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NetApp HCI [EOL] vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

NetApp and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews
    88% willing to recommend
    StarWind HyperConverged App...
    Read 66 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reviews
    • 1,484 Views
    • 1,158 Comparison Views
    98% willing to recommend
     

    Comparison Buyer's Guide

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    Executive Summary
    We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

    DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE REPORT
    To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: July 2025).
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    July 2025
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    Helped 861,170 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
    32
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
    StarWind HyperConverged App...
    Average Rating
    9.6
    Reviews Sentiment
    7.7
    Number of Reviews
    66
    Ranking in other categories
    Software Defined Storage (SDS) (11th), HCI (14th)
     

    Featured Reviews

    MB
    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
    Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
    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

    "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."
    "The most valuable feature of this solution is the SolidFire interface."
    "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."
    "The most valuable feature is the software design storage that really provided a faster, agile, easier to scale up and out storage path."
    "It allows me to move a VM set and require extra performance. I can easily move them onto it and have it just run."
    "The most valuable aspects are that it's an all-in-one solution and it's very self-contained."
    "Stability is one of the things we absolutely have to have, because if the HCI is down, our assembly lines are down, and that could potentially lead to our customer being down. If our customer is down, that's $10,000 a minute; and any time the assembly line is down, that could potentially lead to overtime. We don't get to charge one and a half times for something we billed just because you happened to build it on overtime. Any technology we bring in, has to be built for what I call "three in the morning." It can't be built for whenever everybody's in the plant, everybody can watch it, and everybody can babysit. It has to be built for three a.m. when you've got a skeletal staff there, and you just have to know that it's just running. As I stand here, right now, I don't have to check my phone, I don't have to check my email. I know it's running. Period"
    "This is a strong product and it works very well, and the processes around it continue to grow and mature."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros
    "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..."
    "In our experience with StarWind, the support has been by far the most valuable feature."
    "The support is the most valuable feature. The support has been amazing. It's around the clock. One of our hard disks accidentally ejected without me knowing or being onsite. They called and told me about it before I had a chance to see it myself."
    "The low cost of this solution has also made a big difference in our budget, which has been very helpful."
    "The initial setup is straightforward once you know what you're doing."
    "We were able to set it up via the documentation and only needed their support a handful of times."
    "We no longer need multiple staff members performing small, mundane tasks."
    "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."
    More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros
     

    Cons

    "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."
    "The vCenter keeps crashing, meaning that there is no stability in our environment."
    "I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."
    "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."
    "I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."
    "To improve the product, they should make it more flexible."
    "In the next version I would like to see bigger GPU types and insurance for including transparency."
    "The product needs better support for installing the operating system on the machine."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons
    "Most meetings are done via Zoom, and I'm sure you could switch to a text based conversation if needed as they seem like a very accommodating team. It's not something I would worry about if you are a potential client."
    "The response time is usually several hours after the issue occurred."
    "A desired feature or service is the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with the hyper-converged software."
    "There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
    "The monitoring and report software is a bit hit and miss."
    "An emphasis on security can be improved."
    "Product shipments did have a few bumps along the way, but that's to be expected when using any shipping company."
    "It would be nice if it were possible to do the ISCSI setup that you do on Windows directly in the management GUI of StarWind."
    More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "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."
    "Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
    "All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
    "The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
    "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."
    "Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."
    "Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
    "Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice
    "Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."
    "It's an all in one package, making it very easy."
    "Its cost was reasonable."
    "This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."
    "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."
    "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."
    "We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."
    "In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."
    More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice
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    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    Real Estate/Law Firm
    19%
    Financial Services Firm
    19%
    Computer Software Company
    12%
    Comms Service Provider
    8%
    Educational Organization
    14%
    Computer Software Company
    13%
    Manufacturing Company
    9%
    Financial Services Firm
    9%
     

    Company Size

    By reviewers
    Large Enterprise
    Midsize Enterprise
    Small Business
     

    Questions from the Community

    Ask a question
    Earn 20 points
    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?
    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 inf...
    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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    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    June 2025
    NetApp HCI [EOL] reportDownload NetApp HCI [EOL] product report
    Buyer's Guide
    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance
    June 2025
    StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reportDownload StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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

    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

    American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
    Sears Home and Franchise Business
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    July 2025
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