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Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure 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

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infr...
Ranking in HCI
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.6
Number of Reviews
7
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
204
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
StarWind Virtual SAN2.1%
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure1.3%
Other96.6%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Maheshc Chathuranga - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise System Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Has provided mature containerization support and responsive assistance while meeting diverse customer needs
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions. Feature-wise, it's very mature for the containerization side, but the price point is an issue. I would like to see more features related to disaster recovery and continuity in Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, specifically disaster recovery, disaster recovery sites, and business continuity.
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

"Both the scalability and stability of this solution are excellent."
"It is stable and scalable."
"Utilizing Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure's software-defined storage helps increase data consistency for specific use cases, aligning with customer requirements, depending on which type of data we are storing."
"Utilizing Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure's software-defined storage helps increase data consistency for specific use cases, aligning with customer requirements, depending on which type of data we are storing."
"The size of the hardware is what we need because it is very good for small configurations."
"I like that you can add other types of services."
"The consolidation of the management in one control point is the most valuable. The whole infrastructure management is consolidated in just one console point. The documentation is also pretty good."
"The most useful feature is the solution's automation in terms of how we are able to spin up a certain workload in real-time when we are doing R&D."
"StarWind allowed us to deploy highly available shared storage within our budget."
"With zero cost I can test a solution like Proxmox, making Starwind VSAN an excellent tool for home lab and virtualization testing."
"The installation of StarWind Virtual SAN was pretty easy, and the configuration was done in no time."
"The iSCSI protocol is quite simple to configure."
"We have experienced multiple hardware failures at one site and the fault-tolerant volume worked exactly as expected with zero downtime."
"The biggest benefit was that it allowed us to provide SAN services on a limited hardware budget."
"The vSAN provides full redundancy for storage while reclaiming some rack space."
"The most valuable features of StarWind Virtual SAN include its cost-effective repurposing of older hardware, seamless integration with vSphere, and high scalability."
 

Cons

"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions."
"The cloud deployment could be improved."
"It should be more user-friendly, in my opinion."
"It is not user-friendly, and it is very difficult to operate. You have to have a deep understanding of the technical details of the infrastructure to implement it. When you compare it with VMware, it is totally different because the graphical user interface is not that easy to understand. It is not intuitive. To use it, you have to read a lot of documentation and even understand what is going on behind the solution. It is not for someone who has a little bit of knowledge. Currently, it is too complex. I need something that is easy to implement. It should have a basic configuration as well as a complex configuration."
"This product is not so stable. Maybe it is just not mature enough in its development."
"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions."
"The main issue is the initial investment. It is an expensive product, and it should be cheaper. It should also be easier to use and manage. The professional service for this solution is quite complex and expensive."
"The licensing policy needs to be improved. They have a licensing policy based on the number of CPU sockets. Nowadays what has happened is that the license they are trying to move is based on the number of CPU cores. With the advancement in technology there are now more cores in a single CPU. It's been very challenging in terms of managing the license around everything. Today we have a processor with 24 and 32 cores on the same physical CPU."
"I wish the sync after a failure, such as hardware failure or power-related issues, for example, was faster."
"It took a bit of knowledge and support to put in place but once installed it works fine. Migration (HyperV) from one server to another sometimes takes longer than expected but there is no data loss even if the host crashes."
"It should be improved in the way it detects the right filesystem image after a complete shutdown of the system or in the case of disaster recovery."
"The number of different ways you can set it up can make it a little daunting."
"If there was a way to automatically put disks in maintenance mode when shutting the host down and exit maintenance mode automatically, that would simplify things."
"To enable the proactive support capability that is part of our support agreement, I would ask that the terms and conditions be revised and made acceptable to corporate security."
"Besides not being able to use any filesystem, I do not have any additional cons."
"A great feature would be a wizard and to include a new disk in the SAN. At the moment, including a new disk requires several steps - some that must be done at the OS level and others in each node."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is an open-sourced, low-cost solution with full features."
"It is quite pricey."
"This solution has a great price for the functionality."
"The licensing is a bit weird. If you license the standard version of StarWind, it allows you four terabytes. Then, they have a pro version, but with the pro version, the only difference is it doubles the terabytes to eight."
"The cost takes into account the number of nodes, so the size of the storage is not important."
"This is the best priced solution for an SMB."
"This solution has competitive prices and the implementation is very easy."
"The StarWind VSAN business model is very cost-effective."
"For two nodes, it cost us $10,000, and we spend $2,000 a year on support."
"The license is reusable. We can always rebuild it and apply the license. Then, boom, we get new servers, apply the license, and we're back up and running."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business165
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions. Feature-wise, it's very mature for the contai...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is mainly used for customers' companies.
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is not used for edge computing. Most people are referring to centralized data centers for requirements, and in Sri Lanka, there are not many edge computing sol...
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

Red Hat HCI, Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Virtualization
StarWind SAN & NAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs. StarWind Virtual SAN and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.