Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware vSphere comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and VMware vSphere based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI.
To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: November 2023).
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Q&A Highlights
Question: What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
Answer: Nutanix AOS is an SDS (Software-Defined Storage). We can compare it to VMware vSan. To simplify, we use it to aggregate the local drives of each node and provide a storage cluster. VMware vSphere is a virtualization layer. It's used to provide a compute cluster. For Nutanix, the virtualization layer is AHV. So, we combine the virtualization cluster and SDS cluster from the same nodes to provide an Hyperconverged platform. For the best fit, it depends on your need. If you're looking for performance and simplicity, I think Nutanix is the best choice.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"In our case, the cost and high availability are the two most important factors which we were looking for in a solution.""StarWind Virtual SAN offers high availability and data resilience features to prevent data loss if hardware fails.""The ability to run a two-node cluster without a dedicated witness has made this an excellent product for small deployments, which is right on target for our needs in regional offices.""For those basic uses, it's simple to set up and manage, and it seems to do a fine job.""Given the high availability of the server cluster, we were able to reduce separate physical servers onto one hyper-converged cluster - this saved in OPEX and CAPEX costs immediately, along with licensing costs of the Windows Server licenses.""The failover protection and the ability to expand storage and nodes with no downtime are by far the best physical features we have benefited from.""The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications.""The StarWind products have enabled our organization to modernize stations where larger and more expensive equipment was not an option."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Pros →

"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it has centralized management.""It is less expensive than VMware products. It is also a little bit more flexible, but it really comes down to price for us.""The most valuable features are the RBAC, role-based access control, and the reporting. NCI also provides a single platform, a single pane with a dashboard, to manage the entire infrastructure. We have complete information about overall utilization, performance, and a forecast for our platform in that single pane.""Nutanix Acropolis AOS makes it easy to use and manage projects and it has a good reputation.""The solution is easy to use and the pricing is affordable.""The speed of the operations and of creation of VM is fantastic.""It's much easier and faster even when you want to create a server from a template or clone.""Nutanix has several unique capabilities to ensure linear scalability."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pros →

"The stability of VMware vSphere is very good. It has high resiliency, it is one of the best solutions on the market.""Its scalability potential is good.""It's easy to use and very user-friendly.""We primarily use vRealize to troubleshoot any issues that may arise with our virtual machines, which is the main reason why we believe this solution is excellent.""VMware vSphere has helped us create our infrastructures and provide services for our customers.""The feature that I find very valuable is the ability to move images of virtual machines from different workspaces to other workspaces between different installations.""I like stability and the organization of the different functions into the I#M feature which is also quite useful, quite stable.""The scalability has been good."

More VMware vSphere Pros →

Cons
"The number of different ways you can set it up can make it a little daunting.""A central management console may be nice to see all nodes.""The initial setup got a little confusing at a few points with differences between the VMware version in documentation vs the latest, etc.""StarWind doesn't really have any performance reporting, especially compared with other vSAN products we've used.""The software could benefit from more tooling to help with initial deployment.""One main thing this product needs to work on is reporting.""It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes.""While we had little to no issues in setting up StarWind and received excellent support from the StarWind technicians, we would have appreciated a clearer guideline for a setup with the free version of StarWind Management Console or, in other words - for the setup with the PowerShell."

More StarWind Virtual SAN Cons →

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure can be improved in terms of the sizing of the solution.""In the next release of this solution, they could improve by being more competitive with VMware. I would like all third-party solutions to work well with Nutanix Acropolis AOS.""There is a feature that exists used for disaster recovery, but it requires an extra license. It should be included with the regular normal standard license.""I would enjoy an advanced mode where experienced users can leverage their knowledge to do advanced things currently only allowed using the command line tools on the CVM.""An area for improvement would be the cyber security features.""With some projects that we are deploying, there are errors that arise when adding nodes.""Nutanix Acropolis AOS is new technology in a competitive market. Pricing is too high for a new product and requires better discounts to be able to compete with IBM, Dell EMC, and HP.""In terms of what I would like to see improved, I would say the life cycle management. I don't know if it is because they changed to an LCM from the previous way of upgrading the hardware or software but sometimes it feels that it needs a wizard that says, "Check this, check this," telling you your options. The only thing that's a bit frustrating for me is the life cycle management interface. That's the only thing on the entire system that frustrates me."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Cons →

"VMware vSphere could improve on the automation features and the ease of use of the solution in many areas, such as the interface. However, VMware is doing lots of great things.""There should be a bit more flexibility in terms of the hardware we can use with the product.""The setup is easy. However, the configuration expansion can be difficult. The full implementation took three to four days. This included the move from physical servers to virtual ones.""Without a lot of physical RAM on the hardware, it's not very effective. The stability could be improved in cases like this.""If they improve on the knowledge base and documentation, it would be extremely helpful.""In terms of what could be improved, we do face some bugs when cloning the virtual machine - it fails sometimes.""When we talk about the overall private cloud stack, I would prefer for it be a lot more seamless.""In future releases, I would like to see less pricing. The license can be improved."

