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

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

    Download the report
    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.

    DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
    To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: May 2025).
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    May 2025
    Download the complete report
    Helped 857,028 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

    "The most valuable feature for our company is that it works internally. We have a lot of internal projects for optimization."
    "The scalability of the product is quite good overall - as long as you plan correctly from the outset."
    "The feature that we are most interested in is the scalability. When needed, we are able to add more nodes and scale it up further."
    "The flexibility is its most valuable feature; the ability to quickly deploy a number of help machines. It is not constrained by what we want to do."
    "Most of our users are Cisco customers, so it fits in within the suites we use. Primarily for me, as a solution architect, it's the technology and architecture that is the most valuable. I know from my technical colleagues that it's easy to use and for the customer, the up-time is the most valuable asset. It's running, has low failure, and so on which is why we use it."
    "The speed, storage, and management are the most valuable features."
    "We used to have a single customer-facing data center, which was vulnerable to failure. This product has allowed us to create high availability between two private data centers."
    "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."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros
    "The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."
    "The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."
    "It is a unique product with simplified setup and independent control over storage and compute."
    "The most valuable feature, currently, is the density of the system as hardware. I'm able to leverage the density of the product and remove bigger hardware which requires more space, cooling, and power costs, obviously. There are cost savings, obviously."
    "It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier."
    "It is easy to set up, and you don't have to do much work to get it to do what it needs to do."
    "The scalability is great, because it can scale independently."
    "It allows me to move a VM set and require extra performance. I can easily move them onto it and have it just run."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros
     

    Cons

    "Deployment scripts can be improved since several clans need to be created before the deployment effectively works."
    "The solution's price could be affordable."
    "I would like for them to develop integration with other technologies, like SD Access. It's still lacking an enhancement management player."
    "Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."
    "The storage layer seems to be a little better on the VMware than on HyperFlex side."
    "I would rate the installation of Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series an eight out of ten. It can be complex."
    "The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."
    "This solution is lacking in replication and backup abilities that I would like to see in a future release similar to HPE SimpliVity."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons
    "I would like to see the implementation process improved."
    "There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."
    "It is difficult to get acclimated to all the new features quickly. The onboard process could be improved to bring clients up to speed faster."
    "The vCenter keeps crashing, meaning that there is no stability in our environment."
    "The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive."
    "Because I like block mode, I'd like to see SAN connectivity. I would like to be able to easily put it into my current environment."
    "The fact that it doesn't have all the data points we need and all the historical data that I would like. I find that a lot of the performance analysis is done through support, where they have something that we don't have. It would be nice just to have all that on-prem."
    "The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "The product could be cheaper."
    "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."
    "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."
    "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."
    "Its price is rather fair when compared with other solutions like VxRail, vSAN, and HPE SimpliVity. We got a fair amount of discount from Cisco for Cisco HyperFlex. It is cost-effective. We have renewed storage till next year, and we have already paid the vendor. When we talk about HyperFlex or any HCI solution, storage is the part where we can reduce a lot of costs. At the current moment, we are already using NetApp storage, which did not allow us to go for a full Cisco HyperFlex setup. We are planning to go to a larger scale next year. Then we will be able to see how cost-effective it really is for us."
    "Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
    "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."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice
    "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 pricing is lower than our previous solution."
    "Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
    "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."
    "You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."
    "Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
    "Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
    "All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice
    report
    See which vendors are best for you
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
    See recommendations
    857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
     

    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    Computer Software Company
    24%
    Financial Services Firm
    9%
    Government
    8%
    Manufacturing Company
    7%
    Real Estate/Law Firm
    20%
    Financial Services Firm
    20%
    Computer Software Company
    12%
    Comms Service Provider
    8%
     

    Company Size

    By reviewers
    Large Enterprise
    Midsize Enterprise
    Small Business
     

    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?
    It's easy to get the tool started.
    See all answers
    Ask a question
    Earn 20 points
     

    Comparisons

    HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 37% 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 27% of the time
    VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    VMware vSAN vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 19% of the time
    Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    Dell PowerFlex vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 16% of the time
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors
    No data available
     

    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    June 2025
    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reportDownload Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    May 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
    May 2025
    Download Free Report
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: May 2025.
    DOWNLOAD NOW
    857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    See our list of best HCI vendors.

    We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.