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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
25th
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 August 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 2.3%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.3%
Pivot31.6%
Other96.1%
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 visual encoding."
"The technical support is very good."
"One feature we found useful was the product's complete ability to integrate with vCenter."
"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 most valuable feature is the ease of implementation."
"StarWind Virtual SAN for vSphere is a software-defined storage solution that has reduced administration time for storage. It's pretty straightforward to install and setup it and so far it has been robust and worked as advertised from StarWind."
"Azure AD is much more user-friendly and has a better integration with our existing infrastructure."
"Performance has been excellent with no issues."
"StarWind VSAN eliminates the NAS/SAN as a single point of failure and is an affordable synchronous HA storage solution which allows us to use extremely fast direct-attached SSD storage in an HA environment."
"The available GUI is excellent for monitoring and operating the system in an easy and direct way."
"Since StarWind's solution has served us very well over the last two years already, I would recommend it."
"It has given the company an almost zero possibility of downtime."
"One point to highlight is how easy it is to configure and manage."
 

Cons

"Marketing needs improvement."
"The price of this solution is high compared to the competitors, so it should be lowered."
"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."
"Snapshot notification would be a good addition."
"The documentation is good. However, if compared with competitors, it could be enhanced and made more professional."
"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."
"Central management webpage should be a must-have."
"Perhaps the developer should refine the product management through PowerShell. It is not entirely clear and there is quite a bit of documentation."
"Updating the software can be a bit tricky."
"It should reclaim white spaces after big files are deleted."
"I would like to see more monitoring and alert tools."
"There needs to be more visibility on how long the cloud replication will take as there is no current ETA."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"Cost is affordable and licensing is smooth."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
"We are happy with the price."
"StarWind is a low-cost, full-featured alternative to the traditional SAN environment, and their support will guide you every step of the setup."
"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."
"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
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 Business170
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.