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HPE Hyper Converged vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 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

HPE Hyper Converged
Ranking in HCI
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 3.2%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 14.9%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Ray Baruwa - PeerSpot reviewer
Advantageous from a sustainability perspective since the networking, storage, and compute are all located within one unit
Hyperconverged is used in an environment where the footprint in the data center is restricted. It is advantageous from a sustainability perspective since the networking, storage, and compute are all located within one unit The most beneficial feature is the life cycle management. I haven't had…
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables efficient multi-environment cluster deployment and resource management with versatile features
While VMware vSAN is quite comprehensive, if we are running multiple infrastructures, applications, databases, and other elements, having a diagnostic tool to identify the actual problem area, whether application-side or infrastructure-side, would be beneficial. A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is easy to manage; the administration is simpler. It saves a lot of rack space in the data center because you can consolidate 20 servers into three to five nodes. The client will be able to benefit from power savings and cost savings as well."
"The solution has good backup resolution updates."
"There are multiple advantages. Typically, being an all-flash storage, which is available through either SimpliVity or dHCI, the performance is much better because the IOPS goes high, so it's more powerful in terms of performance. Secondly, if I'm talking of SimpliVity Hyper Convergence solution from HPE, unlike the competition, even if three hard drives fail, you are still running the solution."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable features are resiliency and data protection."
"Ease of management, as I come from a software background, and I'm responsible for IT overall. I can get in there and turn some nuts and bolts and make things happen without any trouble."
"Reasonably priced and easy to manage for small to medium size companies that don't have an IT department."
"Our storage and IT are now at an enterprise level with all the necessary controls and restrictions being enacted."
"VMware vSAN has greatly reduced refresh spending."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. It is easy to configure, and there is a unified interface, which makes things slightly easier."
"The most valuable feature is the simplicity of its scalability: being able to grow it without having to make sure you get the right disks and the right nodes. The solution is also easy to manage. It's all right there in the vSphere Client. You're not going through multiple things. You don't have to know, once you've created the vSAN node. You add storage, it sees it, and you create your data storage from there. Everything is right there for you."
"The most valuable feature for our customers is vMotion. It allows them to shut down virtual machines and migrate them to others servers."
"The solution is stable."
"vSAN provides default HA configurations, where if any host goes down, the VM moves around within the host. Even though the disks are local, the VMs moves around with the vSAN disk and vSAN provides a high availability on its own."
"Data management and recovery processes are the most valuable features."
"This solution has a dashboard that you can log into and control if you need too while the VM is getting created."
 

Cons

"Installation and setup could be easier."
"Its technical support services could be faster."
"One problem I've had is that I was trying to do a move and it was not working. I was given an error and a message asking me to shut down the machine first and then move it to another host."
"'ve heard from other people that maybe there could be some improvements around technical support."
"One of the things that can be improved is that today, is supporting VMware, maybe as a hypervisor. But it would be good to have an open kind of platform for other hypervisors, maybe. Like Nutanix is doing, it's very open."
"There are some general issues around component failure and raising technical support. Overall, the stability is rated seven or eight out of ten."
"The software version on the HC380s we are using is version 1. It does not support spanned vCenter which we use since we have multiple sites."
"The product must provide more storage capability."
"I have used the VMware Replication but I can't get it to work properly. The process should be simplified."
"Licensing costs are a little too high for smaller sized companies."
"The stability needs to be improved."
"They should make the software updates easier. We should be able to upgrade it more easily."
"There's a lot that can be done to segregate. That may be available now in vSAN 7, I suppose, however, the deduplication and compression can be segregated."
"We plan to switch products since the hardware nowadays is a little bit outdated and we need to scale up a bit."
"There are certain shortcomings in the stability of the product where improvements are required."
"I would like to see a little bit more documentation on the initial setup, and a little bit more explanation on the expandability: How to extend out your vSAN much more simply through the console because, a lot of the time, you have to do it through the command line."
 

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 solutions cost us a lot."
"There are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The entire solution is packaged with all licenses and support."
"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."
"It is an expensive solution, however. If they could adjust the pricing, that would be helpful."
"If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."
"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."
"It is not that expensive, and it is not even cheap. If it is designed in a proper way, it has good pricing, but if you do oversizing, the price will be high. There are different licensing models."
"It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."
"It is slightly expensive. They can be more competitive in terms of pricing."
"We have increased our user productivity."
"There is a license required for this solution, it is a one-time payment. However, if they want support for the solution, it can be paid annually or for three years."
"I feel the pricing to be reasonable."
"Users may also start off with the demo version of the tool. After you learn to use the solution, you can buy it if it is beneficial."
"Basically, vSAN is a license in addition to that of the classic VMware Vsphere, which is also mandatory."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
36%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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.
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.
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...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Hyper Converged vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.