More VMware vSphere Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
  • "If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
  • More StarWind Virtual SAN Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Its licensing model is easy, but the bad thing is that we need to pay for the whole capacity at once. With VMware vSAN, we only have to pay for the capacity that we are using, which is not the case with Nutanix. So, we have more overhead for the licensing cost with Nutanix."
  • "In terms of the solution's licensing, it's quite comprehensive."
  • "The price of the solution is expensive. However, the price to performance is good. The cost for development and installation is very low."
  • "The one disadvantage is relative, financially Nutanix Acropolis AOS is a little bit more expensive than the old solution."
  • "It is less expensive than the VMware alternative."
  • "We just have a support license for Nutanix."
  • "Many of my customers have issues with Acropolis' licensing model because they are charging the customers based on two things— the CPUs and the capacity in the solid stack disk — and that's a problem. Nutanix's competitors are not licensing that layer, so this is something that they should change. They should abandon this licensing model because it's too complex. Technical support is bundled with the subscription."
  • "The solution could be a little less expensive."
  • More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "You get what you pay for."
  • "It is a perpetual licensing but there is also an annual maintenance cost."
  • "VMware is expensive, from the baseline, initial investment. It depends, though, because if someone goes for ESXi—the latest version, ESXi Essential, or even the opensource—then it is not available in Microsoft. ESXi opensource is totally free, and the only features that aren't available are some API features. But if someone has a small office with less than 50 users, and they just need to run the hypervisor, then VMware is a free solution for that. If someone is considering the price and comparing Business ESXi with Hyper-V, if they already have an existing Windows license, then I would suggest going for Hyper-V because it's much cheaper. Aside from that, I would recommend going for VMware."
  • "We pay for the solution on an annual basis. There are no additional fees other than the standard license."
  • "Licensing fees are not paid yearly, or monthly."
  • "Pricing can still be improved for this solution."
  • "Its licensing is typically yearly. From a value standpoint, it's worth it."
  • "The cost of the licenses is acceptable and we haven't seen any major increases from the vendor in the time we've been using it."
  • More VMware vSphere Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Answers from the Community
    Miriam Tover
    Dorian Boris MOUKET - PeerSpot reviewerDorian Boris MOUKET
    User

    Nutanix Acropolis has been specially designed to respond to the problems of hyper-converged infrastructures.


    We believe that Nutanix Acropolis is more flexible and better suited to respond to the issues of very high availability.

    Patrick Ringelberg - PeerSpot reviewerPatrick Ringelberg
    Real User

    Question one:
    Does the customer already have vSphere because than I would suggest not to use Acropolis? Nutanix wants to control the entire platform with its HCI solution like VMware.

    Question 2:
    Do you want to use NSX now or in the future? Use VMware, because if it will be supported and it would always give issues with the integrations with Acropolis.

    Question 3:
    Is the growth of the customer low? Then Nutanix can be a choice if it is bigger than VMware. Nutanix is not flexible in big site setups and can give big problems with updating.

    Maan Othman - PeerSpot reviewerMaan Othman
    Real User

    I think VMware vSphere is more mature as a hypervisor than Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV). it is more capable to serve almost most of the workloads. having said that if you are talking about a standard workload both of them can do the job, but your workload is sensitive or even newly released you most properly find it will be certified to work vSphere before becoming certified on AHV.


    in addition most technology providers and one of them Nutanix they first certify their solutions to work with vSphere before certifying any other hypervisor.

    KM Poon - PeerSpot reviewerKM Poon
    User

    Nutanix is running AHV. There is no need for a VMware license. 

    Steffen Hornung - PeerSpot reviewerSteffen Hornung
    Real User

    Acropolis in itself is no product. 
    Do we speak AOS or AHV Ort both?


    AOS is the intelligence on Top of a hypervisor making AHV Or Vsphere an HCI Solution.


