Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Cisco and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. NetApp is ranked #1 in CI , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 12.3% mindshare. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

Read 90 Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reviews

89% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

3,176 Views
1,493 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...

FlexPod XCS

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and FlexPod XCS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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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

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (1st)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2133501

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.

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John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems

The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

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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 most valuable features of this solution are the connectivity, consistency, and that we now have fewer vulnerabilities on the network."

"The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is the integration with everything in a much smoother, such as in physical and virtual environments. VMware NSX is a simpler solution but, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is more robust compared to VMware NSX."

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

"It's very easy to integrate with the ACI network."

"The workload can handle anything and has an extended capacity."

"It saves space for data centers, which is good."

"The solution scales extremely well."

"The compression and deduplication are very high. Therefore, we can use the size of the product more efficiently than other storage solutions."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros

"The most valuable is the one support. I have a 1-800 number. I call one number rather than figuring out whether it's a network, compute, or storage issue. It is beautiful and works out nicely."

"I see the most value in the UCS portion. I love Cisco UCS."

"The solution's granular scalability and broad application support helps us to meet the needs of diverse workloads."

"High availability is outstanding. We haven't had any problems with that."

"The most valuable feature is ease of deployment. Once I deploy the chassis and I have the back-end storage, configuring more UCS servers is very quick. I can deploy a new UCS server within minutes."

"The main advantage is consolidating everything into a single rack, which helps optimize power consumption, especially in CRM."

"FlexPod provides very small footprint. We can have it in our offices without bothering with extra cooling, as it is a small unit."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the automation point because it's a lot less staff to have to manage it."

More FlexPod XCS pros

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."

"It would have been nice if the product provided some cloud integrations."

"The scalability could use improvement."

"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."

"We are moving further out with more cloud solutions, so we need HyperFlex to be more cloud-connected. They should develop more connection to Amazon Web Services and Google cloud because our customers use their services and are moving in that direction."

"There should be the opportunity to create more than one div group"

"The product does not have a cloud version...The product should be made more flexible in terms of integration capabilities."

"In the next release, I would like to see them able to connect to the public cloud."

More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons

"I would like to see more cloud-centric modules that are specific to applications and more software-based solutions. That's all that is missing."

"There could be room for improvement in terms of offering more flexibility in CBD options."

"There is always room for improvement. I believe we can do hot swaps on the fly. On the release upgrades, if there was a way to do a release on the fly, that would really be cool because it does take some downtime. It takes restarting. It is more of a software thing. Customers hate doing releases."

"Some of the define features could use improvement."

"I think they can always improve, whether it's dedupe or compression, those algorithms; and flash through better SSDs."

"We haven't seen ROI yet."

"Something that we struggle with because we're a relatively small scale organization and the administrative effort is spread across so many different pieces of infrastructure, it would be nice to have a set of tools that enables us to get a little bit more information out of our system."

"We have had a bit of struggle on the support side. From a customer perspective, it has been up to us to make sure that we get both NetApp and Cisco involved when we have had an issue."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."

"There is a 30 percent additional premium that all the companies are charging for Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series because of the lack of chips and bottlenecks in the market. The cost of the solution is high right now."

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

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

"Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a bit pricier compared to other brands in the market...There is a need to make additional payments towards the maintenance and support of the solution."

"The product could be cheaper."

"When we negotiated with Cisco for the HyperFlex solution, they gave us a good price because they wanted to break into the market in Portugal for the first time. However, in general, I think it's a very expensive solution. It's a huge amount of money to acquire this kind of infrastructure."

"Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."

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

"It is not cheap, but there is a return on investment in time saved and efficiency."

"Licensing can be interesting with the new version because of the Intersight integration. I don't know what that looks like yet. I have seen some of the different licensing models, but with the new purchasing, all customers are going to have to buy some sort of Intersight licensing with the Blades or FlexPod. I am curious to see how that option shakes out. Previous to the UCS X-Series, the licensing was the same."

"The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers."

"You get better management and orchestration, but it still costs you money."

"It is cheaper than other products. For example, Dell EMC VxBlock is more expensive."

"The product's pricing is high and I would rate it a nine out of ten."

"I find the licensing and pricing structure to be favorable."

"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

20%

Performing Arts

10%

Educational Organization

Transportation Company

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	34
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	182

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?

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...

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Compared 16% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

January 2026

Download FlexPod XCS product report

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

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

Sample Customers

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

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

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