Red Hat Gluster Storage vs StarWind Virtual SAN 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 #1 with an average rating of 9.4. Red Hat holds a 2.9% mindshare in SDS, compared to StarWind’s 6.2% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

StarWind Virtual SAN and Red Hat Gluster Storage compete in the virtual storage solutions category. StarWind has the edge in customer service and pricing, appealing to budget-conscious buyers, whereas Red Hat Gluster is preferred for scalability and advanced features.

Features: StarWind integrates seamlessly with Hyper-V and VMware, offers robust fault tolerance, and provides thin provisioning. Red Hat Gluster supports scale-out capabilities, geo-replication, and excels in managing unstructured data, making it suitable for complex data environments.

Room for Improvement: StarWind could benefit from enhanced scalability features, expanded unstructured data support, and more advanced geo-replication options. Red Hat Gluster might improve in simplifying customer support, reducing setup complexity, and offering more competitive pricing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind is noted for simple setup and responsive support, making it ideal for businesses needing quick deployment. Red Hat, while detailed in its documentation, requires specialized skills for setup, favoring teams with technical expertise.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind is known for low initial costs and high ROI, ideal for SMEs. Red Hat's higher setup costs are offset by substantial ROI over time thanks to scalability and advanced storage capabilities, suited for those who can handle upfront investment.

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

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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 Virtual SAN is 6.2%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN	6.2%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	4.2%
Red Hat Gluster Storage	2.9%
Other	86.7%

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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Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

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.

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

"It's very easy-to-use."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

"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."

"Using our own choice of HW allowed us to price our service to answer our customers' needs."

"Quick setup, great support, stability is great"

"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 most useful aspect is the hyper-converged SD SAN and the ease to expand it by just adding cheap SSD or NVME disks."

"Having support is also very valuable to us as we are a small team."

"The ability to choose our own hardware and our own vendors for this was hugely beneficial, as we had pre-existing relationships with vendors we wanted to maintain."

"Support keeps track of alerts of the system and verifies with us if we need help to fix any issues. They have great and quick technical support."

"The management was very easy and I was able to find all that I need in the software dashboard."

More StarWind Virtual SAN pros

Cons

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

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

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."

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

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"Its configuration should be easier."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

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

"The performance of the solution must be improved."

"The user interface could be simplified."

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

"It would be helpful if StarWind provided more precise and detailed documentation explaining how to configure the solution in various scenarios, including the advantages and disadvantages of each."

"A mobile app to sync up for overview and status would really be helpful."

"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."

"Server-side snapshots are one thing the Linux appliance can't do yet."

"Some configuration options still demand service restarting."

"There is no Italian-language version of the software available."

"Maybe in the future, the replication will be supported in more cloud providers."

"With data verification, I would like to know how does the solution perform validation of data being synced between two VSANs."

More StarWind Virtual SAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"The price could be cheaper."

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

"The product is very expensive."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"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."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

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."

"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."

"We evaluated other options and this one was the most cost-effective."

"The pricing is more than reasonable."

"I think that purchasing StarWind Virtual SAN Professional Edition would be optimal for most."

"The pricing is fine for the work that it does."

"Licensing is based on nodes rather than TBs, which means that the users are free to increase storage capacity without putting thought into licensing."

"StarWind is best price/performance for SMB."

"Once you buy the license, you are free to build your own hardware solution based on your needs."

More StarWind Virtual SAN 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

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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	159
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	33

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...

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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...

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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 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) combin...

See all answers

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 t...

See all answers

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,...

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

IBM Spectrum Scale vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 15% of the time

LINBIT SDS vs Red Hat Gluster Storage

Compared 8% of the time

More Red Hat Gluster Storage Competitors

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 23% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 4% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN 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 Virtual SAN

August 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Gluster, Red Hat Storage Server

StarWind SAN & NAS

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

StarWind Virtual SAN provides high availability and fault tolerance for virtualized environments without the need for dedicated SAN hardware. It allows for real-time replication between servers, shared storage for Hyper-V clusters, and enables vMotion and High Availability features for VMware vSphere. The solution reduces costs and leverages existing hardware while providing a scalable and reliable infrastructure. Valuable features include ease of use, scalability, top-tier support, hardware agnosticism, and the ability to use off-the-shelf standard servers to increase storage space. StarWind VSAN has helped organizations improve performance, data availability, and data security while reducing downtime and providing cost-saving storage options.

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

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

September 2025

Free Report: Red Hat Gluster Storage vs. StarWind Virtual SAN

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