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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
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 September 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Pivot3 is 1.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.4%
Pivot31.7%
Other95.9%
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 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."
"The technical support is very good."
"It has reduced our overall maintenance and overhead by having to only maintain physical boxes for one cluster instead of having to manage physical boxes for two clusters."
"StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by giving us the flexibility and freedom to have more time for other projects."
"It provides shared storage to multiple hypervisor hosts. Times had changed, however. StarWind Virtual SAN is the “software replaces hardware” for SAN. We have access control and CCTV systems up and running using Microsoft clustering and shared storage"
"We are running Hyper-V on twin servers in failover, and being able to manage servers from anywhere I need to, virtually, has been a game changer."
"Performance has been excellent with no issues."
"Performance, reliability, I love the management console (once I got used to it)."
"StarWind Virtual SAN improved our organization by allowing us to sleep at night."
"The management was very easy and I was able to find all that I need in the software dashboard."
 

Cons

"Marketing needs improvement."
"In the next release, I would like to see compatibility and support for critical applications, like SAP."
"One of the biggest problems with HCI vendors was the lack of flexibility for adding resources."
"Snapshot notification would be a good addition."
"The price of this solution is high compared to the competitors, so it should be lowered."
"Lastly, I think the severity two response time incidents could be improved upon; it's eight hours, and if that could be better, I'd like that."
"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."
"The cost seems a bit steep, and I wish it was less expensive."
"More comprehensive reporting and educational resources for error resolution would enhance the user experience."
"It has a slightly complex architecture Tooling spread across web UI and the desktop client requires a lot of network interfaces."
"In testing, we found some features in the Linux appliance were missing."
"StarWind Command Center's single-pane management solution only works with Hyper-V."
"The documentation can be better for the free tier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"This solution is very accessible and the pro-level for support is well worth the cost."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"We are happy with the price."
"There are two tiers of support and in my opinion, support is worth the cost."
"The pricing is more than reasonable."
"I think the bang for the buck is much better with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
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: August 2026.
912,022 professionals have used our research since 2012.