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Microsoft Azure VMware vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

Microsoft Azure VMware
Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure VMware is 2.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 6.6%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

BachirAbderrahmani - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a lot of flexibility during the migration to users
I cannot tell you exactly what will be added except one thing. The tool already did a great job integrating the native Azure SaaS and PaaS solutions. I think the tool can do better integration. We need to have a dedicated network connectivity with a dedicated ExpressRoute circuit. For example, in our experience with this client, we ended up with two circuits for ExpressRoute. If the tool can do better and flawless integration with the native Azure services, it will be a good enhancement. What we have right now is not bad, but it is an area where the tool can do a little bit of enhancements.
Andrea Beccia - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers satisfying data protection and workload movement features with exceptional stability
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure can be used up to 100% of its capacity, but our company is presently using 80% of the solution's resources. Our company manufactures iron casting products in the metal industry, and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is also used. For virtualization purposes, Nutanix Acropolis is used as a full-stack solution. For the Windows virtual machines in our company's server, Nutanix Acropolis is utilized instead of solutions like VMware Hypervisor. One of the main reasons our company adopted Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure was its data protection features. The solution is also used in disaster recovery through the automatic snapshots feature on the local site. Next year, our organization will try to join clusters in the network using the solution. Network clustering will help our organization's team move workloads into the geographical cluster automatically. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is considered an ideal solution for disaster recovery where data protection remains embedded. The solution is capable of even capturing auto snapshots for remote sites. Next year, our company plans to test new features of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure that will assist in automated workload movements on two sides at a distance of 60 kilometers. I would recommend others use the solution for its exceptional stability, performance, hardware compatibility, and overall flexibility. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure allows the use of varying hardware for the same cluster. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten overall.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The capabilities are like a lift-and-shift operation for moving existing VMware environments to the cloud. The time for migration onto the cloud has substantially reduced."
"Regarding stability, it is like a five-star solution."
"For new users, if you have a scalable environment where a VMware data center makes sense for your business, I definitely recommend AVS."
"The integration is very good."
"The architecture of Nutanix is the best, and the virtualization we get, out of the box, is an advantage. Also, dedupe and compression are done natively, inside the platform, so there are no additional licenses. That adds value to it."
"A lot of features are there, but for us, on the server administration side, creating a clone of the VM is valuable because many times, we have to deploy security patches. For deploying these patches, it helps to have a clone so that if something goes wrong, we can discard that VM and put back the clone VM. That is a very cool feature."
"Flexibility. We're able to mix performance nodes with storage nodes easily. Unlike other vendors where, if we start a hyperconverged solution with them, we have to stick to a specific model, to a specific series with specific capabilities, with Nutanix it's very easy to mix and match the best solution, especially for a dynamic infrastructure like ours."
"One-Click Upgrade and Foundation is the most valuable feature. One-Click Upgrade makes upgrades and LCM a breeze. Prior to Nutanix One-Click Upgrade, upgrades and LCM were overly cumbersome and time-consuming. Foundation provides an easy, yet very structured, approach to cluster modification (adding or removing nodes)."
"Regarding Nutanix AOS, fault tolerance is great."
"Everything is core centralized on the UI."
"Being able to upgrade our entire cluster with the click of a button during business hours with zero downtime has made managing our infrastructure so easy."
"I definitely find the reduced power consumption very valuable. Another aspect I really like, when one compares Citrix to VMware, is the interface where you talk directly to your VM from the present software."
 

Cons

"Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities."
"Well, sometimes they release product after product, so it's it's kind of hard to keep an overview of all the different aspects of of the solutions."
"The only issue is that a small challenge was found regarding the network...to have extended, smooth VLANs and everything else was a little bit complicated."
"Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities. One improvement could be more support for mid-sized or scalable environments."
"In terms of what I would like to see improved, I would say the life cycle management. I don't know if it is because they changed to an LCM from the previous way of upgrading the hardware or software but sometimes it feels that it needs a wizard that says, "Check this, check this," telling you your options. The only thing that's a bit frustrating for me is the life cycle management interface. That's the only thing on the entire system that frustrates me."
"The name of the solutions offered by Nutanix does not indicate what the tool does."
"It would be great if they could improve the GUI features."
"The file services that they also provide need some more features, like on the Windows file server."
"I would have liked it if Nutanix were a hardware as well as a software platform."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's LTS version needs to be more reliable."
"We'd like to have more resource management."
"The software-defined networking should be improved. It is quite substandard as compared to the VMware variant. The software-defined networking is quite limited, and we usually use other products to do that. We're aware that Nutanix is working on that and will be coming out with better solutions, and we can't wait because to do a fully software-defined architecture, the abstraction layer needs not only software-defined storage, which you have, but also the software-defined networking piece."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"To be honest, the tool comes at a high price."
"The mandatory requirements, such as a minimum of three nodes, make it expensive. The customers need to sign up for approximately $20,000 per month."
"The solution is very competitive."
"I think it's cheaper than VMware in terms of cost."
"Setup cost is minor, pricing is quite a bit (we have a 7-node-cluster for about 450K EUR with 2 vGPU-nodes for Citrix) but that includes hardware, software, and support."
"It is not cheap, but if you look at the return on investment and the total cost of ownership, it is worth the price."
"It's a bit expensive, but it's worth it."
"We got the renewal done recently, and there was no cost involved."
"The pricing of Nutanix is not cheap but there are options available."
"The basic license that comes with the box allows basic virtualization features but advanced automation features would require an upgrade of licenses."
"Its licensing model is easy, but the bad thing is that we need to pay for the whole capacity at once. With VMware vSAN, we only have to pay for the capacity that we are using, which is not the case with Nutanix. So, we have more overhead for the licensing cost with Nutanix."
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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
No data available
Educational Organization
33%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure VMware?
The pricing is high, rated around nine to 9.5 out of ten. The mandatory requirements, such as a minimum of three nodes, make it expensive. The customers need to sign up for approximately $20,000 pe...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure VMware?
Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities. One improvement could be more support for mid-sized or scalable environments. The licensing policy ...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
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 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 core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure VMware vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.