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Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
7.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 14.8%, down from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 20.0%, down from 41.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp ONTAP20.0%
Dell PowerPath14.8%
Other65.2%
Storage Software
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
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.
BK
Senior Storage Engineer at Shell
Data management and availability improve operations, but cost and support need attention
For snapshots, there should be something similar to a recycle bin. When someone mistakenly deletes a snapshot, it should be stored for about two days before disappearing from the system. Regarding storage optimization, when purchasing a 10 terabyte disk, after formatting, you can only use approximately 8 terabytes. They should improve this so users can utilize 90% instead of 80% of the disk space. The support response needs improvement, especially for P1 cases. When critical cases are raised, they should ensure they call the customer and follow up properly. Comparing NetApp ONTAP to other solutions such as EMC, the cost of contract renewals and warranties is relatively expensive. They should extend their renewal window beyond the current six months to one year options. A longer warranty period of two years for new systems, controllers, or filers would be beneficial. Overall, they should reduce subscription costs for businesses.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"The product is very reliable."
"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."
"The user interface is good."
"The solution offers load balancing, which is great, the overall functionality has been really good, the setup is really easy, and we have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"The solution is very easy to configure."
"If you are looking for a unified environment where you can use all your protocols anytime, you want NetApp ONTAP to be the answer."
"It's very fast, NetApp is always dependable, so if we have an issue, they're very responsive."
"Instead of just considering the brand name, whether it's NetApp or any other vendor, my advice is always for a company to define their requirements, set the expectations, and then consider NetApp as a possible solution because we have worked with it and have had a positive experience."
"ONTAP has helped our organization reduce its overall cost of storage (somewhere in the high millions)."
"In terms of performance and reliability, NetApp ONTAP is fantastic; if you look at it, and if you go with NetApp now, everything you will get as compared to other storage, NetApp is extremely stable and reliable storage."
"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 see it drastically improving our organization, as we are trying to move away from Fibre Channel and SolidFire with iSCSI will change a lot going forward in the organization."
 

Cons

"If there is an operating system that is discontinued, PowerPath will now also stop the support for that operating system; for example, in the case of Solaris."
"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 must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."
"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."
"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 product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The lack of an API is a big thing for us that needs to be improved. It needs proper API support."
"While the data efficiency features are great, I want to see more efficiency and compression type of technology."
"With our current use case, we will need something faster. E.g., if you have a huge scale, having SSD-based backup is better."
"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."
"I would like it to be more user-friendly. When you open the main dashboard, anyone should be able to know exactly what is going on, even without a tech background. Minimal training should be required."
"One area where they could improve NetApp ONTAP is their ability to migrate to and from different enterprise storage."
"They could make the access a bit easier."
"They could lower prices so my management doesn't complain about cost."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The price of the solution is fair."
"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
"There are no additional costs associated with the product."
"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 product is a little bit expensive."
"It's very expensive."
"The solution has helped us reduce the overall cost of storage by doing an OPEX agreement with NetApp, we are paying based on utilization. Instead of fronting 30 petabytes worth of storage, we are paying for what we're using."
"ONTAP has helped us reduce the cost of storage by a lot. We were using IBM XIVs and were paying high costs, except for the maintenance. Now, we are on all-flash and we pay less than what we used to pay."
"Depending on the licensing you choose the price varies. For our company and our needs, the cost is very fair."
"The licensing prices are really high."
"There are two consumption methods: pay as you go and subscription. Pay as you go... is a little expensive but worth it."
"There are specific workloads where some vendors provide better value, but in general, NetApp has done a far better on price than other vendors."
"Recently, we have seen ROI."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Transportation Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise68
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
What needs improvement with NetApp ONTAP?
File level restoration could be improved. Currently, NetApp ONTAP provides volume level restore, but file level restore is somewhat difficult to execute. If NetApp were to provide an option for fil...
 

Also Known As

PowerPath
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company
1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.