FlexPod XCS vs HPE Hyper Converged comparison

The compared NetApp and Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions aren't in the same category. NetApp is ranked #5 in CI , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 9.2% mindshare in the category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 3.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

1,666 Views
583 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

HPE Hyper Converged

Read 37 HPE Hyper Converged reviews

2,178 Views
2,091 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

HPE Hyper Converged

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

FlexPod XCS and HPE Hyper Converged are advanced data center solutions. FlexPod XCS appears to have the upper hand due to better pricing and support, while HPE Hyper Converged is noted for superior features and management.

Features: FlexPod XCS offers robust hardware integration, exceptional performance, and scalability. HPE Hyper Converged provides simplified management, flexibility, and a comprehensive solution set.

Room for Improvement: FlexPod XCS needs better software updates, more intuitive management tools, and enhanced analytics. HPE Hyper Converged requires improved analytical capabilities, more streamlined support, and stronger software updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FlexPod XCS is known for straightforward deployment and mixed support reviews. HPE Hyper Converged offers quick deployment and responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: FlexPod XCS is competitively priced with a good ROI. HPE Hyper Converged, although more expensive, offers significant value in terms of features and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Converged Infrastructure Report (Updated: July 2025).

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Converged Infrastructure

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

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (5th)

HPE Hyper Converged

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (10th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 9.2%, down 9.7% compared to last year.
HPE Hyper Converged, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 3.2% mindshare, up 3.0% since last year.

Converged Infrastructure

HCI

Featured Reviews

John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems

The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

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GosayeErko

System Engineer at BIOS Engineering

Infrastructure management simplifies for clients with integrated interface and enhanced resource utilization

Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and most clients are skipping VMware because VMware has changed its licensing method. If HPE starts to use its own hypervisor for its HCI solutions, it will be the best solution. We push a different vendor for the backup and replication, so we only use the HCI, then we use Veeam for the backup and replication section.

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

"Our performance increase has been about 15 percent from what we previously used."

"If the network or site is down, you just need to go to a single vendor. You don't have to open up multiple cases with each vendor to get things done. That is one of the financial benefits of this solution."

"It's flexible. You can scale up or out. Our environment has never needed it, but the option has always been there."

"The benefit is the speed, it's the performance. That's what it comes down to is the performance of the solution."

"You can just take out blades and replace them, and you're back up and running in no time."

"There are very many features, but from experience, the single point of contact for support has been valuable to our customers."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to integrate different products into one validated design. That allows customers to understand and get the value out of the hardware, as it was designed."

"The solution suits converged infrastructures, where the customer gets a complete system with Cisco servers, NetApp Storage, and Cisco switches."

More FlexPod XCS pros

"The solution has many good features."

"The HPE Hyper Converged solution is used in a hybrid cloud configuration. We assess the disk space and partition additional capacity."

"It's a very complete product with residencies to protect data and secure it end-to-end. It includes storage, computing, and networking, offering a fully ten-key solution."

"If you were comparing this solution to VMware, it has more features, and it's very fast on the recovery."

"I've found the data protection features the most valuable."

"One of the solution's strong points is the deduplication capabilities of SimpliVity."

"One of the good features would be the fast backup solution Hyper Converged offers, which is more efficient compared to other vendors."

"The features of HPE Hyper Converged that are most effective and beneficial are its simplicity as well as its scalability."

More HPE Hyper Converged pros

Cons

"You must build each block separately, that's a disadvantage sometimes."

"Because when you try to do automation, there are many bits and pieces tied together. Sometimes, automation gets a little tricky for provisioning."

"We would like them to improve the validate designs. It is hard to stay in a supported config with the software and firmware versions of the platform. It's always a concern to ensure things not only work well, but they work at all. If we run into incompatibility inside of the NetApp, Cisco, or VMware versions, it can cause real issues."

"Perhaps the automation interface could be improved."

"Setting up a Cisco USC environment can be complex."

