DataCore SANsymphony vs Sunlight comparison

DataCore and Sunlight.io are both solutions in the HCI category. DataCore is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.4, while Sunlight.io is ranked #31. DataCore holds a 2.6% mindshare in HCI, compared to Sunlight.io’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of DataCore users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sunlight.io users who would recommend it.

DataCore SANsymphony

Read 58 DataCore SANsymphony reviews

3,905 Views
2,070 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Sunlight

Read 2 Sunlight reviews

301 Views
301 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

DataCore SANsymphony

Sunlight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

DataCore SANsymphony and Sunlight are in the data storage and hyperconverged infrastructure market. Sunlight appears to have an edge with its comprehensive features, although DataCore is strong in support and scalability.

Features: DataCore SANsymphony offers high availability, unlimited scalability, and efficient management of mixed storage resources. It is versatile in deployment and known for its robust performance. Sunlight stands out with lightweight hyperconverged infrastructure and extraordinary performance on minimal resources. Its unique edge computing potential is appealing to resource-constrained or distributed operations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DataCore SANsymphony ensures a straightforward deployment process within existing environments with seamless hardware integration, supported by knowledgeable customer service. Sunlight's compact design offers deployment ease for edge environments, although its customer support lacks some depth compared to DataCore.

Pricing and ROI: DataCore SANsymphony provides a flexible pricing structure with costs scaling based on deployment size, achieving strong ROI by reducing storage overhead. Sunlight may require a higher initial investment due to specific infrastructure needs but promises significant ROI by minimizing footprint and operational costs. DataCore is more cost-effective for larger enterprises, whereas Sunlight's benefits offset its cost for specific use cases.

To learn more, read our detailed DataCore SANsymphony vs. Sunlight Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Sunlight

December 2025

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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

DataCore SANsymphony

Ranking in HCI

7th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Storage Software (2nd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (4th), Storage Performance (3rd)

Sunlight

Ranking in HCI

31st

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of DataCore SANsymphony is 2.6%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sunlight is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
DataCore SANsymphony	2.6%
Sunlight	0.5%
Other	96.9%

HCI

Featured Reviews

SigfridCecillon

Owner at Arsium

High availability and user-friendliness enhance infrastructure health and redundancy

I would rate technical support from DataCore SANsymphony a 10. Each time I contact the technical support, it's when I don't have a choice because it's very difficult for me on site, and each time, I have good people online who are able to help me solve the problem. Usually, the problems are not very technically difficult, but sometimes they are, and the support team is still there to help us resolve them. The majority of the problems are linked to licensing, so when the license has expired or the number is not correct, they are proactive and change things live, which is very good.

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RajeshKANUMURY

Chief Executive Officer at GniYes Inc.

Performs well, effective, and has responsive remote technical support

Sunlight is a scalable solution. It supports on-premises and distributed deployments, as well as public deployments. It has a single pane of management so I can manage all of my VM installations in a distributed manner. It also has a footprint, that allows me to operate on Edge. If for example, you have a retail shop with 2,000 locations and they use a networked point of sale system, or if you are Chipotle and they have so many locations and they have to use a backend system at each location. At the moment, these are all standalone systems that operate with very little connection to the central. We could, however, connect and create a network using Sunlight. We can virtualize and run with Edge thanks to Sunlight. This allows us to operate and obtain high-end computing on Edge for retail. Sunlight is a startup. I am not sure how many users they have, but we have been using it constantly and using the technology to bring in customers.

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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 useful feature of SANsymphony is that it's able to manage any brand of block storage."

"An advantage of SANsymphony is its ease of use, especially when installing or upgrading the system."

"I am very happy with this product's ability to adapt, increase, and modify existing infrastructures."

"It is a very stable solution."

"The features I have found most valuable are the active-active, or so-called grid technology, and the integration into our VMware-vCenter."

"It is a stable solution."

"The DataCore system has been rock solid since we have been using it - from 2007 on."

"Good security with this solution."

More DataCore SANsymphony pros

"It supports the latest technology of NVMe SSD, which is PCIe-based SSD. It has a very good IOPS performance as compared to vSAN. For the same system, I get 1,000 IOPS with vSAN, and with Sunlight, I am able to get almost 10,000 IOPS. In terms of features, it has almost all the features, such as HA and centralized dashboards. It can be managed centrally, and the visibility of the system is very good. They also have very good technical support and customer or partner training."

"The performance and small footprint of this solution are its most valuable features. I am able to obtain and use more than 90 percent of the physical hardware capacity."

