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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 visual encoding."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of implementation."
"One feature we found useful was the product's complete ability to integrate with vCenter."
"The most valuable features of StarWind Virtual SAN include its cost-effective repurposing of older hardware, seamless integration with vSphere, and high scalability."
"With an uptime of 384 days, StarWind has improved overall server reliability."
"The user interface for this application is amazing, very easy to learn from the beginning, with a great introductory period that allows you to get used to everything the software has to offer, and the customer support is also amazing, answering questions very quickly and always being available at the most important times."
"The install itself is easy as pie."
"With the redundancy and efficiency of the software and servers, we are running better than ever, with room to grow."
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"In conclusion, StarWind.com presents an exceptional software solution that earns my strong recommendation."
"The best part is the easy way it operates with a very clear GUI without any unnecessary items."
 

Cons

"Marketing needs improvement."
"The price of this solution is high compared to the competitors, so it should be lowered."
"Snapshot notification would be a good addition."
"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."
"With data verification, I would like to know how does the solution perform validation of data being synced between two VSANs."
"The software monitoring should be web-based to be reachable from any VLAN workstation."
"While we had no problems setting the system up, and service technicians from StarWind could assist us very well, they could provide some form of in-depth documentation."
"I would like to see different levels of support offered."
"There should be some kind of active monitoring connected to StarWind vSAN, so you will be able to act when needed."
"Pricing is a bit high."
"At this moment, I have not seen a return on investment with StarWind Virtual SAN."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our fees are approximately $100,000 yearly."
"The scalability limitation for us is its licensing. At some point in the fairly near future, we will probably have to upgrade our license so we can store eight terabytes instead of four. We are currently at four terabytes, but we're starting to knock on the door of that capacity."
"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 solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"When we did all the analysis for StarWind, it was approximately 20 percent less than any of the other solutions that we looked at."
"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"The licensing is straightforward, with free and trial versions available."
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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
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

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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.
913,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.