Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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

"Easy to spin up and operate virtual machines without the overhead of managing a storage network."
"The management feature is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The most valuable feature is full integration with Cisco API and UCS, which means you can have complete networking and storage from Cisco."
"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."
"Deduplication is a valuable feature available in Cisco HyperFlex."
"I love the Cisco design, the visual interface to manage and use the platform."
"It's very easy to use and quite a mature product."
"It is very scalable. It is also very secure. Cisco's security portfolio is integrated with it, which makes it secure. It is a platform-based device. Its performance is also fairly good in comparison to any other solution."
"CloudOn allows for backed up virtual machines stored offsite in Azure to be instantiated as an Azure virtual machine and spun up."
"This is a centralized tool where we are able to schedule backups and perform monitoring."
"Rubrik is a very scalable and high-performing backup restore solution."
"It has a ​single pane of glass interface."
"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."
"Rubrik has automation capabilities that help streamline my workflows."
"Time dedicated to backup was drastically reduced."
"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."
 

Cons

"Sometimes when there are multiple technologies involved in a support case, this is when there is a bit of a lag."
"The storage layer seems to be a little better on the VMware than on HyperFlex side."
"I haven't been too impressed with the Cisco HyperFlex HX, honestly. It's a hard concept."
"Lacks some integration and documentation could be improved."
"The architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts."
"I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
"We'd like the product to offer better integration with other products."
"The infrastructure team thinks that there are a lot of issues."
"I would improve the cost part of Rubrik; they should improve in that area."
"Could be improved from an analytics point of view."
"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."
"I'd like to see a cloud backup service for smaller customer environments that may not support a physical or virtual appliance."
"Rubrik can only leverage cloud storage for archiving and has no cloud failover."
"Rubrik could improve in customization options for dashboards."
"I would love to be able to just get from the dashboard to a file that I need, or a system that I need."
"It needs to support more applications natively, like MySQL/MariaDB."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For customers in the private sector, this product can have a very high return on investment."
"Here in Brazil... it is very expensive. It's very hard for almost all companies to buy even the small version of this solution."
"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.""
"We currently have a perpetual license, which is kind of unlimited, so we don't have the normal licensing cost, yet."
"It's roughly $30,000 per Hyperflex license, so that would be about $60,000 a year."
"HyperFlex is a little pricey."
"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."
"We are on an annual subscription and the price is fair."
"There are additional costs like maintenance, and there are some features on their central management piece that don't come with our licensing."
"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. You are getting the storage needed to store your backups. You have 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, it might be expensive on paper. It's not free, but when you analyze what you are getting and the time you can spend on other stuff, then Rubrik is very cost-efficient."
"The pricing has been quite good from our perspective, in terms of being able to negotiate with the Rubrik team to get the product that we want and be able to sell that out to our end customers."
"Rubrik is an expensive solution."
"We do perpetual licensing... It was all based on the amount of storage we needed to use. We did a cost analysis compared to Tivoli and it was in line with other solutions."
"The product is not cheap, but for good reason. It simply works and is very fast."
"There are additional costs for add-ons, and they recently upgraded a new cluster, which also carries a price."
"Rubrik is quite expensive for small businesses."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
884,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
15%
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?
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.
884,192 professionals have used our research since 2012.