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IBM PureSystems 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM PureSystems
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Converged Infrastructure (9th), Converged Infrastructure for SAP HANA (2nd)
VxRail
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
HCI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM PureSystems is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 5.7%, up 3.6% compared to last year.
VxRail, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 10.1% mindshare, down 17.4% since last year.
Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM PureSystems5.7%
FlexPod XCS12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem11.2%
Other70.4%
Converged Infrastructure
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VxRail10.1%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
VMware vSAN8.1%
Other72.8%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

it_user6186 - PeerSpot reviewer
Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com
PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
PART I For a certain generation of IBM faithful or followers the recently announced PureFlex and PureApplication systems might give a sense of DejaVu perhaps even causing some to wonder if they just woke up from a long Rip Van Winkle type nap. Yet for another generation who may not yet be future…
Saleh Khalid - PeerSpot reviewer
computer scientist at Imam University
Experience improved integration and cost-efficiency while facing support challenges
The best features of VxRail are its compatibility with VMware, its hyper-converged solution capabilities, and its single line of support. These are the most beneficial aspects of VxRail. I switched from the previous HP solution to Dell solution because it was a good decision. With HP servers, we dealt with a vendor for the compute servers, another vendor for the storage servers, and another vendor for the networking, which required us to manage multiple vendors. Now, we have a single team who can handle VxRail and a single line of support. We don't need anything other than that, and these are the differences we noticed after we switched.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The strengths of the system is how the Flex scales from a very powerful, next generation BladeCenter all the way up to an IaaS platform."
"It gives us tons of flexibility. We can create new machines, then destroy them if they don't work out. We test a lot of use cases that may or may not play out. We can build all types of scenarios into virtual machines that we may or may not use. If we don't use them, we just turn them off, no using up resources."
"We have seen a return on the investment due to how easy this solution is to use and the time it frees up for our staff."
"I like the managed updates; they are really nice in VxRail, everything comes packaged, the updates are much easier than with other solutions that I've had to work with, and anything through the update manager will be guaranteed to work as VMware is integrated into the hardware side of it to validate that the patches they provide will work, so there is less risk."
"You don't need to think about compatibility of components."
"Initial setup is straightforward, as everything is pre-installed."
"Everything that a company needs can be found on VxRail."
"Compared to other HCI products, VxRail has advantages in stability and support from the vendors."
"We have a customer, for example, that has a factory; before they used the VxRail solution, tasks would take hours, and with VxRail, a comport starts working in 30 minutes, saving so much time and giving a competitive gain for the organization."
 

Cons

"The FSM does not quite deliver in the areas it plays too. A fairly sluggish interface that is more complex and less streamlined than it perhaps could be, holds it back and deployment of certain functionality from the switches requires more user intervention than feels necessary."
"The configurations of VxRail can be difficult."
"Having a native replication would be an improvement."
"If VxRail could also offer file services in addition to virtualization, that would be nice because sometimes people want to complement their environment with file services, and you don't have that in VxRail."
"The licensing needs to be improved upon."
"The setup requires a significant amount of expertise, as end customers can’t do it themselves. It must be done by certified partners."
"We're not comfortable with the cost of VxRail and neither are our clients."
"I would like better integration with VCF from VMware, which is the Cloud Foundation tool set, so we can easily provision servers very quickly."
"The way that the VxRail is licensed could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It has a yearly subscription. It can be for one year, three years, or five years."
"VxRail is not cheap, but it's not expensive either."
"It is just as cheap to move over to an HCI solution as it is to maintain a legacy system."
"The cost was cheaper compared to other virtualization solutions."
"Fees vary by license type."
"Since VMware is detached from Dell, the solution's pricing is a bit higher than before."
"I live in Brazil, and my customers are from Brazil. It is quite an expensive solution. It is more expensive than the traditional environment."
"VxRail is still more expensive than its competitor solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

PureSystems
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ABT Online, Ascent Solutions Inc., Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reflexis, Esri, Avcilar Municipality, ValeCard, Computer Gross Italia S.p.A., DynaFront, Silvermoon Business Systems, Diasoft, BPTP, Temenos, Innovation Group, OneTree Solutions
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, NetApp, Rackspace Technology and others in Converged Infrastructure. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.