FlexPod XCS vs VxRail comparison

The compared NetApp and Dell Technologies solutions aren't in the same category. NetApp is ranked #3 in CI , with an average rating of 8.3, and holds a 10.1% mindshare in the category. Dell Technologies is ranked #1 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 16.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

2,048 Views
799 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

VxRail

Read 133 VxRail reviews

15,459 Views
14,686 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

VxRail

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between FlexPod XCS and VxRail based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Converged Infrastructure

August 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 (3rd)

VxRail

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

133

Ranking in other categories

HCI (1st)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. FlexPod XCS is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 10.1%, up 10.0% compared to last year.
VxRail, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 16.1% mindshare, down 21.0% since last year.

Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FlexPod XCS	10.1%
HPE ConvergedSystem	16.8%
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance	15.3%
Other	57.8%

Converged Infrastructure

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VxRail	16.1%
VMware vSAN	14.0%
Dell PowerFlex	10.0%
Other	59.9%

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

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades

The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.

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

"It simplifies the management of our entire system."

"The consistent delivery that we receive from the products. We deliver it to different customers, and we know it will be a consistent end-to-end solution as well."

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

"We have had great support, and this is when we have called for any problems, which have been very minimal to start with."

"NetApp is always coming up with features that I want before I know that I want them."

"FlexPod provides very small footprint. We can have it in our offices without bothering with extra cooling, as it is a small unit."

"The product is robust, stable, and has flexibility."

"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."

More FlexPod XCS pros

"The compute is good and we have not had any issues with the vSAN."

"Cost-effective and easy to install."

"The installation process is very quick. When you purchase it, it's up and running without much delay. Adding any additional components is simple, allowing for easy and fast scaling without adding complexity. The centralized management portal makes it easy to manage the entire system."

"This product has given us clear visibility into what we need technology-wise to grow."

"The solution is easy to use. When turning on a server or a machine that is required for, deployment or quality assurance, the dynamic deployment of resources is good."

"This is a good solution if you want to deploy an ACI Environment but don't have all the necessary resources."

"The VxRail is built on two specific platforms that have been in the industry for the last 15 to 20 years: the 1-U socket and the 2-U socket platforms from Dell. They're in their sixteenth generation of those platforms, I believe, so they're very stable."

"The support has been excellent, especially if you compare it to IBM."

More VxRail pros

Cons

"There are too many drivers and software combined all together, and we need to have compatibility between all of them."

"I'd like to see better integrations with some of the third-party tools, like Terraform. That would be good. We use Ansible to deploy and that's good, but it's slower than it needs to be."

"It would be great to see some form of interoperability between the FAS units and the E-Series, specifically for replication, even if it is just one more replication from a FAS to an E-Series. That would be amazing."

"We would like to see a new design that comes with more productivity or graphics. Currently, the vendors, like HPE and Dell EMC along with NetApp, all have very similar products. We want more diversification."

"It takes a very sophisticated group of people to run and maintain NetApp and Cisco products."

"We would like more integration with some other HCI solutions so we can take advantage of other opportunities."

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

"Hardware stability needs improvement. We replaced a lot of RAM this past year. We had to replace the complete blade once after extensive troubleshooting. Any given time, we have approximately one blade down within the entire infrastructure, unfortunately."

More FlexPod XCS cons

"The agility of the support team to provide you with better solutions should be improved. VxRail also has to be improved in terms of simplicity. Adding a simple node seemed like quite a project."

"The fact that is based on vSAN is the main issue of this solution."

"It should not be deployed on one hypervisor. There should be multiple hypervisors supported like Hyper-V or KVM."

"The version upgrade process should be simplified."

"The licensing needs to be improved upon."

"The technical support team must improve the quality of responses."

"You have to buy a new server if you want to scale up."

"There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us."

More VxRail cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have saved time on new service deployments. I've done deployments in under a week, and if it's a cloud-based deployment, it's even faster."

