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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers cost savings, efficiency, and scalability, reducing expenses by up to 30% annually for users.
Sentiment score
6.6
VxRail streamlines management, reduces costs, enhances flexibility, and boosts performance, offering significant long-term value and operational efficiency.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support is highly praised for quick, skilled, and effective assistance, deemed worth the cost by users.
Sentiment score
8.0
VxRail customer service is highly rated for dedicated support, though experiences vary; centralized support is particularly appreciated.
A key area for improvement for VMware would be response time.
The support is all provided by Dell, and it is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers seamless scalability, easy expansion, and adaptability, making it ideal for enterprises despite cost considerations.
Sentiment score
7.8
VxRail offers scalable solutions for diverse workloads, enabling seamless growth across enterprises with efficient management and quick expansions.
There are limitations, such as the inability to upgrade from a single to dual CPU in certain configurations.
The scalability is excellent.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure is praised for its stability, reliability, minimal downtime, and efficient support, making it a dependable platform.
Sentiment score
8.5
VxRail is highly praised for its stability, resilience, minimal disruptions, and effective updates, earning high customer satisfaction scores.
Compared to VM, we find it most stable.
It is a very stable and mature product, with centralized management and upgrades being perfect for us.
The product is very stable, and I rate its stability as nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure needs improvements in pricing transparency, setup, performance, integrations, automation, licensing, and system compatibility.
VxRail faces challenges with setup, compatibility, integration, support, and costs, suggesting improvements in automation, pricing, and scalability.
We hope Nutanix can integrate inside our current license module.
It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues.
Stabilizing the update procedure further would make it better.
The major issue with VxRail is the razoring process, which can only be performed by Dell.
 

Setup Cost

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure provides cost-effective licensing options with free hypervisor, reducing TCO compared to traditional systems.
VxRail offers bundled pricing suitable for enterprises, balancing high initial costs with long-term savings and flexible payment options.
The pricing is renewed every year, at almost $100,000 per year.
Previously, the cost was higher, however, recent changes in VMware pricing have reduced it.
The cost varies for us as a large company because we receive special offers from Dell.
Purchasing VxRail is quite expensive compared to a simple Dell server.
 

Valuable Features

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers high performance, ease of use, scalability, and cost efficiency, benefiting smaller IT teams.
VxRail provides seamless upgrades, centralized management, high availability, robust storage, and scalability, enhancing IT operations and performance.
The replication method between Nutanix clusters is a valuable feature.
Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.
Another benefit is the fully automated upgrade process, which is completed with just one click through the VxRail Manager.
The features of VxRail that we find most useful for our customers include the easy update mechanism and the support for both VMware and hardware.
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
132
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 8.6%, up from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 18.4%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Q&A Highlights

systemen519357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 06, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

MahendraPanchotiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates
Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades
The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Answers from the Community

systemen519357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 6, 2021
Sep 6, 2021
"Nutanix node you will be running vSphere on top on the underlining Nutanix software" This description is incorrect. There is no "layer" between the hardware and the OS which is ESXI hypervisor on both cases.
2 out of 5 answers
UnitManae381 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 8, 2020
Best option for vSphere 7 is the VxRail as it designed on VMware technology and built in integrates with vSphere, on a Nutanix node you will be running vSphere on top on the underlining Nutanix software. 
systemen519357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 10, 2020
"Nutanix node you will be running vSphere on top on the underlining Nutanix software" This description is incorrect.  There is no "layer" between the hardware and the OS which is ESXI hypervisor on both cases.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
38%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...
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...
What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?
VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.