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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
28th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
204
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Pivot3 is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, up 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 SAN2.1%
Pivot30.9%
Other97.0%
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

"One feature we found useful was the product's complete ability to integrate with vCenter."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of implementation."
"The most valuable feature is the visual encoding."
"The fact that the solution is vendor-agnostic allows it to be used with any virtualization vendor while remaining a powerful abstraction over storage."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
"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."
"The software is easy to setup and manage, and the support is excellent."
"StarWind Virtual SAN has positively impacted my organization by giving us the flexibility and freedom to have more time for other projects."
"StarWind Virtual SAN can improve an organization's storage infrastructure by providing high availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, performance, and ease of use."
"With StarWind Virtual SAN, I am able to deploy and test failover scenarios in just a few hours, significantly speeding up the validation cycle for planned changes."
"The best feature is its ease of installation and integration within a current infrastructure."
 

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"
"The cluster configuration is time-consuming and tedious."
"That limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better."
"I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided."
"High availability for direct attached hardware drives could be useful for increasing the performance of a storage appliance."
"The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for Linux and macOS, as it would reduce implementation costs."
"Being able to run StarWind vSAN on top of any free UNIX operating system to build a resilient iSCSI/FTP/SMB storage system would be useful."
"Management of VSAN itself could be improved. A Web UI for management would be great rather than an application installation. StarWind is testing a command center virtual appliance that I have installed in my environment."
"Scaling the product is fairly easy except for the computing aspect. It would entail another appliance. While not a show stopper, it isn't as easy as dropping in a few extra SSDs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."
"The free version is great to use for labs or test environments."
"I would suggest that you download the free version, deploy in your lab, and play with it."
"The Price/Performance ratio for this solution is outstanding!"
"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business165
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

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?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very good. We were able to get the software at a good cost. I did most of the setup, so there wasn't really any cost there. The professiona...
What needs improvement with StarWind Virtual SAN?
The only thing that I would say about documentation is there are some aspects of the documentation that are a little bit unclear. However, when I worked through those issues with their professional...
 

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: February 2026.
882,744 professionals have used our research since 2012.