Cons

"I would like for it to improve into a more ergonomic management console and a translation into the French language. It should have some process for a shutdown of a VM properly in case of a problem."

"I think an easier way to open a service call, right through the DataCore GUI, would be an improvement, especially when there is an urgent issue."

"We'd like to manage the raid on the disk directly in SanSymphony."

"Management could be improved. The management console sometimes reacts very slowly."

"I found it a little unnecessary to have to rename the configurations within the graphics console in order to have unique names."

"The cost is becoming prohibitive since they moved to a subscription model."

"Right now, the version used is run on Microsoft Windows Server. Having a Linux version or even an appliance would be better as it would eliminate the use of additional licensing for another piece of hardware."

"When I sometimes reboot for maintenance, the connectivity from the iSCSI initiator host could be improved."

More DataCore SANsymphony cons

"My recommendation would be to add this technology to Azure, Microsoft Azure so that we can bring it to the market, or deploy it on public clouds such as Microsoft Azure and Google. It is currently only available on Amazon's public cloud."

"Its reporting and dashboards need to be improved. It currently has very basic reporting options. It should also be made easier to deploy on Unix operating systems. It is easy to deploy on Windows and Linux, but it is currently not easy to deploy on Unix."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Make sure you are made aware of the annual subscription cost when purchasing."

"DataCore SANsymphony's pricing is very high and should be much cheaper."

"We have licensing costs on a yearly basis. They charge per terabyte, so in terms of cost, it can be very costly. They have three different features, and you have to pay extra for those."

"The solution is cost effective."

"This product has a good ratio between quality and price. In many cases, it's less expensive to work with DataCore than other storage systems."

"The pricing and licensing are better with DataCore."

"Pricing has improved but it is still expensive."

"It is relatively expensive, and the additional costs for hardware and storage can make it a significant investment for customers."

More DataCore SANsymphony pricing and cost advice

"There is an operating cost for the VDIs, which is an additional cost. However, the licensing fee is half that of VMware or Nutanix."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	21

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DataCore SANsymphony SDS?

Before choosing DataCore SANsymphony, I did not evaluate other options.

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What do you like most about DataCore SANsymphony?

The dashboard is very intuitive, and there are a lot of counters to diagnose what happens during a short period (like when a backup is in progress).

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What needs improvement with DataCore SANsymphony?

DataCore SANsymphony can be improved with high availability as it offers synchronous mirroring between physical and separate sites to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery. I do not have...

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Comparisons

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs DataCore SANsymphony

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NetApp ONTAP vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 6% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DataCore SANsymphony

Compared 5% of the time

More DataCore SANsymphony Competitors

Dell vSAN Ready Nodes vs Sunlight

Compared 21% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Sunlight

Compared 20% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Sunlight

Compared 20% of the time

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs Sunlight

Compared 20% of the time

Azure Local vs Sunlight

Compared 20% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony

January 2026

Download DataCore SANsymphony product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

December 2025

Download Sunlight product report

Also Known As

DataCore Virtual SAN

No data available

Overview

Experience peace of mind with DataCore SANsymphony, the ultimate software-defined storage solution alleviating storage management challenges. Say goodbye to the complexities of managing different storage tiers and disruptions with SANsymphony's block-level storage virtualization technology, empowering you to automate capacity provisioning and data placement across diverse storage environments including SAN, DAS, HCI, and JBOD. Break down silos, control data placement, meet business continuity objectives, boost performance, and seamlessly expand or refresh hardware with SANsymphony. Benefit from features like asynchronous replication for disaster recovery, minimizing data loss, accelerating application responsiveness, and integrating new technology non-disruptively. Trusted by industry leaders like NASA, Thorntons, Inc., and TUI Cruises, DataCore SANsymphony guarantees unparalleled flexibility, scalability, and reliability, ensuring uninterrupted data access and application availability while reducing storage costs and inefficiencies.

DataCore

Sunlight is a complete HCI stack that can be deployed on-premise on standard data center hardware, in AWS and on resource-constrained far-edge devices.

Sunlight.io

Sample Customers

Volkswagen , Maimonides Medical Center, NASA, Thorntons, Inc., TUI, ISCO Industries, Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, United Financial Credit Union, Derby Supply Chain Solutions, Mission Community Hospital, Bellarmine College Preparatory, Colby-Sawyer College, Mount Sinai Health System, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Quorn Foods, Bitburger, University of Birmingham, Stadtverwaltung Heidelberg, NetEnt to name a few.

Lavazza, Infraspace

Buyer's Guide

DataCore SANsymphony vs. Sunlight

December 2025

Free Report: DataCore SANsymphony vs. Sunlight

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