked out, because so many times it happens that the team does not have the budget or there are other issues at that time. Cost has become an important factor in deciding whether to continue with the Rubrik solution."
"The solution needs to be more secure and needs to better protect against ransomware."
"The price of Rubrik is too high, especially when you are considering a change in the total backup solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
"Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper."
"It's roughly $30,000 per Hyperflex license, so that would be about $60,000 a year."
"HyperFlex is a little pricey."
"If you don't look at the costs of the systems, the scalability is quite good."
"We have a yearly license."
"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."
"We are on an annual subscription and the price is fair."
"High priced when considering a total change in backup solution."
"There is a license requirement for the solution. If you expand or if the maintenance period expires, there's a license renewal as well."
"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 a great value, but its cost is still a bit high."
"Rubrik's competitive pricing and strong return on investment make it a compelling choice, especially compared to alternatives like Data Domain and Avamar. Commvault was considered but deemed too expensive."
"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."
"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."
"Rubrik is fairly priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Marketing Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
9%
Educational Organization
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.
886,719 professionals have used our research since 2012.