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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

Cisco and NetApp are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of NetApp users who would recommend it.
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews
    88% willing to recommend
     

    Comparison Buyer's Guide

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    Executive Summary
    We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and NetApp HCI [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

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    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    September 2025
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    Helped 867,370 peers since 2012

    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
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    Average Rating
    8.0
    Reviews Sentiment
    5.6
    Number of Reviews
    32
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
     

    Featured Reviews

    Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
    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).
    Read full review
    MB
    Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022
    Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.
    Read full review

    Quotes from Members

    We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
     

    Pros

    "Deduplication is a valuable feature available in Cisco HyperFlex."
    "Easy to spin up and operate virtual machines without the overhead of managing a storage network."
    "The ROI we have seen from the high performance that has saved us time and money."
    "It is helpful as a backup solution."
    "I love the Cisco design, the visual interface to manage and use the platform."
    "The initial setup is easy."
    "Cisco technical support is very skilled. From what I've had to access, there were quick responses and the necessary escalation."
    "The most valuable feature of Cisco HyperFlex HX is that it is self-contained."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros
    "The solution is very scalable."
    "The NetApp Deployment Engine that comes with it makes the actual deployment and usage very easy. That's our primary focus and it's hyper-converged. That's something that we want to use as well."
    "The most valuable feature is the convergence."
    "The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."
    "The multi-vertical aspect is what is most valuable for us. The main reason we wanted a multi protocol was because Amazon was not able to provide us with access to the same data as we could get from Linux and Windows lengths. That was our value proposition for this solution."
    "In terms of helping us with storage persistence across private and hybrid clouds, we do store data internally and in Azure. It has allowed us to consolidate a number of workloads, across our old NetApp and a number of our older storage arrays, into a single unit and have that unit also working with Azure."
    "Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure."
    "It is easy to administrate the solution, and the company handles its technical support well."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros
     

    Cons

    "Lacks easy integration with other vendors."
    "I have been receiving a memory overflow message every day when I use the solution."
    "We are operating two clusters for site resiliency. I would like to support running redundant/resilient vCenter server instances on each rather than a supported external server."
    "When it comes to customer needs, the licensing price could be better."
    "The initial setup of the Cisco HyperFlex HX platform was medium-level difficult. It's a little bit different from traditional servers. It takes getting used to the learning curve."
    "We would like HyperFlex to connect the storage directly into Fabric Interconnect along with the features of the solution. We have enough ports in HyperFlex. We don't want to buy another set of switches to connect to Fabric Interconnect, complicating the solution."
    "The initial setup can be complex."
    "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."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons
    "The problem is that it needs to be much more stable, for example, when I want to do the upgrade to 1.7 that just released, I also need to issue a ticket to the support guy in India and he asked me to deploy another mlock. There are a lot of manual steps compared with other products."
    "The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."
    "To improve the product, they should make it more flexible."
    "The product needs better support for installing the operating system on the machine."
    "I'd like to see some additional graphics capabilities because I'd like to look at some virtual desktop integration for CAD software."
    "The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive."
    "I would like for them to fall a little closer to like the VMware release model. The new features and new solutions tend to come from the VMware side. I would like for NetApp to follow along closely with VMware's release schedule."
    "In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "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."
    "Our licensing is Hybrid. We have all of our applications for billing and outage management through this."
    "There is a recurring cost for the VMware license and the HyperFlex licenses."
    "HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."
    "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."
    "Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper."
    "There is no additional licensing cost other than the cost for each part."
    "We have a yearly license."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice
    "The licensing fees are renewed annually."
    "This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."
    "Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
    "Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."
    "You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
    "The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
    "This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."
    "There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice
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    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    Computer Software Company
    18%
    Financial Services Firm
    10%
    Government
    8%
    Manufacturing Company
    7%
    No data available
     

    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 Business8
    Midsize Enterprise9
    Large Enterprise19
     

    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...
    See all answers
    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...
    See all answers
    What do you like most about Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series?
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    Comparisons

    HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 62% of the time
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 38% of the time
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors
    No data available
     

    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    September 2025
    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reportDownload Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    August 2025
    NetApp HCI [EOL] reportDownload NetApp HCI [EOL] 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

    NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

    NetApp
     

    Sample Customers

    BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
    American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    September 2025
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