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Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Storage Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 17.9% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 41.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.
Dell PowerPath
Read 8 Dell PowerPath reviews
  • 465 Views
  • 246 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
NetApp ONTAP
Read 90 NetApp ONTAP reviews
  • 1,146 Views
  • 860 Comparison Views
98% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Dell PowerPath and NetApp ONTAP compete in the storage management solutions category. NetApp ONTAP has an upper hand due to its advanced features, despite pricing and support leaning towards Dell PowerPath.

Features: Dell PowerPath provides reliable multipathing, load balancing, and efficient data migration capabilities. NetApp ONTAP offers comprehensive data management, advanced monitoring, and seamless data replication across systems.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerPath could enhance its monitoring tools and expand support for non-EMC storage systems. Additional automation features would be beneficial. NetApp ONTAP could improve deployment ease by simplifying initial setup and providing better integration with non-NetApp environments. Faster support response times and enhanced migration tools would also be advantageous.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerPath is praised for its straightforward implementation and effective customer support, facilitating quick integration into existing systems. NetApp ONTAP, while more complex, offers extensive customization options, necessitating longer initial setup. Its support is effective but less accessible than Dell's.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerPath provides a cost-effective solution with affordable initial fees and rapid ROI, ideal for budget-conscious businesses. NetApp ONTAP offers long-term value through its robust features and scalability, justifying the higher initial investment.

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To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP Report (Updated: July 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
July 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 PowerPath
Ranking in Storage Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp ONTAP
Ranking in Storage Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 17.9%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 41.4%, down from 44.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp ONTAP41.4%
Dell PowerPath17.9%
Other40.7%
Storage Software
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability
People who want to buy the solution must create a scorecard of Dell PowerPath against other products. They must run database tests. They must consider factors like pricing, performance, ease of use, visibility, and reliability. They must also run tests to understand which product recovers faster. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Naveen Radhwani - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good performance, stability, and complete data security
Our upcoming investments would be prioritized around a hybrid cloud solution because we ourselves promote the cloud in the market. We are the premium service provider for AWS, so we have that inclination toward cloud computing. From the experience that we had during the pandemic, we are looking for some kind of hybrid solution for our environment. NetApp should focus on a hybrid cloud solution because none of the media houses are opting for cloud storage. The files are quite heavy, and it becomes quite difficult to maintain them on the cloud. If NetApp can provide such technology and fill the gap of storing media files in the cloud, it would give them an advantage.
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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

"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"The product is very reliable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form."
"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."
"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."
"The user interface is good."
"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"It's very fast, NetApp is always dependable, so if we have an issue, they're very responsive."
"The best features of NetApp ONTAP include its good UI."
"It is very easy to manage in terms of system management and GUI management."
"The ability to do online upgrades in a clustered setup is absolutely crucial, and I extensively use new features such as replication and backups for certain cloud features in the enterprise."
"We over-allocate our aggregates and it still works, it's great, it's fun. We dedupe everywhere, we get huge savings. We went back and deduped the whole thing again, we could get more, so that's what we do. We go back and look to see if there's an option we can set and do it from the beginning, but still 13 terabytes, that's a lot of dedupe savings. Sometimes we get 50% or more in our savings, so we love dedupe."
"Their SAN storage is great."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It came in a box ready to go."
"If you lose connectivity, it has one-sided redundant connectivity on the back-end for shelves, which is good."
More NetApp ONTAP pros
 

Cons

"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."
"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."
"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."
"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."
"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."
"If they could come up with some more automation, this would be helpful."
"If the customer wants to integrate with another product they need deployment guides."
"cDot only scales to 24 notes so scalability should be better, bigger, but we are one of the only customers that are facing this problem."
"I'm waiting for the NVMe, end-to-end."
"The PowerShell scripting capabilities right now are all over the place as far as which rich operating systems are supported. They all support Windows, but the HCI product with the SolidFire integration also supports PowerShell on Mac and Linux. It would be nice if the rest of the NetApp APIs caught up with PowerShell on other operating systems besides Windows. Because we're deploying more non-Windows operating systems, it would be helpful if we would be able to use that utility."
"ONTAP's GUI does not encompass all the features available in the CLI."
"There's a feature called multi-tenant approval. Currently, it's one size fits all. I cannot specify that one person is allowed to work on certain volumes, a second person on different volumes, and a third one on everything. It's all or nothing, so I would prefer it to be more precise regarding who could do what on which volume."
"NetApp ONTAP has similar areas of improvement as NetApp Private Storage regarding decreasing the error rate, improving the GUI, technical support and stability, and reducing the price."
More NetApp ONTAP cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."
"The solution is expensive."
"There are no additional costs associated with the product."
"The price of the solution is fair."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"We receive the best support for a lower price point."
"This solution helped our organization reduce our overall cost of storage. Because idle data which was residing on high cost tiers, once we sifted the ONTAP, we were able to scale and place it where it should be, then offload the data which was unnecessary to different locations."
"If you start narrowing down NetApp versus price point, then comparing it to the feature set and take away all the bloat that other companies will try to add on, there is no other option. It comes down to just NetApp."
"We have seen ROI as we can fit a lot more storage in one rack."
"It's not an all inclusive model. You have the option to purchase modules to make the entire ecosystem coherent. I would like the option to pay one price and get everything all inclusive, like OnCommand."
"NetApp provided the features required within our cost limit."
"NetApp is streamlined, reducing costs."
"Recently, we have seen ROI."
More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Transportation Company
18%
Healthcare Company
14%
Retailer
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Transportation Company
5%
Performing Arts
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise66
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerPath?
The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerPath?
The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Dell PowerPath?
The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products l...
See all answers
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
See all answers
What do you like most about NetApp ONTAP?
We do not face any glitches or downtime.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ONTAP?
The pricing is high. That said, we received favorable pricing at Intel due to the company's large NetApp ONTAP deployment across different organizations. While we're not in the IT department (we're...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
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Compared 42% of the time
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 17% of the time
StorONE Storage-as-a-Service vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
StorONE Storage-as-a-Service vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 10% of the time
More NetApp ONTAP Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath
August 2025
Dell PowerPath reportDownload Dell PowerPath product report
Buyer's Guide
NetApp ONTAP
August 2025
NetApp ONTAP reportDownload NetApp ONTAP product report
 

Also Known As

PowerPath
No data available
 

Overview

EMC PowerPath: Host-based software for automated data path management, failover and recovery, and optimized load balancing. PowerPath automates, standardizes, and optimizes data paths in physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments to deliver high availability and performance.

AUTOMATE FAILOVER/RECOVERY

PowerPath automates data path failover and recovery to ensure applications are always available and remain operational.

OPTIMIZE LOAD BALANCING

Adjust I/O paths constantly to leverage all available data paths and to monitor and rebalance the dynamic environment for the best application performance.

STANDARDIZE PATH MANAGEMENT

Simplify and standardize data path management across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments.

Dell Technologies

NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimize their operations.

NetApp
 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company
1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
July 2025
Free Report: Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
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