NetApp HCI [EOL] vs SteelFusion comparison

NetApp and Riverbed are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Riverbed users who would recommend it.

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews

88% willing to recommend

SteelFusion

Read 2 SteelFusion reviews

481 Views
447 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp HCI [EOL]

SteelFusion

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and SteelFusion based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 861,390 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:

Categories and Ranking

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SteelFusion

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (27th)

Featured Reviews

Massimiliano Bartolozzi

Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.

Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022

Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Read full review

it_user866178

Chief Technology Officer at MAZZETTI+GBA

Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices

The level of tech support depends on who you get. There are some techs that just read the script and ask you if you’ve rebooted, but once you get past that - or if you have a very technical issue - the support is great. They really know the product and get you up and running again ASAP.

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

"The most valuable feature, currently, is the density of the system as hardware. I'm able to leverage the density of the product and remove bigger hardware which requires more space, cooling, and power costs, obviously. There are cost savings, obviously."

"Our goal with NetApp HCI is to have no single point of failure."

"We're trying to move to a much more API-driven management of all of our products, and NetApp's product is, from all the SDS providers we have seen, the most fully-baked API out there."

"It is highly scalable. Their support is also extremely good."

"The solution is very scalable."

"The ability to size the available space in a way that matches our company's needs is most valuable. For instance, you can decide if you want 80/20, 70/30, or 60/40 space. Redundancy depends on your needs without changing the appliance. You just add space and decide the percentage of space that you need free and the percentage of space that you need for backup. It is all automatic, and you don't have to do anything. You just add space, and the system automatically configures itself with the chosen option."

"The NetApp Deployment Engine that comes with it makes the actual deployment and usage very easy. That's our primary focus and it's hyper-converged. That's something that we want to use as well."

"When you are doing lifecycles for your equipment, you can just swap out pieces of equipment. We used to do one big iron to another big iron, and that's a major migration hassle. Whereas, with this environment, you can go with small nodes, one at a time, and do a refresh."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros

"Sync to Central and edge protection mitigate my risk in our branch offices. All services that need to be local to the user exist on local servers. Users run applications and access data locally while the data is constantly being synced to Central, and protected. If an edge device fails, we can recover quickly."

Cons

"Its stability is very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crash."

"I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."

"My biggest pain point is the installation part. I would like to see the appliance itself remove the entire switch that goes behind it and figure out how to do all the cluster interconnects within the box itself."

"There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."

"I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."

"If you want to have a really dense data center then it's hard to have a big chunk of cabling going through everything."

"I would like to see higher level graphics support because we are going to be doing some virtual desktop for our CAD software, and I want to be able to support AutoCAD and Cantillo on remote desktop machines."

"The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons

"Setting up disks for use is a multi-step process that could use some refinement. Setting up a core-to-core replication or DR strategy is also cumbersome."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."

"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."

"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."

"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."

"Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."

"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"Price is an issue – this is expensive stuff. My advice is to beat up Riverbed as much as possible on price. These things are expensive and there is room for negotiation."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Real Estate/Law Firm

19%

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Comparisons

No data available

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs SteelFusion

Compared 100% of the time

More SteelFusion Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp HCI [EOL]

June 2025

Download NetApp HCI [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

July 2025

Download SteelFusion product report

Overview

NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

NetApp

Riverbed SteelFusion is the first and only hyper-converged infrastructure for branch IT, enables 100% consolidation of branch data and servers from remote sites into data centers, delivering complete data security and centralized data protection, without compromising on any of the benefits of running branch services locally for your users. SteelFusion eliminates the need for physical servers, storage and backup infrastructure at branch locations, creates the ability to instantly provision and recover branch services, and provides full visibility and superior performance of on-premises and cloud-based applications, leading to dramatic increases in data security, business continuity, agility and operational efficiency.

Riverbed

Sample Customers

American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology

Roxtec, Engen, Bobst, CBP, IUCN, Mahoning County, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best HCI vendors.

We monitor all HCI reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.