NetApp HCI [EOL] vs VMware vSAN comparison

Why PeerSpot?

NetApp and Broadcom are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews

88% willing to recommend

VMware vSAN

Read 233 VMware vSAN reviews

20,962 Views
13,625 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

NetApp HCI [EOL]

VMware vSAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

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

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

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

November 2026

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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

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware vSAN

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

233

Ranking in other categories

HCI (2nd)

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

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.

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

"It has reduced our hypervisor footprint by around 20%."

"The stability is fantastic; in my mind, it's one of the best storage products and the software around it has got to be the best across all different storage environments."

"The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."

"The scalability is great, because it can scale independently."

"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."

"HCI has provided us with efficiencies and mobilities similar to that of the public cloud."

"It has automated a lot of workloads. It has automated us from ticketing a large number to a very small number."

"It is easy to administrate the solution, and the company handles its technical support well."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros

"It's very scalable. I like that. Adding a node is easy. Adding a disk group is easy."

"The flexibility is most valuable. Being able to manage things quickly if something goes wrong is also valuable. Very recently, we had one node that went down due to a power problem, but there was really no major impact on the systems running on top of it."

"I like the scalability and the fact that it reduces your total cost for storage over several years."

"VMware comes with different stacks like VMware Cloud Foundation, which is integrated with different VMware modules. There's interoperability between VMware products."

"I like the orchestration feature."

"The valuable features are its scalability and the standardization - one size fits all. It's also intuitive and easy to use because one size fits all. Obviously, it scales out, but it's the same solution at every physical location I manage."

"The most valuable feature of VMware vSAN is the ease of management. VMware vSAN it's a part of VMware ESXi and when you do patching for VMware ESXi, VMware vSAN receives the patches too."

"Previously, we couldn’t consolidate more workloads on different types of storage, and now with VSAN, we have the ability to virtualize across multiple data centers."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"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."

"It is easy to install now, but could potentially be even simpler."

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

"Because I like block mode, I'd like to see SAN connectivity. I would like to be able to easily put it into my current environment."

"Unfortunately, the solution has not reduced our hypervisor footprint."

"It would be great if they took something like kernel storage and integrated straight into the NetApp as well."

"The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."

"It is difficult to get acclimated to all the new features quickly. The onboard process could be improved to bring clients up to speed faster."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons

"This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work."

"Licensing costs are a little too high for smaller sized companies."

"Room for improvement would be support for more NVMe-based devices and especially firmware combinations; that's sometimes a problem."

"I was not sure about its stability because we have a big SAN shop and I got the impression that it’s good for small offices and not the larger ones."

"I would like to see more ease of use, more compatibility with different areas."

"There is room for improvement on the latest version of compatibility with the VMware product, especially for vSAN and with other vendors, like Intel and AMD, on their motherboards and driver configurations."

"We plan to switch products since the hardware nowadays is a little bit outdated and we need to scale up a bit."

"I'd like to see improvement in the troubleshooting tools, specifically the troubleshooting mechanism."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."

"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 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."

"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."

"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"The product’s pricing is a bit higher than other solutions."

"I would like to see this technology be made available to smaller businesses, who might benefit from high availability but struggle with the entry fee."

"If you compare the price of VMware vSAN with other players like Nutanix and Cisco, its price is good, but could still have some improvement."

"We pay for a license to use the solution through our company CapEx and then we continue to pay annually."

"For a classical node plus storage solution, the price is higher."

"Users may also start off with the demo version of the tool. After you learn to use the solution, you can buy it if it is beneficial."

"Cost-wise, the Nutanix licenses were cheaper, but in terms of the hardware, there was some contention around it. So, in terms of implementation, the way Nutanix was projecting the implementation on their end was that there were a lot of open-source admin platforms. vSAN is a licensed product in VMware, and Nutanix was proposing a KVM solution, which is open source. That's why their pricing was a bit cheaper, but when we were trying to compare it with an enterprise version of their management platform, it boiled down to the VMware vSAN being most effective in the long run."

"We are using the VMware vSAN ROBO which allows us to have a maximum of 25 virtual machines. The approximate cost is €10,000 for a perpetual license."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

19%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	102
Midsize Enterprise	56
Large Enterprise	137

Questions from the Community

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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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 22% of the time

VxRail vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 12% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

Huawei FusionCube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

NetApp AFF vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp HCI [EOL]

October 2026

Download NetApp HCI [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

October 2026

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

vSAN

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

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

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

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: November 2026.

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