"It is cost-effective."

"It's expensive, but when you pay for enterprise support and enterprise products, you have to pay the big bucks."

"We definitely saw a lot of operational cost savings using FlexPod. As far as capital outlay goes, that was a little bit too much for us to swallow and we weren't able to recognize enough savings in that area to afford it."

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

"We have saved time, money, space, and power consumption on new service deployments. We have a data center in Toronto which had ten racks on one of the new servers. This was all reduced to two racks with six chassis, which is amazing."

"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."

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

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

"The license is a bundle with the hardware. It comes with the license and five-year support."

"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."

"The licensing costs can vary depending on the number of processors and specific requirements, which may result in considerable expenses."

"There is an administrative cost savings. Instead of having seven to 15 separate boxes that someone has to administer on 15 different terminals, you can do the majority of it from one interface. Therefore, it saves on manpower costs."

"VxRail does raise the price, but overall, it's well-priced. It's not more expensive than other similar solutions. If you were to create an in-house, tailor-made solution, you could potentially do it at a lower cost. However, I think a fully integrated solution like VxRail should be priced appropriately."

"The price of VxRail highly depends on your design and your configuration. For example, if I connect Pure Storage directly to ESXi hosts and bypass Fiber Channel switches and I will save on money. However, it reduces my redundancy and makes it not as robust of deployment and easy to manage. An HCI environment, it's more cost-effective than utilizing a traditional SAN. With storage and computing altogether, you don't necessarily have to involve the networking team as much. I don't necessarily need somebody that understands Brocade's or Cisco Fiber Channel Switches, because I have it all right there."

"It is just as cheap to move over to an HCI solution as it is to maintain a legacy system."

"Pricing is competitive."

More VxRail 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

15%

Performing Arts

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

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	41
Midsize Enterprise	42
Large Enterprise	56

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

How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...

See all answers

What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...

See all answers

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 28% of the time

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 16% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 13% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 12% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 9% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

VMware vSAN vs VxRail

Compared 25% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail

Compared 24% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail

Compared 15% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail

Compared 6% of the time

More VxRail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

September 2025

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Buyer's Guide

VxRail

August 2025

Download VxRail product report

Also Known As

No data available

VCE VxRail

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

VxRail is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance co-engineered by Dell Technologies and VMware, designed to optimize VMware environments by simplifying compute, storage, virtualization, and management.

Built on VMware vSAN software, VxRail ensures high performance, reliability, and flexibility. It supports a broad array of workloads, from business-critical applications to next-generation use cases. VxRail simplifies infrastructure management with powerful integration and seamless scalability, offering centralized management and user-friendly interfaces. Streamlined updates, robust lifecycle management, and one-click upgrades facilitate a user-centric experience that minimizes deployment complexity and staffing needs. However, its performance with disk deduplication, integration with public clouds, and processor support can be enhanced, along with pricing and licensing improvements.

What features define VxRail?

High Performance: Optimized for superior efficiency in VMware environments.
Seamless Scalability: Scales effortlessly to accommodate growing demands.
Centralized Management: Simplifies control through unified interfaces.
Effortless Integration: Easily integrates with VMware tools and services.
Automated Updates: Ensures ongoing system availability through streamlined updates.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Resource Efficiency: Reduces staffing requirements and optimizes resource use.
Flexibility: Supports a variety of use cases and workloads.
Reliable Support: Provides robust support to ensure operational continuity.
Reduced Complexity: Facilitates ease of deployment and minimized setup times.

Organizations across sectors such as finance, telecommunications, education, and manufacturing utilize VxRail for its scalability, ease of deployment, and infrastructure management capabilities. It aids in server and application hosting, storage, and virtualization management, often employing VMware integration. The platform is valued for its ability to consolidate IT components, support VDI solutions, and enhance cloud readiness and resource allocation.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

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

World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox

Buyer's Guide

Converged Infrastructure

August 2025

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