Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Lenovo and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Lenovo is ranked #20 with an average rating of 8.0, while StarWind is ranked #14 with an average rating of 10.0. Lenovo holds a 1.4% mindshare in HCI, compared to StarWind’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Lenovo users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Read 5 Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series reviews

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1,133 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Read 66 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reviews

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1,158 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

StarWind HyperConverged App...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series compete in the hyperconverged infrastructure space. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series has the upper hand for its feature-rich environment and scalability, while StarWind stands out for cost-effectiveness and support.

Features: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance offers seamless integration, simplified management via native automation tools, and robust data protection features. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series provides advanced virtualization capabilities, scalability, and broad compatibility with VMware environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is recognized for straightforward deployment and strong customer support, which eases the setup process. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series offers comprehensive deployment services and responsive support, but involves a longer setup time due to its complexity.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance has competitive pricing and quick ROI, appealing due to lower initial cost and operational expenses. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series requires a higher upfront investment but promises substantial long-term returns through enhanced productivity and scalability for larger enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

June 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

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Ranking in HCI

20th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Ranking in HCI

14th

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series is 1.4%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI

Featured Reviews

Genesis Dapoza

Email Administrator at Technopaq, Inc.

simplifies management for clients familiar with VMware, and offers a user-friendly management and configuration experience

With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers. The drawback is that the hardware resources (CPU, memory, storage) are shared among all the VMs running on the VX Series. If the server's processor is underpowered for the VMs, many of the VMs might have performance issues. An improvement could be to have more granular control over resource allocation to VMs.

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Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

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

"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series' deployment is easy. We are a tier-one platinum partner who is into multiple implementations."

"The clients like the solution’s simplicity."

"We find the setup quite straightforward and very easy."

"Installation is straightforward because it's a vSAN. It only took one or two days."

"The VX machines are scalable."

"However, StarWind HCA won us over in two areas: price and support. We were actually able to install an all-flash StarWind HCA for less than other vendors' spinning rust solutions! We were able to roll five years of warranty and support into the purchase price and still save thousands of dollars upfront."

"The most valuable feature is the high-availability. We have three nodes, and all data will be synched instantly through all the nodes. Even if we had a disaster where two nodes failed, containing dozens of critical machines, almost automatically, all the loads would be run on the remaining node."

"Reliability and overall uptime are key as we're also hosting client environments in addition to our own."

"The hardware footprint is perfect. It fits in our rack perfectly, and we were able to condense a lot of physical servers we had. It has greatly eliminated the excess stuff in our server rack..."

"We also opted for 24-hour support monitoring for any issues. They are extremely quick to respond on issues we even cause ourselves such as bumping a network cable."

"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."

"The product runs wonderfully and has already gone through several failure tests."

"The high-quality hardware options, directly affecting performance, have significantly improved the user experience and are well worth the cost."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"The product must provide AI features."

"The user management could be a bit better. It's something they could improve upon in future releases."

"With the VX machines, the clients often confuse the hardware itself with the services and resources. VMs are configured according to resources - memory, hard disk capacity, and network. These resources, including memory and processor, are actually shared on the VX Series. So, if the server's processor is underpowered or unreliable for the VMs, many of the VMs will encounter issues. Ideally, the physical server configuration should align more closely with the needs of the virtual servers."

"Support could be better."

"Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series needs to improve its stability. Its resolution should be faster."

"The only thing my team has recommended improving on is possibly a StarWind-customized GUI to monitor the overall system health, similar to 5nine Manager."

"The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."

"The monitoring and reporting console can be improved in the sense that it can have more information on it."

"We ran into some issues with going from Hyper-V 2012 R2 to Hyper-V 2019."

"I think some performance metrics would be nice to see, especially on the storage side."

"The web-managed interface (a separate VM) could be better."

"Shipping options should be explained in detail and offer more white glove delivery options even if it comes at an additional cost for some SMBs without docks."

"I think that the pre-installation questionnaire was a little confusing and ambiguous."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is competitive."

"There is room for improvement in the licensing structure, maybe. Regarding sizing the resources, sometimes it's difficult to calculate/compute them based on the client's requirements."

"You need to pay a license for additional features. If we need to monitor hardware for the automatic alert notification, we need to pay them."

"The tool is expensive."

"There is a bit of a start-up cost. Having never used HCAs before, I was reluctant to buy it. I would suggest that you jump in and do it, as I wish I hadn't wasted so much time."

"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."

"I was able to bring the price per year down by going out to a five-year plan."

"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."

"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

Government

Educational Organization

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The VX machines are scalable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The licensing model is moderately complex. The tool is expensive. It is VMware’s fault, though.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series?

The product must provide AI features. It depends on VMware since the core is software. The solution must provide a more detailed plan to enable simplicity of use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...

See all answers

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Compared 26% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HCI

July 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

June 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

Lenovo VX Series, ThinkAgile VX Series

No data available

Overview

Differentiating yourself from the competition is vital in today’s fast-moving business environment. To support your business, IT systems must be simple, agile, and cost-effective so you can meet your customers’ requirements to be ever online. Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series enables you to meet these requirements by focusing on the business outcome you require, rather than on building your infrastructure.

ThinkAgile VX Series, powered by VMware vSAN, is available in several models. Each is preconfigured, pretested, and optimized to provide the simplest way to bring a new VMware hyperconverged environment online. If you have an existing VMware environment, the VX Series can integrate into it easily.

Designed for any size business from SMBs through large enterprises, VX Series can be used as infrastructure for remote office/branch office (ROBO) and retail stores as well as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and enterprise applications.

Lenovo

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA.

StarWind

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Buyer's Guide

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

June 2025

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