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

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

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series are leaders in hyper-converged infrastructure solutions, competing in enterprise IT environments. NCI seems to have an edge in ease of management and cost-effectiveness, whereas HyperFlex stands out with its strong integration and high availability.

Features: NCI boasts high performance, ease of administration, and seamless integration with its distributed file system. Valued features include data protection, storage auto-tiering, and one-click upgrades. HyperFlex, however, integrates compute, storage, and network, excelling in its ability to integrate with Cisco’s network solutions and offers robust support for various hypervisors, with high availability being a notable strength.

Room for Improvement: NCI could improve network switch convergence, DRC solutions, and enhance built-in backup features, with demands for a more user-friendly interface. HyperFlex's scalability options require enhancement, along with integration tools for external solutions, and users have highlighted the high cost and complexity as deterrents. Better analytics and cloud integration would benefit HyperFlex further.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NCI enables rapid deployment with its intuitive interface and outstanding technical support, consistently appreciated for responsiveness and expertise. HyperFlex's deployment, while effective, can seem complex, with a need for better guidance and documentation. Cisco’s comprehensive support is perceived as slightly less agile than Nutanix, affecting the customer service experience.

Pricing and ROI: NCI is seen as cost-effective, benefiting deployment and operational expenses through inclusive features and reduced infrastructure needs, contributing to faster ROI. Nutanix’s licensing simplicity is favored, albeit with notable upfront costs. HyperFlex, with a higher initial cost, is justified by its integrations and support, although annual subscription costs and licensing complexities suggest areas for improvement.

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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
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (6th), HCI (5th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

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
MahendraPanchotiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates
Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.
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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 solution scales extremely well."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the connectivity, consistency, and that we now have fewer vulnerabilities on the network."
"It is scalable and easy to use."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable feature for our company is that it works internally. We have a lot of internal projects for optimization."
"The speed, storage, and management are the most valuable features."
"I like Cisco Intersight."
"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."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros
"A lot of features are there, but for us, on the server administration side, creating a clone of the VM is valuable because many times, we have to deploy security patches. For deploying these patches, it helps to have a clone so that if something goes wrong, we can discard that VM and put back the clone VM. That is a very cool feature."
"The most valuable features are the RBAC, role-based access control, and the reporting. NCI also provides a single platform, a single pane with a dashboard, to manage the entire infrastructure. We have complete information about overall utilization, performance, and a forecast for our platform in that single pane."
"There are a lot of things I really like. Perhaps the best part is taking a snapshot of a virtual machine. It's very quick. Another useful part is replication and creating a protection domain: using the protection feature to replicate a machine to a remote site for DR purposes."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is easy to use, it is a great platform."
"The ease of deployment is very good."
"One-Click Upgrade and Foundation is the most valuable feature. One-Click Upgrade makes upgrades and LCM a breeze. Prior to Nutanix One-Click Upgrade, upgrades and LCM were overly cumbersome and time-consuming. Foundation provides an easy, yet very structured, approach to cluster modification (adding or removing nodes)."
"It offers very useful data protection."
"It is easy to use. One of the things they have as a design goal is to reduce complexity and simplify things."
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros
 

