Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

HPE SimpliVity vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.8
HPE SimpliVity offers varying ROI timelines, significant cost savings, reduced complexity, and easy VM expansion, reported by users.
Sentiment score
6.8
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure delivers ROI by reducing costs and simplifying management, enhancing resource efficiency and minimizing downtime.
Sentiment score
5.2
VxRail delivers ROI through simplified management, reduced costs, quick deployment, and seamless integration into hybrid cloud environments.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
HPE SimpliVity is praised for responsive, knowledgeable support, despite minor issues with response times and documentation accessibility.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's customer service is praised for quick, knowledgeable support and effective resolution despite some cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.7
VxRail support is praised for knowledge and resolution but criticized for response times and international availability challenges.
The technical support from the HPE side is excellent, and I give them 10 out of 10.
I would rate technical support from HPE SimpliVity eight out of ten.
When we send an email, an engineer is assigned within 15 to 20 minutes, and we get on a call to resolve the issue.
A key area for improvement for VMware would be response time.
The support is all provided by Dell, and it is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
HPE SimpliVity offers easy scalability but may face limitations and flexibility issues in large enterprise environments.
Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers seamless scalability, allowing effortless, efficient cluster expansion to accommodate diverse business sizes and needs.
Sentiment score
7.6
VxRail is highly scalable, effortlessly expanding resources, supporting up to 64 nodes, ideal for diverse organizational needs.
With HPE, customers can scale up the HPE SimpliVity solution anytime.
HPE SimpliVity is scalable, as it can be scaled in terms of addition of nodes.
The scalability of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) deserves an eight out of ten rating, as there is no solution that is 100% efficient and there is always room for improvement.
There are limitations, such as the inability to upgrade from a single to dual CPU in certain configurations.
Scalability is easy with VxRail.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
HPE SimpliVity is highly stable and reliable, with most issues linked to external factors, earning high user ratings.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers outstanding reliability and stability, with minimal downtime and prompt support addressing minor issues effectively.
Sentiment score
8.5
VxRail offers high stability, reliability, and robust performance, with users appreciating its minimal issues and graceful handling of failures.
From HPE's side, it is stable, and customers find it easy to manage and easy to grow.
Compared to VM, we find it most stable.
Regarding stability, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) a seven out of ten.
It is a very stable and mature product, with centralized management and upgrades being perfect for us.
The product is very stable, and I rate its stability as nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

HPE SimpliVity requires improved integration, faster updates, enhanced features, simplified interface, better support, and expanded cloud compatibility.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure needs improvements in pricing, setup, integration, user interface, performance, and multi-tenancy features for users.
VxRail users face compatibility, scalability, and cost issues, seeking better integration, automation, and improved support while managing complexities.
In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination.
Pricing could be an area for improvement, as there are many other options that are very cost-effective compared to HPE SimpliVity or converged solutions.
We hope Nutanix can integrate inside our current license module.
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.
They should add AI features in the future.
It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues.
The major issue with VxRail is the razoring process, which can only be performed by Dell.
Stabilizing the update procedure further would make it better.
 

Setup Cost

HPE SimpliVity offers cost-effective hyper-converged solutions with competitive pricing and lower total ownership costs compared to alternatives.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure provides competitive pricing and flexible licensing, offering good ROI and TCO benefits despite hardware costs.
VxRail is competitive but costly, with potential negotiation benefits, yet high initial costs concern smaller organizations.
Standalone HPE SimpliVity is more expensive than other OEMs and solutions.
The pricing is renewed every year, at almost $100,000 per year.
It costs more compared to VMware due to different licensing areas.
At first, it is cheaper than cloud services, so the cost is a major benefit.
Previously, the cost was higher, however, recent changes in VMware pricing have reduced it.
The cost varies for us as a large company because we receive special offers from Dell.
Purchasing VxRail is quite expensive compared to a simple Dell server.
 

Valuable Features

HPE SimpliVity provides efficient data management with deduplication, backup, and recovery, enhancing performance and reducing complexity and costs.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers high performance, user-friendly management, scalability, integration, and cost efficiency with seamless updates and monitoring.
VxRail enhances productivity with seamless integration, centralized management, scalability, and cost-effective hyper-converged infrastructure for efficient resource consolidation.
The greatest benefit is that customers don't need multiple hardware solutions from other vendors. Virtualization comes in a single box.
HPE SimpliVity is a complete solution for converged infrastructure, having its own local data store for the virtual machines and workloads.
When technology development or devops teams request server provisioning, the setup time has been reduced from hours to less than 20 minutes.
The replication method between Nutanix clusters is a valuable feature.
It is easy to use, and it's easy to maintain.
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.
The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN.
The features of VxRail that we find most useful for our customers include the easy update mechanism and the support for both VMware and hardware.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 8.6%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 9.6%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 15.8%, down from 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VxRail15.8%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.6%
HPE SimpliVity8.6%
Other66.0%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammed Lokman Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Has integrated solutions and rapid recovery made management smoother and more reliable
There is the latest update from HPE regarding HPE SimpliVity. For virtualization, HPE has to depend on other manufacturers, OEMs such as VMware or Hyper-V. Recently, HPE declared the VM essential virtualization solution. In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination. Functionality-wise, I am totally satisfied with HPE SimpliVity, but for improvement, if HPE integrates its own virtualization solution, this combination and integration will be beneficial because this integration can be configured with the cloud-based system. A VM can be uploaded to the cloud from this, which will be advantageous for backup to other sites.
MahendraPanchotiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates
Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business68
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise79
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise77
Large Enterprise82
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

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 resea...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
Standalone HPE SimpliVity is more expensive than other OEMs and solutions. Regarding the software side, VMware is cos...
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 ...
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...
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...
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, z...
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 e...
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 bein...
 

Also Known As

SimpliVity, HPE HCI
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: October 2025.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.