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Portworx Enterprise vs StarWind Storage Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Portworx Enterprise
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd), Data Storage for Kubernetes (1st)
StarWind Storage Appliance
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
NAS (20th), All-Flash Storage (34th)
 

Featured Reviews

David Ivorra - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Lynx View
Modern data platform has simplified Kubernetes backups and disaster recovery across environments
Portworx Enterprise is a leader in the market according to consultancies and consultant agencies, but one area for improvement could be the visibility about how applications are working on a low level, especially regarding how they are messaging between all those microservices. Cybersecurity in those kinds of environments needs to be rock solid and really secured. With all those AIs working now to infect and attack environments, this is something that Portworx Enterprise should put more focus on even more than they do now. There are security solutions already implemented in Portworx Enterprise, including anti-ransomware, but as the environment grows, the possibilities of having cybersecurity issues increase, so they should focus even more on that part.
Kishore CA - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineering Assistant at Bharat Electronics Limited
Offers stable performance even with a single node failure and manages everything with just two nodes.
The only drawback is that it takes a bit of time during initial synchronization, especially after restarting the environment. This is a potential area of improvement. There's a synchronization time, but it takes time. Initially, when we start the first environment deployment, it starts synchronizing between the storage. So, it is taking time. One thing is that even when you restart. Let's assume that the synchronization is completed and the storage is synchronized. Both storages are fully synchronized, and it is in sync mode. Now, if we want to restart both nodes, there is a case for maintenance purposes. You took both nodes for maintenance, and we rebooted it. Then, it should not synchronize again. It should be a checksum. And if there is a checksum match, there should be no synchronization again. So, one thing that should be taken care of. Another thing is that I used freeware- the community version, free license, which we deployed using PowerShare. In that case, it was very difficult to bring back another node when one node was faulty. Let's assume that both the nodes are working fine. And we found one node faulty. And we destroyed all the volumes in that and tried to bring it back. So that was a difficult factor. The final solution is that we were not able to bring back the failed node. So, we reconstructed a new data source for that. That is another drawback. In future releases, I would like to see the integration with VMware or some other things as a plugin model for VMware.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The best thing about Portworx is the Stork, they have called the VPS (Volume Replacement Strategy) and they also have topology awareness, and these are the three features I like."
"Portworx is a great solution for managing container environments."
"Portworx is a simple solution. It's similar to Pure Storage products. They're all easy to use and install. You need to have a little expertise with containers to use Portworx, but it will be no problem for you if you understand containers."
"We are offering two kinds of environments: one for customers working with modern data and modern application development, and they are finding that it is easier for them to migrate workloads from on-premises to cloud or the other way around."
"Portworx virtualizes the aspects of the underlying block storage. That is good because they can also use block storage for their future deployment instead of just NFS."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications."
"If I containerize a database server, I know that not only is Portworx providing a persistent and resilient storage backend, but it also meets the database's IOPS requirements, in a containerized environment."
"The integration with StarWind Storage Appliance is the most valuable."
"Another good feature is that you can pause the appliance if you want to move it from one location to another and then once it's moved you can resume it, this way you can physically move the whole cluster or storage without any downtime. Its really easy to use, if you have a good foundation in storage and clustering then you will need less then one hour to figure out how to operate it."
"It is very easy to use and very cost effective."
"StarWind Storage Appliance is simpler and more effective than using Microsoft products. We chose it because it can be easily integrated with Microsoft."
"The integration is excellent."
"The management interface is the most valuable feature for us."
"We love it and rely on it."
"Its user-friendly interface makes it an attractive option, especially for customers who may not be highly tech-savvy."
 

Cons

"The documentation could be better."
"They have not integrated Portworx with Ondat since they are too focused now on Pure Storage APIs and not on users like us."
"I think the vendor could provide more training for new users who may not be familiar with containers."
"Regarding pricing, I found that a couple of customers did not purchase the project because, at least in Spain, there are customers finding the pricing a little too high for the service they receive."
"The integration has room for improvement."
"I would like to see a more native mapping to mainframe-type systems."
"It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately."
"They offered onsite installation, but we chose to do it ourselves. That took longer and was more work for us but saved us a ton of money in the end."
"With StarWind Storage Appliance, it would be better to have an overall easier setup with a little bit of configuration changes since, currently, even a small mistake may cause the setup process to go wrong."
"StarWind Storage Appliance's demo version should be similar to the paid one."
"StarWind no longer sells HDDs for primary storage."
"They could improve by providing integration with HP."
"It needs more integration with backup vendors so there is native integration with it that will allow storage level backup/snapshots. I would love to see integration with Veeam and Commvault so it can be recognized by them directly and added as network storage."
"An improvement would be if they reached out to education customers with other available products."
"The dashboard features are not in the free version. Today it is normal to have the full features in both versions and only pay for support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM."
"I'm not sure how the licensing was broken out, but I don't think our offering of the Portworx was more than USD $20,000."
"The price of Portworx Enterprise is high."
"It has two offerings. One is free, which is limited to only five nodes. The other is enterprise, which is a bit pricier."
"It costs about 50,000 euros."
"On the homepage, you can not see the pricing."
"StarWind by far provides the best bang for the buck."
"I rate StarWind Storage Appliance's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The cost is determined by various factors, including the amount of terabyte storage you require, the number of nodes you want to purchase, and the duration of your maintenance agreement"
"With StarWind Storage Appliance, the payments made towards the licensing part of the product are on a per-node basis, making it cost-effective for us to use the solution in our company."
"We found that the price of StarWind was very good compared to VMware or Nutanix."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Transportation Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portworx Enterprise?
Regarding pricing, I found that a couple of customers did not purchase the project because, at least in Spain, there are customers finding the pricing a little too high for the service they receive...
What needs improvement with Portworx Enterprise?
I see some limitations such as operational complexity. Configuring Portworx initially requires an understanding of key concepts and logic, meaning it is not straightforward for everyone to use. Deb...
What advice do you have for others considering Portworx Enterprise?
My advice for others considering Portworx Enterprise is that if you operate in a cloud-native environment such as Kubernetes or OpenShift, this solution is worthwhile. Portworx Enterprise offers en...
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Sample Customers

NIO, GE Digital, DreamWorks Animation, Lufthansa, beco, NEW CONTEXT
Bosch, EC2 IT, Solid Earth Inc., Canon
Find out what your peers are saying about Portworx Enterprise vs. StarWind Storage Appliance and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.