Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs VxRail comparison

Cisco and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Read 90 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reviews

89% willing to recommend

VxRail

Read 134 VxRail reviews

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12,284 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

VxRail

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and VxRail both compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure category. VxRail often has the upper hand due to its integrated management and robust VMware environment support.

Features: Cisco HyperFlex offers flexibility and ease of integration, especially within existing Cisco infrastructures. It provides high availability and integrated networking solutions, which are beneficial for many users. VxRail, on the other hand, excels in integrated management and automation, as well as simplified deployment in VMware environments. Its robust support for VMware and the simplicity of its deployment process are standout features.

Room for Improvement: Cisco HyperFlex users desire better cloud connectivity and improved documentation while facing challenges with complex integrations. Pricing improvements and better technical deployment capabilities are also suggested. VxRail users point out the need for simplified upgrade processes and enhanced hardware flexibility, with criticisms focusing on external vCenter configurations support. Pricing models and support structures need enhancement for both products to increase adoption rates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Cisco HyperFlex and VxRail are mainly deployed on-premises with strong customer support offerings. HyperFlex might require technical support at various stages of implementation, leading to varying user experiences. VxRail is frequently highlighted for its smooth customer service experiences, especially noted for ease of deployment in VMware environments, providing a streamlined setup process.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco HyperFlex is considered costlier but provides good ROI through long-term administrative savings and efficient deployment. VxRail is also expensive, chiefly due to VMware integration, but it delivers significant ROI through efficient resource utilization and operational savings. While both products have high initial costs, they subsequently showcase substantial ROI benefits for larger enterprises.

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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

VxRail

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

HCI (1st)

Q&A Highlights

Netanya Carmi

Content Manager at PeerSpot

Oct 26, 2021

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 offers freedom of choice and a number of different options. In contrast, Cisco HyperFlex HX does run on the more expensive side and cannot offer the same level of cost-effective solution. VxRail is able to provide both an ability to upgrade the system with an ever-growing library of resources as well as to provide powerful processors. This is something that I greatly appreciate. Being able to simply add upgrades to the system without necessarily having to worry about the system being bogged down is invaluable. The ability that it provides to apply updates to the system with ease is something worthy of note. If you add this to the fact that VxRail runs on multiple cores at 2 gigahertz or higher, then that means that in terms of ability, the VxRail is difficult to match. In terms of usability, it is hard to argue that VxRail delivers. It is pretty simple and easy to both set up and manage. Once the system is set up, all of the management tools are centrally located to assist in providing ease of use. The Cisco Hyperflex HX Series is both stable as well as reasonably easy to set up. Cisco has a step-by-step program guide that leads you through the process. Once it is set up, it is not prone to glitching or freezing. However, the pricing model that Cisco applies to this product requires users to pay a yearly subscription. This can end up being rather expensive in the long run. Conclusion Both systems offer stable solutions. Ultimately, VxRail is more cost-effective.

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Featured Reviews

Nuno Mendes

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).

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AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Streamlines resource management through centralized automation and automatic upgrades

The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN. It provides a unified way to access these resources, making management straightforward. Another benefit is the fully automated upgrade process, which is completed with just one click through the VxRail Manager. This centralization and automation enhance efficiency significantly.

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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 product is stable. No one complains about the stability, which is fabulous."

"The implementation process is okay."

"The price of the solution is good, especially when it comes to complex network solutions, such as UCS and Connect."

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

"Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions on the storage side by having one big storage space for hosting VMs. We do not have to provision other ones. That's a positive aspect of it."

"It is a stable solution...It is a 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."

"Scalability is easy and simple."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"The storage virtualization feature of VxRail has been the most vital part of our company's improvement in operations."

"t's a very good solution with multiple options with VxRail series like based on customer requirements whether they're focused on compute, storage, scalability and high performance, etc. Whether a customer you are going to start your IT Infrastructure footprint with a limited budget, you have freedom of choice and non-disruptive expansion in the future, whether in the main data center or branches. Any idea coming in system admins mind to run this setup continuously and keep service 100% 24/7 is possible in this product line. Hyper-converged appliances allow a datacenter in a box approach, with G, E P, Vand P series."

"Homogeneity is most valuable. The truth is that having everything in a single cluster helps a lot."

"It's somewhat hard to speak about specific features, but I like VxRail's simplicity and ease of use. It's a decent solution for customers with a small footprint. If you're operating a big data center, it's not easy to position VxRail or HCI solutions, but when you have a small customer managing many different components, it's easier to work only with one solution."

"It's very easy to upgrade."

"What I like the most in terms of features is the fact that the VxRail update can be done in one week. It takes much less time to do a whole server upgrade and an infrastructure update as well."

"VxRail has high performance and has great efficiency. There is a single place for us to manage all of our virtual machines. The ability to right-size instead of overcommit VMs is a large benefit."

"Its ease of administration is extremely valuable. It allows me to make better use of my time for other tasks instead of maintaining systems through multiple administration consoles."

