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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 (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 1.6%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 9.4%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.4%
Dell XC Appliance1.6%
Other89.0%
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 solution's best feature is its simplicity."
"From a single screen, I can view VM details, performance, and hardware issues, such as power supply or fan malfunctions, along with RAM module problems."
"The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly."
"The stability of the product is pretty good, as there have been no bugs, glitches, or crashes that I'm aware of."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, the solution is great."
"When we compare it to normal hardware servers, I'd say it is quite easy to configure and deploy."
"Nutanix has several unique capabilities to ensure linear scalability."
"The Nutanix customer service is outstanding and easily the best from all vendors we work with."
"Pricing is a little high but if you really look into what the product provides, the cost saving on setting up infrastructure and maintaining it is greatly reduced."
"It's quite easy to scale, and you have the option to have distributed nodes everywhere around the world that work as one. You can also have a solution for small branch offices with only two nodes for redundancy, and that's good enough to start."
"It consolidates our servers, and improves our electricity consumption and cooling as well."
"It's easy to use and has a very smooth onboarding process."
"The snapshots, cloning, and replication are all effective in helping to reduce downtime. It can replicate cluster data for disaster recovery and it provides high availability in case a node or a disk fails."
"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."
 

Cons

"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"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."
"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"Dell needs to do a lot of work to simplify the maintenance and life-cycle upgrades for the product."
"Lacks sufficient integration with other vendors and public clouds."
"The product could be improved with more security."
"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."
"Make it easier to manage."
"The solution does not lend support when we connect with a few dongle licenses."
"I think some of the tasks that must be done using CLI could be added to the web interface."
"If we have one small cluster, and we need RBAC, we must install Prism Central."
"The one disadvantage is relative, financially Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a little bit more expensive than the old solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"We received a good price from Dell."
"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The pricing is good."
"There is a license required for this solution and my clients usually purchase a two-year license with extended support. The price of the solution could be reduced, it is more expensive than competitors."
"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very competitive and TCO is very low compared to three-tier solutions."
"It is slightly more expensive compared to a standard, on-prem, bare-metal configuration. There is about a 30 percent overhead there."
"We are aware of the pricing since we renew every year, at almost $100,000 per year."
"They should lower the price. If they did they would fall into a more competitive market because the price does scare a lot of potential customers away when they get the quote."
"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."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is affordable, it has good value. The final price depends a lot on the hardware used, it's an appliance in the end. Whether you use HPE as the hardware vendor or Supermicro as the hardware vendor, it really depends on what hardware is used which is the main cost."
"The pricing is very competitive when compared with other vendors. As long as Nutanix goes forward with the same price and same type of offering, it will definitely have a large number of customers adopting the same solution very soon."
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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
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
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 Business92
Midsize Enterprise77
Large Enterprise82
 

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: March 2026.
885,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.