Nexenta vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

Nexenta by DDN and Broadcom are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Nexenta by DDN is ranked #15 with an average rating of 9.0, while Broadcom is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.3. Nexenta by DDN holds a 1.4% mindshare in SDS, compared to Broadcom’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 66% of Nexenta by DDN users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

Nexenta and VMware Software Defined Storage are competing products in the realm of storage solutions. VMware appears superior due to its comprehensive feature set, while Nexenta attracts cost-conscious organizations with its pricing and support.

Features: Nexenta provides scalable and flexible solutions with an open-source foundation, offering cost-efficient customization. VMware Software Defined Storage offers strong integration with virtual environments, a wide range of features, and built-in automation, making it ideal for virtualization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Nexenta is recognized for its simple deployment process and proactive customer support. VMware may present a steeper learning curve but benefits from extensive documentation and a robust support network, making it reliable though potentially more complex to deploy.

Pricing and ROI: Nexenta's competitive setup cost is attractive for enterprises leaning towards open-source solutions, providing a significant ROI over time due to lower licensing fees. VMware incurs higher initial costs, but its extensive features and long-term advantages in virtual environments justify the investment, offering enhanced functionality and integration benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Nexenta vs. VMware Software Defined Storage Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Nexenta vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

September 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.1%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nexenta is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Software Defined Storage is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.1%
Nexenta	1.4%
VMware Software Defined Storage	1.4%
Other	93.1%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management

The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Offers good features like Fusion and stable product with better customer service

Fusion is the only best feature, but it's a very good feature. Nexenta is a very old product. Nexenta is a well-established product used in the UK, US, India, Dubai, Qatar, and other countries. It is very good. The interface is up to date. Everything is up to date. The OS version was recently upgraded to 5.5 FP3. AI features: DataDirect Networks owns Nexenta and has won awards for AI. They continuously work on AI features. DDN also has a product called Tintri Infinia with AI features. And NVIDIA product also has AI features. I look forward to working on those products.

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MohammadJundiah

Solutions Architect at Logicom Sales Inc

Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement

I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It uses the same platform for connectivity so integration is seamless."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It has a feature called Fusion that makes it more secure and productive."

"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."

"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."

"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."

"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."

Cons

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"Commvault has mainly driven the Analytics, providing data and reports. However, the product has room for improvement, especially regarding storage analytics. Upgrading firmware has caused issues, requiring feature disabling to revert to traditional backups. The firmware upgrades sometimes affect Commvault backups."

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"It would be nice if you could store file-based in the same box with the same technology."

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved."

"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."

"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."

"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."

"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."

"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"

"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."

"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"The price is a little high."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."

"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."

"The solution is very expensive."

"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."

"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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What needs improvement with Nexenta?

There were some SMB issues, but they were resolved in the latest version. Four to five customers faced intermittent i...

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What is your primary use case for Nexenta?

It's for file systems. It's a NAS solution, and it has flexibility. There shouldn't be any outages because if one nod...

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What advice do you have for others considering Nexenta?

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would recommend using it.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?

The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?

There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Software Defined Storage?

I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Ad...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nexenta

Compared 60% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Nexenta

Compared 40% of the time

More Nexenta Competitors

IBM Spectrum Scale vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 32% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 26% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 26% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 17% of the time

More VMware Software Defined Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

September 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download Nexenta product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Software Defined Storage

September 2025

Download VMware Software Defined Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

VMware SDS

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Nexenta is the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage - what we call Open Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS).We uniquely integrate software-only "Open Source" collaboration with commodity hardware-centric "Software-Defined Storage" (SDS) innovation.

Nexenta by DDN

VMware software-defined storage is a simple, yet intelligent, storage data center architecture that aligns with business and application demands—eliminating static, purpose-built and inefficient hardware with dynamic, agile and automated solutions.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

GMO, Northern Backup, Cox Communications, University of Toronto, ScaleMatrix, Wipro, Ruhr University, Drillinginfo, George Washington University, Walton Electric, Faculty of Physics, NAU, ServerCentral

Helse Nord, Sky

Buyer's Guide

Nexenta vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

September 2025

Free Report: Nexenta vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

Find out what your peers are saying about Nexenta vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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