More VxRail pros

Cons

"I would like it to be easier to manage the server, create VMs, and manage the VMs on the client."

"Its price could be better."

"The pricing is pretty expensive."

"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."

"Does not support the stretch cluster, and the interface is not good."

"Their technical support is very bad. We had an issue where instead of an engineer we got a PDF "doctor" that didn't know anything about our problem which was very frustrating."

"They should give us a little more information about how to use the CLI and offer more commands."

"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."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"Dell wants to implement the disaster site in the new year, but they haven't decided yet. I hope we will have the opportunity to sell VxRail with this disaster site. It is not really clear at the moment, but hopefully, we will get some good news from the customers in the new year."

"The initial setup was not that easy, it was a medium difficulty level."

"When using hybrid nodes, such as VxRail, there should not be compression and deduplication, only in All-Flash nodes."

"The initial setup is very complex."

"The product could support and have more compliance with other vendors."

"It would be nice if the update process was shortened and that patching would be simpler."

"The cost is quite high. It's a very expensive solution to run."

"It might offer better integration with other products."

More VxRail cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is expensive. It's a standard license, and we pay for it yearly. I think we pay about 700."

"We negotiated with Cisco and we got some price benefit from that."

"There is a license required to use this solution."

"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."

"The price is a bit too high."

"Pricing is better if you buy more Cisco products."

"We are on an annual subscription and the price is fair."

"Our licensing is Hybrid. We have all of our applications for billing and outage management through this."

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

"The hardware cost associated is a bit high"

"When compared with others, the price is very reasonable."

"Compare the VxRail product to Nutanix. Nutanix has more features, but its pricing is higher."

"VxRail is quite expensive and could be cheaper. I would say that the main difference between VxRail and the competition is cost. There may be some differences in features, but I would say that it's mainly the costs."

"More cost-effective than Nutanix."

"VxRail is an expensive solution."

"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."

"VxRail is very cost-effective and affordable in the long term. It is more recommended when it comes to financial life, but it may depend upon the license. VxRail comes with VMware licensing, which may not be that cost-effective as compared to others. With VMware, it's an auto check competition. VMware is an expensive solution, especially for Nutanix. Nutanix have their own hypervisor called Acronis, which is very cost-effective against the VMware. Nutanix is cheaper for the hardware but not for the software. If you ask the Nutanix partners to deploy Nutanix over Cisco servers or Dell EMC servers, the cost will be higher. Nutanix wants to compete financially. Therefore, they propose their software over the Supermicro server, which is a very cheap Chinese server. In fact, I don't like their terms of service. HyperFlex has the highest price, and it is very expensive. I don't know why. It may be because this is a UCS system, which comes from Cisco and is already expensive. When it comes to HyperFlex, they need the labor to deploy Hyper-V, Citrix, or any other hypervisor."

More VxRail pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

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	42
Midsize Enterprise	43
Large Enterprise	56

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...

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How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?

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How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...

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What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...

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What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...

See all answers

Comparisons

HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 19% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

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

Compared 14% of the time

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

Compared 12% of the time

FlexPod XCS vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

Compared 9% of the time

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors

VMware vSAN vs VxRail

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail

Compared 21% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail

Compared 17% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail

Compared 5% of the time

More VxRail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

December 2025

Download Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VxRail

December 2025

Download VxRail product report

Also Known As

No data available

VCE VxRail

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

VxRail is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance co-engineered by Dell Technologies and VMware, designed to optimize VMware environments by simplifying compute, storage, virtualization, and management.

Built on VMware vSAN software, VxRail ensures high performance, reliability, and flexibility. It supports a broad array of workloads, from business-critical applications to next-generation use cases. VxRail simplifies infrastructure management with powerful integration and seamless scalability, offering centralized management and user-friendly interfaces. Streamlined updates, robust lifecycle management, and one-click upgrades facilitate a user-centric experience that minimizes deployment complexity and staffing needs. However, its performance with disk deduplication, integration with public clouds, and processor support can be enhanced, along with pricing and licensing improvements.

What features define VxRail?

High Performance: Optimized for superior efficiency in VMware environments.
Seamless Scalability: Scales effortlessly to accommodate growing demands.
Centralized Management: Simplifies control through unified interfaces.
Effortless Integration: Easily integrates with VMware tools and services.
Automated Updates: Ensures ongoing system availability through streamlined updates.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Resource Efficiency: Reduces staffing requirements and optimizes resource use.
Flexibility: Supports a variety of use cases and workloads.
Reliable Support: Provides robust support to ensure operational continuity.
Reduced Complexity: Facilitates ease of deployment and minimized setup times.

Organizations across sectors such as finance, telecommunications, education, and manufacturing utilize VxRail for its scalability, ease of deployment, and infrastructure management capabilities. It aids in server and application hosting, storage, and virtualization management, often employing VMware integration. The platform is valued for its ability to consolidate IT components, support VDI solutions, and enhance cloud readiness and resource allocation.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest

World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: December 2025.

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