FlexPod XCS vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

The compared NetApp and Nutanix solutions aren't in the same category. NetApp is ranked #2 in CI , and holds a 12.3% mindshare in the category. Nutanix is ranked #5 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.7, and holds a 9.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

3,863 Views
1,932 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Read 200 Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) reviews

14,893 Views
7,893 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between FlexPod XCS and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in Converged Infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Converged Infrastructure Report (Updated: January 2026).

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Converged Infrastructure

January 2026

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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 (2nd)

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

200

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (6th), HCI (5th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 12.3%, up 8.6% compared to last year.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 9.0% mindshare, up 8.3% since last year.

Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FlexPod XCS	12.3%
HPE ConvergedSystem	11.7%
Dell VxBlock System	9.4%
Other	66.6%

Converged Infrastructure

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)	9.0%
VxRail	13.2%
VMware vSAN	10.7%
Other	67.1%

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.

Read full review

Obasanjo Biliaminu

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.

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

"Simplicity and integration with NetApp are its most valuable features."

"It reduced the total cost of ownership."

"One of the easiest solutions to implement, maintain, and scale."

"It makes us more lateral and faster to production."

"One of the most valuable aspects is its integrated convergence infrastructure, particularly the LAN and SAN cloud features that offer a unified fabric."

"The assurance and the peace of mind that we get from knowing if we had an issue with either the NetApp equipment, Cisco equipment, or our VMware enviroment, we can call one number for support, then everyone works together and nobody is pointing fingers all over the place."

"We enjoy the standardization and having things consistent across the whole data center sphere."

"The solution has granular scalability."

More FlexPod XCS pros

"It's much easier and faster even when you want to create a server from a template or clone."

"Flexibility. We're able to mix performance nodes with storage nodes easily. Unlike other vendors where, if we start a hyperconverged solution with them, we have to stick to a specific model, to a specific series with specific capabilities, with Nutanix it's very easy to mix and match the best solution, especially for a dynamic infrastructure like ours."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"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."

"Everything is core centralized on the UI."

"A lot of features are there, but for us, on the server administration side, creating a clone of the VM is valuable because many times, we have to deploy security patches. For deploying these patches, it helps to have a clone so that if something goes wrong, we can discard that VM and put back the clone VM. That is a very cool feature."

"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is flexible and has helped people to work from home during the pandemic."

"One of the most valuable features that can be found, is the inclusion of a hypervisor for free."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros

Cons

"They could improve their technical support team. They need to have a specific phone number for you to call in for the FlexPod solution. Some of the partner support knows if it is for FlexPod, they will get you to the right department."

"As the technology grows, we're looking to upgrade our storage systems to something faster, and we're hoping to improve our servers with next-generation technology. So we want to enhance our server infrastructure and explore server virtualization with VMware. That's the improvement that our clients are demanding."

"The initial setup for FlexPod is complex."

"Since 2018 or 2019, maybe due to COVID and the chipsets, my DIMMs are dying left and right."

"Automatic tiering would be good to have."

"The solution could be improved by including automation for user updates."

"The tool is obsolete and we are migrating to HPE. It should improve the pricing."

"I would like to see more storage-related features."

More FlexPod XCS cons

"Benchmark testing indicated that workloads did slightly better on our Vblock by a few percentage"

"The productivity and work efficiency of Nutanix Acropolis AOS could improve."

"We have a team that does the implementation of the solution for our customers, it is better to have professionals handle the process."

"As of now, Acropolis and VMware cannot talk to each other. Until we have some kind of interface, it would be much better for Nutanix if they built an interface that can talk. Otherwise, if I have a VMware stack and I already have a Nutanix stack, I can create containers, I create clusters on VMware, I create clusters on Nutanix."

"I'm not very technical, so I don't know if there are any features that are really lacking. Our customers seem pleased with it, and I haven't heard of any downsides."

"There is a need is to be able to consume Nutanix storage from outside the cluster for other, non-Nutanix workloads."

"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."

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) has really become very expensive."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Overall, the solution works pretty well. The biggest complaint I have from customers is the cost."

"The scalability is very good. I wish it was a more cost-effective, but you get what you pay for."

"As a startup, for the amount of budget we have and the amount we spend, we are getting what we expected."

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

"We have saved time and money for new service deployments."

"The pricing is not cheaper, but stability is more important for us now. We focus on business gains, not static numbers."

"We have saved 50 percent on new service deployments."

"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."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

"The price is good but I think there is still room for improvement on the price."

"The initial cost is affordable but the renewal fees are high."

"The pricing is quite good in comparison with HPE SimpliVity, Nutanix Scale, and even traditional architecture."

"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."

"Its licensing model is easy, but the bad thing is that we need to pay for the whole capacity at once. With VMware vSAN, we only have to pay for the capacity that we are using, which is not the case with Nutanix. So, we have more overhead for the licensing cost with Nutanix."

"Able to grow with smaller, more linear increments of investment"

"The setup cost, pricing, and licensing are very competitive and TCO is very low compared to three-tier solutions."

"Its price is fine. I can't really complain about that."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 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

Marketing Services Firm

31%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Performing Arts

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	182

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	77
Large Enterprise	82

Questions from the Community

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 15% of the time

HPE ConvergedSystem vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

Fujitsu PRIMEFLEX vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 10% of the time

VxRail vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 7% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 5% of the time

Azure Local vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 5% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

January 2026

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

January 2026

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report

Download Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis

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

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure delivers high performance and scalability with central management and one-click upgrades. It enhances data protection and reduces deployment complexities, perfect for businesses seeking efficient virtualization.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers a comprehensive platform integrating compute, storage, and network for optimal infrastructure management. It supports multiple hypervisors, offering flexibility, efficiency, and ease of use. With features like Prism for centralized management, organizations can manage resources effectively while benefiting from data protection enhancements such as deduplication and compression. Hyper-convergence enables seamless integration, reducing operational costs and increasing scalability. Though the pricing is high, and setup and administration can be complex, the ability to support hybrid cloud implementations and critical infrastructures like VDI and databases provides notable advantages.

What are the key features of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure?

Prism for Centralized Management: Simplifies resource management with a single control interface.
High Performance: Offers efficient I/O operations to enhance processing efficiency.
Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing business needs with one-click upgrades.
Data Protection: Uses deduplication and compression for secure data handling.
Hyper-Convergence: Integrates compute, storage, and network to optimize infrastructure.
Multi-Hypervisor Support: Provides flexibility to choose preferred hypervisors.

What benefits should users look for in Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure?

Cost Effectiveness: Reduces operational costs through resource optimization.
Ease of Management: Centralized control enhances administrative efficiency.
Scalability: Grows seamlessly with business demand.
Data Protection: Increases security and reliability of data management.
Performance Improvement: Streamlines server provisioning and resource management.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure finds adoption across industries for virtualization, cloud services, and infrastructure consolidation. Organizations utilize it for hybrid clouds and virtual server hosting, supporting applications like databases and virtual desktop infrastructures. They report enhanced data protection, disaster recovery capabilities, and improved performance, facilitating effective resource management.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

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

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.

Buyer's Guide

Converged Infrastructure

January 2026

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