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Red Hat Gluster Storage vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

Red Hat and StarWind are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Red Hat is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0, while StarWind is ranked #11 with an average rating of 10.0. Red Hat holds a 2.9% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and Red Hat Gluster Storage compete in the integrated data storage solutions market. StarWind offers competitive pricing and customer service, while Red Hat Gluster Storage provides an extensive feature set justifying its higher cost.

Features: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance includes simplified management, fault tolerance, and hyperconverged infrastructure, targeting ease of use and operational efficiency. Red Hat Gluster Storage stands out with open-source flexibility, scalability, and a robust distributed file system offering significant customization and scalability for enterprise environments.

Room for Improvement: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance could enhance its scalability options, expand integration capabilities, and provide more advanced data analytics features. Red Hat Gluster Storage might improve its user interface friendliness, reduce complexity in its architecture for simpler deployment, and enhance native automation features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance focuses on streamlined deployment processes and offers strong proactive customer support to improve the onboarding experience. Conversely, Red Hat Gluster Storage involves more complex deployment procedures due to its intricate architecture, albeit with extensive documentation and strong community support aiding troubleshooting.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind HyperConverged Appliance provides cost-efficient initial setup options, possibly leading to a faster ROI due to lower entry expenses. Red Hat Gluster Storage requires a higher initial investment but presents long-term returns via expansive features and scalability, making it strategic for businesses anticipating significant growth.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

September 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 4.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Gluster Storage is 2.9%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.2%
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance	2.2%
Red Hat Gluster Storage	2.9%
Other	90.7%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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GiovanniRamirez

Senior IT Consultant at Xerif

Flexible and scalable file system for growing storage needs

Gluster FS is used for various purposes, including virtualization, collaboration, and data center environments. It is also applied in personal environments. Some specific use cases mentioned include scaling a three-terabyte file system into a 12-terabyte file system with minimal downtime Gluster…

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Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate this solution an eight plus. It has has good flexibility and stability, it's easy to manage and the response time is good."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"The ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is user-friendly. It's replication feature is great because it has active replication and active DR. That's the beauty of the product. It's a perfect solution for block storage."

"The most valuable features are the Metro clustering, and disaster recovery."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"It's very easy to upgrade storage."

"Notable features of Gluster FS include flexibility, scalability, stability, and ease of use."

"The technical support team is excellent."

"The price tag is good compared to the amount of data and high availability provided."

"The hosts came preconfigured, and it was plug-and-play."

"The solution has easily deployed instances for multiple fast-paced projects."

"I do like that I can manage StarWind with a console running on my local desktop."

"We also substantially reduced network complexity by eliminating that standalone SAN. That reduced complexity has allowed us to concentrate on improving other areas of our network."

"Their service is top-notch and if a node goes down they immediately are following up with us to make sure that everything is working smoothly."

"It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy."

"We opted for 24-hour monitoring and support, which has already paid for itself."

"How quickly the StarWind solution replicates also gives us the confidence to know that in the event of catastrophic failure of any piece of hardware, we won't be far behind before things went wrong."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"It's on the expensive side, as expected for a niche product."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

"I would like to see better integration."

"The feature that we're waiting on is better integration with the cell services."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade should improve on more cloud integration."

"We haven't been able to use much of the cloud area of Pure Storage. We have a storage server and it would be better if it could integrate with other cloud features of this solution."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The performance of the solution must be improved."

"The system should be more intuitive and easier to manage."

"There is a feature in Red Hat’s commercial version that could be beneficial if integrated into the open-source version."

"The user interface could be simplified."

"I had some initial difficulties understanding the solution which could have been solved via additional documentation aimed at newcomers."

"Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse."

"We'd like an easier setup for Windows updates on the Hyper-V servers so you don't have to use a script to ensure auto-updating is done."

"I wish I understood what goes into the StarWind software a little bit better. To me, it's kind of magic the way some of it works. As an IT professional, you don't really want things to be magic. I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators..."

"The only issue we have seen is with the StarWind Server Manager. We have had to continually reboot the server in order to use it."

"I think some performance metrics would be nice to see, especially on the storage side."

"A possible thing is perhaps a customer portal to schedule a time with support online via a calendar."

"We ran into some issues with going from Hyper-V 2012 R2 to Hyper-V 2019."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"Support is a separate line item. Support is a different cost, but whatever your support is now, that's what you're going to pay forever. If your support's $100 today, six years from now it's $100. It doesn't fluctuate unless you upgrade it, or change it, etc."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The price could be cheaper."

"The price is a little high."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"If you need cheap storage, but still need high availability, it's a good product to look at."

"Its cost was reasonable."

"This was all completed at an affordable price point for an SMB, which was also a key element for an NPO."

"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."

"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."

"I was able to bring the price per year down by going out to a five-year plan."

"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

16%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Hospitality Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	50
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Gluster Storage?

The technical support team is excellent.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Gluster Storage?

There is a feature in Red Hat’s commercial version that could be beneficial if integrated into the open-source versio...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Red Hat Gluster Storage?

Gluster FS is used for various purposes, including virtualization, collaboration, and data center environments. It is...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtua...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

LizardFS vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 23% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 20% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 18% of the time

StarWind Virtual SAN vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 15% of the time

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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 26% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 18% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 16% of the time

Azure Stack HCI vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 16% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 15% of the time

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download Red Hat Gluster Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

August 2025

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Gluster, Red Hat Storage Server

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Red Hat Gluster Storage (formerly known as Red Hat Storage Server) is a software-defined storage (SDS) platform designed to handle the requirements of traditional file storage—high-capacity tasks like backup and archival as well as high-performance tasks of analytics and virtualization. But unlike traditional storage systems, Red Hat Gluster Storage isn’t rigid and expensive. It easily scales across bare metal, virtual, container, and cloud deployments.

Red Hat

For SMB, ROBO and Enterprises, who look to bring in quick deployment and operation simplicity to virtualization workloads and reduce related expenses, our solution is StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). It unifies commodity servers, disks and flash, hypervisor of choice, StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN and associated software into a single manageable layer. The HCA supports scale-up by adding disks and flash, and scale-out by adding extra nodes.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance consists of StarWind Virtual SAN, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct or VMware Virtual SAN “Ready Nodes”, targeting those, who are building their virtualization infrastructure from scratch. In case there is an existing set of servers, we offer a “software only version”, which is essentially our years proven StarWind Virtual SAN. Basically, it’s the fuel powering StarWind HCA.

StarWind

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

NTT Plala, McMaster University, University of Basque Country, Goodtech ASA, Cox Automotive, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), SaskTel, Glashart Media, Casio

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

September 2025

Free Report: Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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