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Dell XC Appliance vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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 XC Appliance
Ranking in HCI
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
200
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (6th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 9.2%, up from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.2%
Dell XC Appliance1.7%
Other89.1%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Enables seamless integration with multiple software and outstanding AI tools
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it. I find it overly reliant on VMware. In cases of company mergers involving different platforms, software that can handle a multi-hypervisor environment would facilitate quicker integration.
OB
Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC
Infrastructure efficiency has improved significantly with quick server provisioning, though physical to virtual migrations need a streamlined in-house tool
From my experience with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), there is one area that needs improvement. When moving a critical infrastructure from a physical machine to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), we currently have to use a third-party tool to convert the physical machine to a VM. We have to use VMware converter to perform this conversion before moving it to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). I would suggest that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) should develop their own P2V (physical to VM) tools instead of requiring users to rely on third-party solutions.

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 features are the deduplication and the compression features."
"It's an extremely stable solution, and I highly recommend it."
"Overall, the solution is great."
"We are getting time back to other things because we are not having to look after the infrastructure, as we have had to do in the past."
"The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly."
"To other customers who are looking to implement Dell XC, it's a very good hyper-converged solution."
"The most valuable feature is the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it."
"Dell's appliances provide several key benefits, including horizontal and vertical scalability up to 64 nodes, proprietary artificial intelligence tools that are uncommon in the industry, seamless iDRAC integration with VMware to monitor VM details, performance, and hardware issues from one screen, and CloudIQ software that proactively addresses configuration errors."
"The solution is very stable, reliable, and does not freeze or crash, with very few bugs or glitches that affect the functionality."
"For the industry they are in, Nutanix is some amazing stuff."
"I like NCI's dashboard. If there are any infrastructure issues, we'll get alerts inside the dashboard. NCI provides a single platform for managing all of our databases. We are running SQL and Linux databases."
"Hyperconvergence gives a faster implementation than the standard solutions, and a high density architecture."
"Hyperconverged Infrastructure is the most valuable feature of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure."
"It gives us a single dashboard to control multiple sites and multiple zones. It helps to do things on a single platform and data sharing is quite easy. The network and the security are easy to manage."
"The pricing is pretty good."
"One-click setup is a valuable feature because it allows us to set up a server automatically with a single click."
 

Cons

"To improve this product, I think there is a lot of work that is required by Dell to simplify the maintenance and life cycle upgrades."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"The solution's storage size could be improved."
"Dell needs to do a lot of work to simplify the maintenance and life-cycle upgrades for the product."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor."
"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"The scalability of the solution had some issues because there were many VMs and the replication ran into some bottlenecks. It was an issue that was known to Nutanix and it was not disclosed to the customer."
"There is room to enhance the micro-segmentation."
"If we have one small cluster, and we need RBAC, we must install Prism Central."
"The GUI of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could be improved that can be done from the OEM side."
"One area Nutanix can improve on is DevOps automation."
"Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
"The file services that they also provide need some more features, like on the Windows file server."
"Deployment could be more user-friendly - currently, it requires certain skills with the network and nodes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We received a good price from Dell."
"The price point is very fair for a product in this category but can vary depending on the components selected within the family of products."
"The pricing is good."
"The pricing is dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"We just have a support license for Nutanix."
"It is slightly more expensive compared to a standard, on-prem, bare-metal configuration. There is about a 30 percent overhead there."
"If a customer has been using VMware, the difference in pricing is lower. However, if they are looking to use the VMware, the price can be much higher depending on the license."
"The pricing is fair for the package."
"This product is expensive, but they do have discounts. At one point, I saw that they were giving a 70% or 80% discount, which is a good thing, but maybe they should have a more realistic price and then a 5% to 10% discount."
"The basic license that comes with the box allows basic virtualization features but advanced automation features would require an upgrade of licenses."
"Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
"The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise76
Large Enterprise88
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering Dell XC Appliance?
My advice for people who are selling this product is to first make sure that you educate the customers. The customer doesn't often know much about HCI and what the need to be using it for. If they ...
What needs improvement with Dell XC Appliance?
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's applian...
What is your primary use case for Dell XC Appliance?
Dell offers several benefits with its appliances. Primarily, I can combine them horizontally and vertically, reaching up to sixty-four nodes. Additionally, Dell employs its own artificial intellige...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cardlytics, AEW Energie, Aubert, Zhongtong Information Service, Commune de Villepinte, Teikyo University Hospital
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XC Appliance vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.