Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 10.0% mindshare in the category. NetApp is ranked #3 in CI , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 10.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 29 Dell PowerFlex reviews

9,289 Views
8,453 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

2,048 Views
799 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and FlexPod XCS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

September 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

Dell PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd)

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 10.0%, down 11.4% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 10.1% mindshare, up 10.0% since last year.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerFlex	10.0%
VxRail	16.1%
VMware vSAN	14.0%
Other	59.9%

HCI

Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FlexPod XCS	10.1%
HPE ConvergedSystem	16.8%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance	15.3%
Other	57.8%

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Serdar De

IT Manager at ÜÇGE Shopfitting & Design

Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing

We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future. I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…

Read full review

John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems

The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

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

"It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features."

"The most valuable feature is the overall integration and just seeing the three different layers which make up the machine software. Altogether, it's something that I would say is much better than any other solution that I have experienced before."

"The support team responds quickly."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."

"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."

"The program is stable."

"Perfectly suits customers dealing with the combination of future storage needs and, at the same time, keeping up their computing power."

"The support is highly responsive."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"Software flexibility. Everything is fully configurable. The reliability results from the design. Elements are well projected (disks, blade, network, etc.). No single point of failure is identifiable."

"The solution’s unified support for the entire stack provides one stop shopping."

"The advantage is being able to consolidate everything into a relatively small chassis."

"It is definitely easier for us to maintain and do build-outs, so it takes a lot less time to set things up for the customer."

"Integrated support: It is all under one support contract."

"The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution."

"For the management side of our UCS, it is a single pane of glass for multiple people, whether it is data center, sysadmin, or server deployment."

"The tool provides a single point for storing applications and it increases the availability of them. It also has improved the way we handle applications within VMware."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"It could be easier to learn."

"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."

"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."

"We've had some issues around the licensing."

"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."

"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."

"For customers with a budget, it is a ten out of ten for the product, though it becomes challenging for those with mid or low budgets since it is very costly compared to other solutions such as PowerStore."

"The storage capability must be improved."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"Not a ten because it could always be cheaper, it could always be faster."

"A progress bar would...be pretty cool."

"There were several different management consoles that we had to deal with: UCS, VMware, and separate ESXi installations. Maybe one interface council where we could manage everything from might be a little easier."

"FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities."

"I would like more orchestration and networking in-between the VMs, the virtualization layer for networking. I would like to see better tools for this."

"With the next solution, if there is a virtual Flex part where we can deploy it to private clouds or in public clouds rather tying up the hardware, it would reduce costs and complexity. Then, we could do a lot more automation."

"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."

"There are too many drivers and software combined all together, and we need to have compatibility between all of them."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be improved."

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"The product is expensive."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for."

"We have saved time and money for new service deployments. Without FlexPod, it probably takes about ten hours. With FlexPod, within two hours, we are up and running. So, we have seen about an 80 percent time decrease."

"The investment has been great. We put our money into it and it has given us something that we have been able to rely on for years."

"FlexPod has saved data center costs, due to the fact that we reduced our footprint for storage in a big way. We went from three complete racks down to a 2U storage array for more than 300 terabytes of storage."

"It is not cheap, but there is a return on investment in time saved and efficiency."

"We can just swap in new equipment or hardware as we need, which has probably saved us several weeks."

"The NetApp portion was a $5 million investment five years ago. That has served the customer well over five and a half years."

"In terms of the cost, the last bill I saw was about $3.5 million, from the latest contract. That might have been for a five-year contract."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

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

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

20%

Educational Organization

15%

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	182

Questions from the Community

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC PowerFlex?

The support is highly responsive.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC PowerFlex?

Dell PowerFlex is a premium software-defined infrastructure solution and while the initial investment may seem higher than traditional SAN or mid-tier HCI solutions, the long-term TCO is competitive.

See all answers

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

See all answers

Comparisons

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 40% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 14% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 8% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 16% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 12% of the time

HPE ConvergedSystem vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

VxRail vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 11% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

September 2025

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

September 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

No data available

Overview

Dell PowerFlex is a software-defined storage infrastructure delivering modern architecture and versatile deployment for on-premises or cloud. It achieves high performance, scalable storage, and workload consolidation through advanced automation.

PowerFlex's VMware compatibility ensures seamless integration, offering flexibility in compute and storage scaling. With its hyper-converged infrastructure, it caters to AI, cloud, and database environments, providing robust automation, resilience, and security. Flexible deployment options are complemented by a single-window management system, prioritizing cost optimization. However, enhancements are needed in monitoring tools, user interface, and AI functionality. Migration from Hyper-V and licensing flexibility also require attention, while improved documentation could simplify usage. Integration with services and streamlined upgrade processes are essential.

What are the key features of Dell PowerFlex?

VMware Compatibility: Ensures smooth integration and flexibility in deployment.
Scalability: Independently scales compute and storage resources as needed.
High Availability: Maintains continuous availability across deployed systems.
Low Latency Performance: Optimizes storage and compute operations for minimal delays.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: Combines compute, storage, and networking for streamlined operations.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Ease of Management: Simplifies administration with a unified management interface.
Cost Optimization: Provides opportunities for reduced operational costs.
Flexibility: Offers diverse deployment options tailored to specific needs.
Automation Tools: Enhances efficiency through robust automation capabilities.
Robust Storage Capacity: Supports growing data requirements with substantial storage options.

PowerFlex is essential in industries requiring support for mission-critical workloads and large-scale applications. It is instrumental for deploying storage, compute nodes, hyper-converged infrastructure, and private clouds. The platform integrates compute, storage, and networking, optimizing performance for modern applications like AI video analytics and disaster recovery.

Dell Technologies

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: September 2025.

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