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Pivot3 vs StarWind Virtual SAN comparison

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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
213
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Pivot3 is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.4%
Pivot31.6%
Other96.0%
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

"The most valuable feature is the ease of implementation."
"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."
"One feature we found useful was the product's complete ability to integrate with vCenter."
"The most valuable feature is the visual encoding."
"The technical support is very good."
"Failover happens smoothly, recovery and maintenance are less stressful, and we no longer need to worry about downtime."
"StarWind Virtual SAN is essentially hardware agnostic, allowing us to build out a specific hardware layer based upon the customer's unique requirements."
"Although StarWind Virtual SAN free is fully functional and can be used in production, the support that comes with the license is priceless."
"StarWind Virtual SAN allowed us to increase the fault tolerance of our servers, which resulted in greater user loyalty."
"This has helped to improve the reliability of service and operation in all departments, without having to stop in case of emergency situations."
"It integrates (fully) with VMware and Veeam, my hypervisor, and backup vendors, so for me, all the puzzle pieces simply fit and work smoothly."
"The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete."
"Over the years, it has not failed us once."
 

Cons

"Snapshot notification would be a good addition."
"The price of this solution is high compared to the competitors, so it should be lowered."
"Marketing needs improvement."
"One of the biggest problems with HCI vendors was the lack of flexibility for adding resources."
"In the next release, I would like to see compatibility and support for critical applications, like SAP."
"They need to invest more in the support documents for real issues happening when integrating the solution with the hypervisor."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"I would love to see more vendor selection to be available for the HCA/vSAN appliances."
"I would like to see improvements in the documentation area."
"The main thing I would like to see improved is the level of documentation."
"Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons."
"In testing, we found some features in the Linux appliance were missing."
"Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."
"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
"The setup cost is very low. The pricing is great."
"Licensing is easy and the whole package is cost-effective."
"The cost, including OPEX, is lower compared to other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business170
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for StarWind Virtual SAN is very simple; that is another good thing about it, as the pricing is really straightforward. I got a quote, and it w...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
StarWind Virtual SAN has latency that is not as good versus VMware vSAN, but I believe it is more of a Hyper-V limitation than it is StarWind Virtual SAN; it is not bad enough to be an issue, but i...
What is your primary use case for StarWind Virtual SAN?
My main use case for StarWind Virtual SAN is that it replaced our VMware vSAN. I transitioned from VMware vSAN to StarWind Virtual SAN due to the dramatic increase in VMware licensing costs followi...
 

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: September 2026.
919,586 professionals have used our research since 2012.