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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
30th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Pivot3 is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 1.9%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN1.9%
Pivot30.3%
Other97.8%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1124199 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieving seamless cost-saving implementation with exceptional support
The best features that StarWind Virtual SAN offers include the price because comparing to other virtual SAN solutions, this one is the best, and it also has a great support team behind it. My experience with their support has been positive, as their guides regarding the integration are very useful. They have some awesome guides online that show you exactly how to configure the product, how to do the initial setup, and you can speak with them directly. They will be able to connect and verify your setup, run its parameters and see exactly what's working and what is not, and they really help you with that. StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization and my customer through initial cost saving. They use this product in a dark site, so I'm not able to provide any additional details about this, but they were really glad about it, they're still using it, and they asked for extending the capacity for it and the support. They really want to use it and are enjoying using it.

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."
"The most valuable feature is the visual encoding."
"One feature we found useful was the product's complete ability to integrate with vCenter."
"As the client had acquired another company some distance away, they were concerned about having a single SAN in one location or the other. StarWind vSAN allowed us to keep a copy of the data local to each site without asking the client to pay for two SANs in addition to the two new servers they needed."
"StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by saving money in skill set development, and certainly minimal downtime across all of our installations, where they maintain almost zero downtime in their 24/7 operations."
"It allows me to configure High Availability and failover clustering with some fault tolerance, at a cost point that doesn’t break the bank for a small business budget."
"Their support staff is comprised of true experts who can also communicate clearly."
"StarWind vSAN is easy to deploy and administer."
"Their support goes above and beyond with the integration of their software."
"The instant failover, with vSAN copying data to the second node, allowed for the continuous availability of our applications."
"It's very easy to resize disks and they show up in VMware almost instantly."
 

Cons

"Snapshot notification would be a good addition."
"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"
"I would like additional documentation regarding possible networking configurations with 10GbE switching."
"The gathering of monthly consumption and performance reports for future dissemination to concerned parties is very important. Unfortunately, StarWinds vSAN doesn't offer this functionality."
"If it's possible to make a driver/solution that does not make use of the iSCSI targets of Windows, that would be great. I don't know if that's possible, however, it could make the configuration a little easier."
"I wish there was online support because email return takes a long time and a faster solution should be found."
"I'd love to see more clarification for us folks who are smart enough to do some damage yet not smart enough to use CLI."
"We would like to see the documentation more fully developed."
"That limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better."
"The documentation could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"The support contract is well worth it. The price for it was very reasonable and their team has been very engaged whenever we reach out."
"Their pricing seems pretty good, and their licensing structure is pretty straightforward."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"This is a good, economical solution compared to data storage systems."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"If you are looking at a traditional SAN for a small cluster, give StarWind vSAN because you will save thousands without any compromise."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business159
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise33
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about StarWind Virtual SAN?
It is easy to use and can monitor system synchronization and check Storage status. StarWind Virtual SAN (VSAN) combines flash and disks of the cluster and forms a virtual shared storage “pool” acce...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind Virtual SAN?
I had experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing through using the free version of StarWind Virtual SAN for testing purposes, so there was no cost involved during my evaluation. That made i...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
One area for improvement regarding StarWind Virtual SAN is the lack of a full-feature trial. At the time I tested it, I had access only to the free version, which required using PowerShell scripts ...
 

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 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.