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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 8.0, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Dell Technologies holds a 15.4% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 27.8% 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
  • 509 Views
  • 310 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
NetApp ONTAP
Read 92 NetApp ONTAP reviews
  • 1,506 Views
  • 1,130 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: December 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
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

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
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 15.4%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 27.8%, down from 44.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp ONTAP27.8%
Dell PowerPath15.4%
Other56.8%
Storage Software
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
Derrick Brockel
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.
Read full review
BK
Best Kifi
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.
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

"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 product is very reliable."
"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."
"It provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."
"The user interface is good."
"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."
"Scalability is perfectly fine. Right now I only have the two nodes and one shelf. I'll be able to easily upgrade additional shelves. They gave me plenty of cabling when I got the unit so all I have to do is disconnect and reconnect the cabling and that's it."
"The cluster version is flexible and easy to use."
"Technical support is good. NetApp's solution engineers are good at architecting designs which are standard, but also future thinking. I've only opened a few tickets, and they've answered my questions each time. NetApp takes less than four hours to respond."
"It has been very stable. We haven't had a significant outage."
"It has the ability to bring up disaster recovery quickly."
"The compression works well. We get a 3:1 ratio."
"The technical support is great. It's the best I've ever encountered. I can email and have everything resolved at three in the morning within half an hour. I have had some late night calls to their guys techs, and it's been phenomenal."
"We use a lot of SnapVault and SnapMirror features for disaster recovery and daily backups to meet SLAs."
More NetApp ONTAP pros
 

Cons

"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."
"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."
"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."
"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."
"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."
"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."
"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"We would like to be able to provide feedback immediately after receiving technical support."
"It should release more cloud-centric products as compared to some of its competitors. We would like it to have the ability to run or manage a solution in the cloud. This would allow us to migrate our data on-premise to off-premise in cloud solutions."
"Some of their products have been really good for us, on certain versions. We've run into a bunch of verts, though. That's NetApp's word for their bugs. Stability has been the main complaint that I've had with the product. Because it's so feature-rich and has so much software related to it, it does come with a decent amount of bugs so we do a lot of upgrades to patch bugs."
"If they could come up with some more automation, this would be helpful."
"The only thing I don't like is that firmware upgrades require downtime. It would be beneficial if we could do upgrades without as much downtime."
"The vendor diagnostics, which allows for movement from one vendor to another vendor using the application technology that is available. It should be able to talk to any vendor, not just NetApp to NetApp. We should be able to replicate the data, so the next feature should not be vendor specific."
"There is a lot a lot of functional integration that we look forward to for improvements. I'm learning where they're going and I'm very interested to see those improvements and how they can help us."
"The config could be a little easier. It's not entirely difficult, but it could be a somewhat easier. I have seen other vendors make it easier."
More NetApp ONTAP cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is fair."
"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."
"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"There are no additional costs associated with the product."
"The solution is expensive."
"We have seen ROI, especially with the deduplication. We have a high ratio of deduplication and are way past 70 percent of our VDI, as we have almost 400TBs on our VDI. We have been able to save at least a quarter of a petabyte of space."
"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."
"The product is a bit expensive."
"Because of its manageability, we have fewer people managing 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."
"NetApp provided the features required within our cost limit."
"ONTAP is expensive, but most storage systems are now-a-days and everything is included with the license - there are no additional fees."
"NetApp is streamlined, reducing costs."
More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Transportation Company
17%
Retailer
13%
Healthcare Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
22%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Transportation Company
7%
 

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?
It is cost-effective for the benefits you get.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time
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Compared 14% of the time
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DataCore SANsymphony vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
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Compared 38% of the time
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 14% of the time
Cloudian HyperStore vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Cloudian HyperStore vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 10% 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
January 2026
Dell PowerPath reportDownload Dell PowerPath product report
Buyer's Guide
NetApp ONTAP
December 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
December 2025
Free Report: Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
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