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Pivot3 vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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

Pivot3
Ranking in HCI
26th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
212
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Pivot3 is 1.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.3%
Pivot31.5%
Other96.2%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1124199 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Manager at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Stable, good technical support, and the the visual encoding works well
The most valuable feature is the visual encoding I would like to see better video compression. Snapshot notification would be a good addition. The price of this solution is high compared to the competitors, so it should be lowered. I have been using Pivot3 for between four and five years. This…
Jccerong Heron - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Support team has guided us through deploying virtual storage on legacy hardware and reducing operational costs
The reason I chose StarWind Virtual SAN for this particular scenario is really the features, the ease of use, and most importantly, the price. In my opinion, the best features StarWind Virtual SAN offers are easy integration with the system installed in the data center. The integration with my existing systems in the data center works well, especially with VMware, as we already have a big cluster in VMware, and the easy integration with that is helpful to solve some problems with the platform. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by reducing OPEX costs. My OPEX costs have gone down as we reutilize some old servers, and this reduces the CAPEX of hardware in the data center.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It greatly streamlined the time it took to scale out the enterprise and it completely eliminated the need for a SAN/Storage engineer, with the simplicity the Pivot3 Stack Manager brought with it for managing storage."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of implementation."
"The most valuable feature is the visual encoding."
"One feature we found useful was the product's complete ability to integrate with vCenter."
"StarWind Virtual SAN (vSAN) offers a significant breadth of features."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customer's unique requirements."
"Compared to other products that we looked at, the cost-saving was so great that choosing StarWind was a no-brainer."
"It includes every feature that a traditional SAN offers and so much more."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"Being hardware agnostic is a must and definitely scored points for us."
"StarWind vSAN for Hyper-V solves the problem without any kind of hardware lock-in and with its low impact, easy to configure vSAN solution."
"The ProActive support gives me peace of mind because I am a one man shop, but with the technical support behind me, I feel like more than just one person. We spent two to three hours, depending on what we have to do, always on the phone, and they do not push to end the call."
 

Cons

"Marketing needs improvement."
"The price of this solution is high compared to the competitors, so it should be lowered."
"In the next release, I would like to see compatibility and support for critical applications, like SAP."
"Snapshot notification would be a good addition."
"One of the biggest problems with HCI vendors was the lack of flexibility for adding resources."
"StarWind Virtual SAN requires a lot of network interfaces in order to provide the same data replication and node redundancy features."
"While the tool works well in its current configuration, allowing for greater ease and flexibility in adding new nodes to the cluster without complications would be very beneficial, especially in growing environments."
"They recommend RAID10 for HDD, which reduces the usable storage capacity."
"StarWind Virtual SAN could be improved with a slight change to the interface and bringing it up to date slightly to make it align more with what people are used to."
"A better overall view of the different deployments could be beneficial, although this is difficult due to how flexible the solution is."
"I had to buy upgraded support, which was not a problem, but it wasn't a prorated amount, so I paid for the support, the full upgrade, but I only got a couple of months out of it because it was only good until renewal time."
"The logs can also become very noisy when there is an issue, which is very infrequent. However, when they do occur, it makes it very challenging to figure out what the cause is."
"The scalability is probably not that great; with StarWind Virtual SAN you can either have a two-node cluster or a three-node cluster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"I think the cost of this solution is quite fair."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business169
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is acceptable for now, but I hope in the future we can find a better offer.
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
StarWind Virtual SAN can be improved by adding a certificate with the virtual switch in Hyper-V, reducing the license cost, and not having a minimum of 3 TB requirement.
What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is for clustering in our store, specifically using Windows OS and Hyper-V for the virtual machine. In our store, we have services for our customers, and I ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SNHMC, HPD Software, The Hurlingham Club, NHS, Rochester Police Department, The Doe Run Company, 101 Casino, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Pivot3 vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,781 professionals have used our research since 2012.