Cons

"The initial setup can be a bit complex."
"They can't get a POC to work because there are big latencies between the two sites we have. Even though we have a private fiber connection and everything else works well, they can't get the two products to talk to each other. They are not able to build it up. It looks like it's a firmware issue. They said it isn't but now it's looking like it is. I hope we can sort it out."
"A stretch function is really needed. Germans think that because of the high availability and the security that two data centers are better but we want edge all in one cluster. This is a needed feature, the cluster feature, and we'd also like to see a possibility for ROBO offices."
"The architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts."
"In the next release, Cisco should add more integration and management capabilities as well as some tweaks to the dashboard that make it more user-friendly. They could also add support for multiple hypervisors."
"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."
"It needs more detailed documentation."
"We need to be able to scale out and not just up. When you want to scale up or scale out, you are quite limited."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons
"It's lacking in some features but overcompensating in others."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's LTS version needs to be more reliable."
"One thing to keep in mind is that only experts can use it. It has to be in the proper hands, instead of going to XYZ people just for some cost savings. So lift-and-shift and migrations might be tricky, because it is not like a VMware."
"There could be better support for high power ESX and other cross platform applications."
"Nutanix marketing strategy needs improvement, particularly in Myanmar."
"If they can simplify the software slightly for the installation, that would make all the difference."
"When moving a critical infrastructure from a physical machine to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), we currently have to use a third-party tool to convert the physical machine to a VM."
"One of the improvements I would like to have is related to naming. It is getting confusing because they are using three-letter acronyms, which are more or less misleading. What I do not like is that they changed names and reused names. They had a meaning in the past and they are still using the names for something similar."
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is relatively expensive, but it can easily return value by freeing up other resources."
"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."
"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."
"Initially HyperFlex was a little costly, it was higher, but Cisco wanted to get into our company, so they gave us a fair discount."
"Our licensing costs are large, but it is combined between all of the Cisco products that we have."
"The licensing is perpetual and the only thing that you may need to pay for on a monthly basis is if you're going to use their cloud-based management features."
"The product could be cheaper."
"Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper."
More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice
"The pricing is fair for the package."
"If a customer has been using VMware, the difference in pricing is lower. However, if they are looking to use the VMware, the price can be much higher depending on the license."
"While cost may seem higher than your traditional 3-tier architecture, you need to look at the bigger picture. You're not just buying hardware here. You're buying a complete environment."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS price includes no additional costs for features."
"I think it's cheaper than VMware in terms of cost."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure could be cheaper. It's costly to upgrade the solution. There are no additional costs aside from the license."
"They should lower the price. If they did they would fall into a more competitive market because the price does scare a lot of potential customers away when they get the quote."
"It's a bit expensive, but it's worth it."
More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pricing and cost advice
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Read full review
 

Answers from the Community

NC
Aug 2, 2022
Aug 2, 2022
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-converged infrastructure at scale. We looked into it but then ultimately chose Nutanix Acropolis. We liked Hyperflex’s virtualization feature and the unified network fabric it provides. The Integrat...
See 2 answers
LF
Oct 17, 2021
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-converged infrastructure at scale. We looked into it but then ultimately chose Nutanix Acropolis. We liked Hyperflex’s virtualization feature and the unified network fabric it provides. The Integrated Managed Controller was a nice feature to have. It is expandable, stable, and has good redundancy. If you require more processor cores per box, Cisco HyperFlex is a good solution for you. Support will depend on the type of contract you have, with some requests taken care of immediately and others taking longer according to the engineer’s expertise. While Hyperflex is designed for any company size, I wouldn’t recommend them for small businesses. It also requires a solid knowledge of Cisco products, as the UI can be difficult to manage. Upgrading to a newer version can also be cumbersome and could use some improvement. We chose Nutanix because it is easier to use and is more cost-effective. Nutanix allows us to deploy, run and scale applications both on-premises and in the cloud. It has excellent support. You can log the query straight to a technical expert, which is good if you have staff not familiar with AOS. It is easy to scale by adding new nodes, and the company is constantly adding new features. Nutanix is not for everyone, though. The Nutanix Cloud System can be complex to maneuver when at the command line or when troubleshooting. Conclusions Nutanix is better for medium-sized companies and when you need a cost-effective solution. Cisco Hyperflex is a complete solution but is better suited for large enterprises. It works better if you are already a Cisco user.
Read full answer
Steffen Hornung - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 2, 2022
With Nutanix you have the freedom of choice. You can deploy it with several server hardware vendors or completely in the cloud. I don’t know Hyperflex at heart, though. Also, support at Nutanix is outstanding.
Read full answer
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

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 Business91
Midsize Enterprise77
Large Enterprise82
 

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 makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...
See all answers
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...
See all answers
Do you think Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a secure solution?
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is a very secure solution and ensures this through its Flow Network Security feature. The platform establishes a foundation through a Zero Trust strategy that is compat...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time
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Compared 7% of the time
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Compared 6% of the time
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Compared 6% of the time
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Compared 6% of the time
VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Logo
VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
Compared 6% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
November 2025
Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reportDownload Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report
Buyer's Guide
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
October 2025
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) reportDownload Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report
 

Also Known As

No data available
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

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

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

  • AOS storage
  • Flexible and open compute
  • Automated and secure networking

Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

  • Integrated disaster recovery
  • Full-stack lifecycle management
  • VMware with Nutanix
  • Intelligent operations

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

  • High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.

  • Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.

  • Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.

  • Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.

  • Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.

  • Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.

  • Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).

  • Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.

  • Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

  • NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.

  • The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.

  • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.

  • The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.

  • Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.

  • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

Reviews from Real Users

According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

Nutanix
 

Sample Customers

BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Buyer's Guide
HCI
October 2025
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