"The integration between both companies, Cisco and NetApp, is very good but it still needs to be enhanced in terms of visibility and observability."

"I would like to have the installation of the top virtualization on its own rather than doing it through the admin. For example, if FlexPod is configured after the configuration of the host, the ESXi is installed also, but it should be part of it rather than doing it as a separate system."

"Automatic tiering would be good to have."

More FlexPod XCS cons

"If the solution could further compress the data, it would use less storage."

"Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and many clients are skipping VMware due to its changed licensing method."

"Scalability requires using additional nodes."

"We've had to do a power cycle to bring it all the way down, bring it back up for power outages, A/C shut-downs of our DC office, but it hasn't presented a problem."

"In my country, the biggest issue is probably pricing."

"Providing local technical support and improving the price are areas this service needs to consider improving."

"Some improvement is required in the availability of the data and performance. The solution is too expensive for our customers. The pricing should be lower."

"Could be more secure and more economical."

More HPE Hyper Converged cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main return on investment would be that instead of having to refresh all of our desktop hardware we have been able to go reimage existing machines and use those as thin clients, then also purchase new thin clients rather than buying actual hardware. It also reduces the overhead of having our technicians deploy those systems and maintain them."

"We would like everything in one piece of hardware. This way we can just sell the product like a silo by putting everything in a stack together."

"The pricing and licensing are quite expensive. However, compared to other solutions, it is okay."

"The FlexPod licensing can adjust to your purse, i.e. there are different levels available for businesses of all sizes."

"We have seen our data center rack space collapse about 90 percent. We have a data center which only has two racks now out of the 20 that were there previously."

"We have reduced our manpower with the solution."

"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."

"We have a lease for approximately $10,000 USD per month."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive - not only the hardware costs but server costs too. And the more you scale, the more expensive it gets."

"The solution is too expensive for our customers. The pricing should be lower."

"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."

"The entire solution is packaged with all licenses and support."

"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."

"The solutions cost us a lot."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The product's pricing is very competitive because HPE provides a buyback policy to users...Users can make either monthly or yearly payments towards the licensing cause of the solution."

More HPE Hyper Converged pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

20%

Educational Organization

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FlexPod?

The system is designed for easy scaling. Because we define everything clearly. So when we plug the system in, we apply the profile, and it scales easily.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FlexPod?

The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers. Following XCS rules ensures a stable environment, which is crucial. For me, C...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FlexPod?

FlexPod should focus more on automation. Integrating an automation tool with FlexPod would enable customers to leverage automation capabilities. More automation would be helpful. Currently, we cont...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Hyper Converged?

The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?

The pricing is competitive. Initially, I misunderstood and rated it as higher, but on a scale of one to ten where one is cheap, I would rate it as a four.

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?

I haven't had issues personally. I've heard from other people that maybe there could be some improvements around technical support.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 34% of the time

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerEdge VRTX vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 15% of the time

VMware vSAN vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

VxRail vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 33% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 18% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei FusionCube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 3% of the time

More HPE Hyper Converged Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

July 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Hyper Converged

July 2025

Download HPE Hyper Converged product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS

Overview

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

HPE Hyper Converged solutions combine intuitive software with the reliability of a world class platform to deliver cloud-like simplicity to your business.

Now, IT can become an internal service provider to end-users by quickly delivering the resources they need for application development and consumption. With HPE Hyper Converged systems companies can operate with cloud efficiency to simplify IT operations with one comprehensive control panel to deploy, monitor, analyze and update – with a single generalist; consume with cloud flexibility to deliver a cloud-like experience, with multi-tenant workspaces that eliminate stranded resources and flexes on demand; and deploy at cloud speed to empower developers and lines-of-business with a self-service portal that can instantly compose and recompose VMs in minutes. Built-in enterprise grade features, such as performance and resiliency enable HPE Hyper Converged systems to easily handle a wide variety of virtualized workloads, including general purpose virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and cloud.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha

Buyer's Guide

Converged Infrastructure

July 2025

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