NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs VMware vSAN comparison

NetApp and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Software Defined Storage category. Additionally, 95% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 64 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

8,174 Views
490 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

VMware vSAN

Read 234 VMware vSAN reviews

17,237 Views
11,032 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

VMware vSAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Software Defined Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN

April 2026

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Helped 896,803 peers since 2012

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

6.5

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP delivers cost savings, increased efficiency, and improved performance, reducing storage, maintenance, and power expenses.

Sentiment score

3.2

VMware vSAN reduces hardware costs, increases efficiency, and boosts ROI despite high operational expenses and upfront costs.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

Starting with a smaller infrastructure and scaling as required allows us to save costs initially.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I have seen a return on investment; it's satisfactory in the long run.

Ajith Varghese

Deputy Manager at Mannai

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.0

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP customer service is praised for expertise and responsiveness, with room for improvement in initial support.

Sentiment score

4.9

VMware vSAN support is knowledgeable but response times vary, with resources helping reduce direct contact needs for clients.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

I would rate their support nine points.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I am not satisfied with VMware support, particularly with the reaction times, SLAs, and those kinds of issues.

reviewer1687299

private cloud team at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

If we consider technical support from Broadcom, I would rate them an eight or nine now.

UlfWernersson

Senior Infrastructure Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.2

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers scalable growth, dynamic expansion, and flexibility, though large environments face data size limitations.

Sentiment score

4.8

VMware vSAN offers seamless scalability, enabling efficient node addition and storage expansion to meet evolving business capacity demands.

It wouldn't help with outages either; the scaling is manual, and there are no processes we've used to automate that for unexpected scenarios.

reviewer5948293

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

It supports up to 64 nodes in a cluster, allowing us to add nodes and expand the cluster as needed.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

If you have already bought it, you need specific servers, and it is easier with a SAN.

UlfWernersson

Senior Infrastructure Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers high stability and reliability, with users valuing performance and responsive support despite occasional minor issues.

Sentiment score

5.9

VMware vSAN reliability improves with updates, strong support, and adherence to hardware compatibility lists, ensuring stable performance.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

When setting up a new installation, it is relatively stable.

UlfWernersson

Senior Infrastructure Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

In terms of stability, I give VMware vSAN nine points.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Room For Improvement

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP users seek improved scalability, integration, ease of use, and features like security, monitoring, and cloud compatibility.

VMware vSAN requires better management tools, integration, and hardware support, with improved stability, scalability, and enhanced disaster recovery features.

It would be nice to see technology supporting the Elastic Fabric Adapter on Amazon AWS, therefore getting RDMA technology for more low-latency connections.

reviewer5948293

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

My opinion is that support is generally very good. There are instances where they take longer to respond or resolve issues, especially when customers have urgent needs, but ultimately, resolution is achieved.

Punit Waghela

Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Limited

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features.

ShyamikaThamel

Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium

Discussing the pricing model is significant as Broadcom creates many discussions worldwide regarding pricing.

UlfWernersson

Senior Infrastructure Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Setup Cost

Enterprise users enjoy NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for its features despite higher costs, with discounts available for extended commitments.

VMware vSAN offers long-term savings, but initial costs and licensing complexity concern small businesses, especially post-Broadcom acquisition.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

This has resulted in a slight cost increase.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Valuable Features

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers reliable, flexible data protection, seamless integration, and optimized storage across diverse cloud environments.

VMware vSAN provides high-performance, scalable storage with cost-effective integration, using existing hardware and offering advanced features.

The granular ability to divide up the performance and the amount of storage you want is really fantastic.

reviewer5948293

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report

Hot add features are available by default in vSphere, allowing us to immediately increase memory, CPU, and hard drive without any downtime.

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The performance is excellent, handling workloads better than direct-attached or legacy storage solutions.

ShyamikaThamel

Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium

Everything is integrated, allowing for more automation and ease of use.

UlfWernersson

Senior Infrastructure Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VMware vSAN report

Categories and Ranking

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (2nd), Cloud Storage (7th), Cloud Backup (29th), Public Cloud Storage Services (12th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (2nd)

VMware vSAN

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

234

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd)

Featured Reviews

Punit Waghela

Technical Specialist at Softcell Technologies Limited

Offers advanced features with notable emphasis on innovation

The best features of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP include deduplication, compaction, and autonomous ransomware technology that native cloud storage solutions in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud do not support. Moreover, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP allows the use of multiple protocols including NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI, whereas native options may only support NFS and iSCSI. Customers already using on-premises NetApp storage such as FAS, AFF, or ASA can experience the same functionality on the cloud with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which adds significant value. For data protection, customers can take advantage of the Snapshot technology available with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. This technology facilitates data recovery by allowing snapshots to be stored either on the same storage or on a disaster recovery (DR) storage. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps us to take snapshots and store them on the same storage, with options for migration or replication of those snapshots to different storage, including on-premises DR storage or other cloud storage, providing excellent disaster recovery capabilities.

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ShyamikaThamel

Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium

Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance

VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	53

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	101
Midsize Enterprise	58
Large Enterprise	135

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplica...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

It would be nice to see technology supporting the Elastic Fabric Adapter on Amazon AWS, therefore getting RDMA technology for more low-latency connections.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

I use NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP mostly in customer companies.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...

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Comparisons

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 8% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 4% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 4% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware vSAN

Compared 10% of the time

NetApp AFF vs VMware vSAN

Compared 5% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 5% of the time

Everpure FlashArray vs VMware vSAN

Compared 5% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

May 2026

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

May 2026

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

vSAN

Overview

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

VMware vSAN is renowned for scalability, speed, and management ease. Its performance equals traditional SANs, offering fast speeds with diverse disk types at a reduced cost, ensuring VM access amidst hardware failures, and integrating effortlessly with VMware tools for straightforward setup.

As a leader in virtualization solutions, VMware vSAN offers high-performance storage comparable to traditional SANs, allowing SSD-like speeds with a mix of disk types. It integrates into VMware tools, leading to easy setup and policy-driven management, leveraging diverse storage policies, deduplication, and compression for enhanced efficiency. It's especially valued for its ability to scale storage and applications affordably, supporting growth without heavy initial investments. Despite the advantages, areas for improvement include encryption, UI, hardware compatibility, and affordability for SMBs, with notable resync and performance monitoring challenges. Compatibility issues with non-VMware environments and complex updates and support are critical points highlighting a need for improved management interfaces and troubleshooting to enhance user experience.

What are the key features of VMware vSAN?

Scalability: Allows easy scaling of storage and applications without significant initial investments.
Speed: Rivals traditional SANs, offering SSD-like speeds.
Management: Seamless management through integration with VMware tools and policy-driven frameworks.
Resilience: Ensures VM access during hardware failures.
Efficiency: Offers deduplication and compression to optimize storage use.

What benefits or ROI should organizations consider in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Supports horizontal and vertical growth without heavy costs.
Integration: Enhances cloud infrastructure and VDI with easy integration.
Automation: Provides automation for storage and compute consolidation.
Availability: Ensures high availability for VMs and workloads.
Performance: Known for strong performance suited for diverse workloads.

VMware vSAN is implemented across industries for virtualization and cloud infrastructure enhancements, being a cornerstone for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and the management of VMs. It supports major workloads like ERP and hyperconverged infrastructure, widely respected for its performance, seamless integration into VMware's ecosystem, and cost-efficiency, particularly appealing to small and medium businesses without extensive storage infrastructure investments.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN

April 2026

Free Report: NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.

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