    AHV is Nutanix own KVM-based hypervisor managed completely within Prism from AOS, so there is no standalone offering, it always comes with AOS.


    This seems to contradict the statement above, but since you can have AOS without AHV, you can make a clear distinction between both.


    AHV has the advantage of being optimized tightly with AOS. Together with ESXi, you still have to use two management tools for AOS + ESXi. AHV + AOS utilizes the same prism element web management. So, integration is the biggest difference between AHV and ESXi


    For AOS and ESXi the answer is quite simple: you would have to compare VSAN with AOS. Then you see, the integration of products and resiliency in Nutanix is better by a magnitude.


    if your comparing features you have AHV on Par with ESXi.


    AHV is the predominant hypervisor on nutanix systems deployed. Vmware would mostly be used for customers who already have vsphere licenses or want to keep their standard hypervisor.


    I dont think there are stability issues with AOS or AHV. We tend to update more frequently our AHV systems than we do with VMware. With Nutanix you leverage the update process conveniently with LifeCycleManagement (LCM) integrated into Prism Web Management supplying everything from native nutanix products to firmware for your hypervisor hosts. There are also regular customer notifications to warn of detected misconfigurations in the field and check for your own setup and howto act on that. I never got anything from VMware regarding such a thing. And I do know what a purple screen of death looks like...

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:We like their high availability. It reduces the downtime for our entire organization's environment.
    Top Answer:The Premium ProActive service price is a little high, yet worth the price.
    Top Answer:It is hard to find adequate technical documentation on their support website. However, they have a fantastic technical… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from… more »
    Top Answer:We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface… more »
    Top Answer:DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platforms… more »
    Top Answer:We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux… more »
    Top Answer:For me the biggest impact is the cost of licensing in the case of VMware despite its overall intuitiveness and ease of… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    StarWind SAN & NAS
    Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
    Learn More
    Overview

    StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is a top-ranking HCI software, cloud management tool, and Software Defined Storage (SDS) tool that is marketed as the foundation for users' hybrid clouds. It offers a powerful and secure hyperconverged infrastructure to deliver all data and applications at any scale and on any cloud. The solution offers a complete software stack that allows users to unify their hybrid cloud infrastructure. 

    NCI’s services include computer, storage and network, hypervisors and containers, and deployment in public or in private clouds. The product also comes with built-in resilience, disaster recovery capabilities, self-healing, and high-security capacities. It provides further deployment flexibility through several software and hardware options and platforms. NCI includes a full set of enterprise capabilities. It can also be deployed on a wide range of servers from popular manufacturers.

    The capabilities of the product are categorized into three main groups:

    • AOS storage
    • Flexible and open compute
    • Automated and secure networking

    Outside of these categories, NCI also offers other capabilities:

    • Integrated disaster recovery
    • Full-stack lifecycle management
    • VMware with Nutanix
    • Intelligent operations

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Features

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers its customers various features and tools in each of the previously mentioned categories. The available features for users currently include:

    • High-performance: This set of features utilizes hardware advances such as NVMe and RDMA to accelerate users' most demanding applications with consistent performance. The tools in this feature category work alongside data locality to ensure successful results.

    • Foolproof resiliency: These Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure features protect data and keep it available by facilitating advanced distributed consistency algorithms. Users can utilize these features to protect their data from issues like bit rot, hardware failures, and even entire site failure.

    • Flexibility: This set of features allows storage to be sized for the needs of each organization and expanded promptly and easily so that the organization and its data can grow. The features offer flexibility to users in terms of applying storage policies logically on a pre-workload basis, instead of being tied to hardware.

    • Hypervisor choice: Users can choose from the leading hypervisors - Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi. They can also leverage the built-in hypervisor AHV that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides.

    • Integrated virtualization: These features offer simplified automation and AHV streamlined operations. The services in this category are optimized for high performance and reliability.

    • Kubernetes: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to build and deploy cloud-native applications on intelligent distributed infrastructure. Apps can be integrated with cloud-compatible storage and both building and deployment can be achieved within the same platform.

    • Microsegmentation: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) offers features to prevent malware spread and reduce attack surfaces by leveraging machine learning (ML).

    • Virtual networking: This set of features allows users to easily implement multi-tenancy in their environment or stretch networks across clouds.

    • Centralized network management: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides organizations with a way to manage networking configurations centrally. Users can utilize it across their human-computer interaction (HCI) environment with simple virtual switch management.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Benefits

    The product offers various benefits to users who utilize its capacities. Some of these include:

    • NCI reduces technology sprawl and frees up technical resources to allow organizations to focus on other activities, potentially reducing costs for the business.

