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

Citrix XenServer vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.9
Citrix XenServer offers cost-effective virtualization benefits, energy savings, and reliability, justifying its expense with enhanced management and stability.
Sentiment score
7.0
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers fast ROI with cost savings on hardware, maintenance, energy, and improved operational efficiency.
My clients generally maintain their Citrix infrastructure without shifting, suggesting stability and reliable operation as Citrix XenServer is fully established.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.2
Customer service is generally good, but users face delays, tiered access issues, and varying technical support experiences.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's customer service is praised for responsive, expert support, offering swift solutions and 24/7 availability.
With valid licenses, we can access hotfixes, service packs, knowledge base, self-help tools, diagnostics, downloads, live chat, and phone support.
They do not provide adequate support for midsize businesses.
There appear to be very few engineers at Citrix who understand the problems.
When we send an email, an engineer is assigned within 15 to 20 minutes, and we get on a call to resolve the issue.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Citrix XenServer offers strong scalability and flexibility, excelling with newer hardware despite some disk management challenges.
Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is scalable, user-friendly, and flexible, though some note limited storage per node.
Familiarity with Linux can enhance its performance and usability.
The scalability of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) deserves an eight out of ten rating, as there is no solution that is 100% efficient and there is always room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Citrix XenServer is a stable, reliable option with minor networking issues, praised for performance, consistent updates, and support.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers high stability and reliability, enabling seamless scalability and maintenance with minimal downtime.
I haven't had any significant issues with Citrix XenServer installations over the last 10-15 years.
Compared to VM, we find it most stable.
Regarding stability, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) a seven out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Citrix XenServer needs better backup, integration, and management, improved features, lower costs, and enhanced documentation and support.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure needs improvements in cost, performance, integration, backup solutions, and simplifying licensing, installation, and GUI.
Although the product is technically competitive, it is not widely known or used due to poor marketing.
Citrix needs to improve the hypervisor, specifically in security and performance.
We can implement high availability and live migration with pools, along with security and backup to enable role-based access control for safer management.
We hope Nutanix can integrate inside our current license module.
I would suggest that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) should develop their own P2V (physical to VM) tools instead of requiring users to rely on third-party solutions.
 

Setup Cost

Citrix XenServer offers affordable solutions with free and paid versions, valued for integration with Citrix Virtual Apps and desktops.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers competitive pricing with favorable total cost of ownership, valued for its integrated solutions and features.
It is cheaper compared to its competitors.
Organizations save substantial money because competing solutions, such as VMware, cost double or triple.
The pricing and licensing policy of Citrix XenServer is not transparent and quite confusing.
The pricing is renewed every year, at almost $100,000 per year.
It costs more compared to VMware due to different licensing areas.
 

Valuable Features

Citrix XenServer provides cost-effective, user-friendly virtualization with high availability, scalability, and secure, centralized management for small to medium businesses.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure provides high-performance storage, easy management, flexibility, scalability, automation, and robust disaster recovery with redundancy.
The most valuable feature is transferring and sharing applications that allow users to move files between devices, including smartphones, tablets, and computers without needing USB cables, internet connections, or data usage.
It provides secure access to applications and resources, which is crucial for us and our clients.
It is user-friendly and easy to deploy, making it an attractive option.
When technology development or devops teams request server provisioning, the setup time has been reduced from hours to less than 20 minutes.
The replication method between Nutanix clusters is a valuable feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

Citrix XenServer
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (11th)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Citrix XenServer and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Citrix XenServer is designed for Server Virtualization Software and holds a mindshare of 4.8%, up 4.5% compared to last year.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 9.4% mindshare, up 8.1% since last year.
Server Virtualization Software
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Jörg Köhler - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting benefits from robust consulting while also recognizing the need for improved disk management
When it comes to optimization, that's one of the weaker points of Citrix XenServer, especially regarding disk management, which is somewhat clumsy. Backup-related issues and disk management should be improved. Especially concerning backup, as discussions with Veeam engineers about Citrix XenServer backup strategy indicate there might not be a solution from Veeam soon. License optimization is not such a significant problem, but licenses are quite complicated. Vendors constantly invent new license models, making it difficult to order the correct licenses needed. There is not a big difference between Citrix and VMware products because Citrix can implement Windows and Linux anyway.
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Server Virtualization Software solutions are best for your needs.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Citrix Hypervisor?
The core function enables multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server. This maximizes hardware utilization and efficiency.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Hypervisor?
Licensing with Citrix XenServer is very cost-effective. Organizations save substantial money because competing solutions, such as VMware, cost double or triple. If you are using Citrix load only, t...
What needs improvement with Citrix Hypervisor?
In a DC, DR situation, if applications are self-dependent and self-DR replicated, then it works fine. However, if hypervisor-level backup or replication is required, very few backup software option...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
 

Also Known As

Hypervisor
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

U.S. Army Shared Services Center, SoftLayer, Educational Services of America, Independent Bank, and SK Telecom.
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Proxmox, VMware, Microsoft and others in Server Virtualization Software. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.