    • The product allows customers to deploy, scale, and bridge to the public cloud to be able to react in evolving business environments.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure improves data availability while simultaneously protecting it against several kinds of failures and attacks.

    • The solution offers high-performance, resilient distributed storage for all workloads.

    • Working alongside Nutanix Cloud Platform, NCI offers simple management of data from one console.

    • Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure works by the zero trust philosophy, protecting users' apps and data through specially designed security protocols.

    Reviews from Real Users

    According to Gerhard J., an IT manager at Q4 Fuel, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) provides serious reliability and stability across the entire system makes for ROI.

    A solutions architect at a computer software company describes NCI as a stable, straightforward to set up, and scalable solution.

    VMware vSphere is a powerful and complete server virtualization platform that allows its users to create and manage virtual data centers and machines. VMware vSphere is designed to help IT departments set up and run applications using the most cost-effective computer resources. By using vSphere, organizations save the time and energy necessary for purchasing infrastructure and software and reduce ongoing maintenance and operational burdens on IT teams.

    Infrastructure administrators and network operators can access and manage the vSphere server by using a web-based cross-platform client application or via the vSphere client tool provided with vSphere. 

    VMware vSphere provides visibility into VMs and enables its users to carry out operations to manage VMs. This includes tasks such as:

    • Powering VMs on and off
    • Launching the VM console
    • Shutting down guest operating systems
    • Settings configurations
    • Taking system snapshots

    VMware vSphere Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using VMware vSphere include: 

    • Reduced costs: Since VMware applications are run on a server, it is not necessary to spend large amounts of your organization’s money on hardware, software, and infrastructure.
    • Increased productivity and customer satisfaction: VMware is able to operate multiple complex processes simultaneously. With all your applications being managed and run on the cloud, downtime, failures, and application errors are rare. VMware easily scales up and down to meet your computing needs. The high availability that VMware provides allows your IT staff to focus on other issues and keeps your customers satisfied with the service they receive.
    • Unlimited access to your VMs: VMware’s user-friendly cloud-based interface allows any employee to work from any location at any time.
    • Enhanced security: VMware’s security tools deliver full visibility into your entire system. This keeps your applications and data more secure, in any type of environment. VMware provides multiple protective tools including antiviruses and anti-malware, as well as backup and recovery services.

    VMware vSphere Features

    Below is a list of some of VMware vSphere’s key features:

    • Transferable virtual machine images: Export and import virtual machine images from your local environment. This gives users the ability to set up and configure their systems locally and only upload them to the server once everything is working properly. VM images can be moved back and forth between vendors, ensuring that your company is never tied up to a specific cloud vendor.
    • User-friendly interface: Using VMware’s intuitive console, you can easily create, manage, share, and deploy virtual machines.
    • API integration: VMware’s APIs support integration with third-party applications for data protection, multipathing, and disk array solutions.
    • Distributed power management: Automate efficiency by continuously optimizing server power consumption within each cluster.

    Reviews from Real Users

    VMware vSphere stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. A few major ones are its virtualization abilities, its flexibility and availability, and its user-friendly interface.

    Felix D., an Automation project administrator, DCS, I&E at Centennial Cayman Corp, writes, “The connectivity is fantastic, and many functions can run together in one server. If you need to scale, we can continue to add components or modules. It's a beautiful virtual solution that has many advantages over physical hardware, where you have to use devices and wiring to connect all your projects.”

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    Learn more about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
    Learn more about VMware vSphere
    Sample Customers
    Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
    St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
    Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Construction Company9%
    Educational Organization8%
    Computer Software Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization25%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Retailer6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization26%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government7%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business63%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise31%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise35%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise46%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise34%
    Large Enterprise46%
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    November 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, VMware and others in HCI. Updated: November 2023.
    745,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is ranked 2nd in HCI with 75 reviews while VMware vSphere is ranked 2nd in Server Virtualization Software with 40 reviews. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is rated 8.6, while VMware vSphere is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) writes "What you might not know about Nutanix that makes it so unique". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSphere writes "Strong performance, works well with large infrastructures but it is quite expensive". Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is most compared with VMware vSAN, VxRail, HPE SimpliVity, Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series and Hyper-V, whereas VMware vSphere is most compared with Hyper-V, Proxmox VE, VMware Workstation, Oracle VM and VMware Aria Operations.

    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.