StarWind Virtual SAN vs VxRail comparison

StarWind and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the HCI category. StarWind is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.2, while Dell Technologies is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. StarWind holds a 2.1% mindshare in HCI, compared to Dell Technologies’s 13.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of StarWind users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

StarWind Virtual SAN

Read 204 StarWind Virtual SAN reviews

5,053 Views
3,133 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VxRail

Read 134 VxRail reviews

12,930 Views
12,284 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual SAN

VxRail

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

VxRail and StarWind Virtual SAN are leading solutions in the hyper-converged infrastructure and storage virtualization markets, respectively. VxRail seems to have the upper hand in VMware environments due to its seamless integration and management capabilities, while StarWind stands out in cost-effectiveness and ease of integration with existing hardware.

Features: VxRail offers integrated storage and management flexibility, comprehensive updates, and ease of deployment within VMware environments. Its performance and consolidation capabilities are notable. StarWind Virtual SAN excels in cost-effectiveness, efficient redundancy, and seamless integration with existing infrastructures. It is valued for its simplicity in installation and management, reliability, and excellent support.

Room for Improvement: VxRail users seek improved integration, more competitive pricing, and a streamlined update process with faster upgrades and better compatibility with non-Dell hardware. StarWind could improve its documentation, user interface design, and expand support materials while simplifying configuration processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VxRail is appreciated for its robust deployment processes and comprehensive customer support, though noted for some complexity in initial setups, ensuring professional assistance through Dell's service model. StarWind is praised for straightforward deployment and clarity during setup, with customer service highlighted for responsiveness and expertise, beneficial for smaller setups.

Pricing and ROI: VxRail is perceived as expensive, with costs tied to VMware licensing, yet justifiable for large enterprises needing scalability. StarWind Virtual SAN offers affordable pricing, especially benefiting SMBs, with cost savings and a perpetual licensing approach supporting various deployment scales.

To learn more, read our detailed StarWind Virtual SAN vs. VxRail Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN vs. VxRail

December 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.9

StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, flexible storage solutions reducing operational costs, downtime, and hardware needs, with rapid ROI.

Sentiment score

4.4

VxRail improves efficiency and reduces costs, offering scalability and cloud integration, justifying its investment through long-term savings.

We don't sell a lot of redundant servers, so it's not a massive ROI, but the ability to rely on their technical support and the software's ease of setup allows us to reduce labor costs and go to market competitively.

Kyle Buxton

Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

The cost benefits, as far as we consider, are much better with a StarWind VSAN solution, and the training requirements with the ease of administration simplify and reduce our administrator and professional services costs.

Julian Clarke

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Regarding cost savings, for my client, it was about 20K USD for his specific use and as for extending capacity, StarWind made that process easy.

Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.8

StarWind Virtual SAN offers exceptional support with timely responses, expert staff, and 24/7 proactive monitoring for optimal performance.

Sentiment score

7.7

Dell EMC support is highly rated for effectiveness, though some users note issues with response times and international consistency.

Even in the instances where my technical team does not have the ability to manage or troubleshoot or resolve an issue, StarWind's technical team supports and resolves on our behalf very quickly.

Julian Clarke

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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 who will be able to connect, verify your setup, run its parameters, and see exactly what's working and what is not, and adjust it, and they really help you with that.

Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

The customer support from StarWind Virtual SAN is great, as the people are knowledgeable and have great knowledge about the product and the functionality we require in the system.

Jccerong Heron

System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

A key area for improvement for VMware would be response time.

AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Dell has good technical support in Saudi Arabia.

AhmedEdwan

Presales + Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The support is all provided by Dell, and it is quite good.

Peter Braack

Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

StarWind Virtual SAN impresses users with seamless scalability, allowing effortless upgrades and configurations without downtime, supporting various setups.

Sentiment score

7.6

VxRail offers impressive scalability and flexibility, ideal for large and medium environments but challenging for smaller setups.

If we want to expand our storage or add disks, it is easy to add them, configure the RAID, and then deploy it.

Christian Nissia

IT Support Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

I believe that scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially.

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

When you move from a two-node cluster to a three-node cluster, you have to completely redo the way that they are connected to each other with iSCSI.

Tyler Lejeune

Manager of Systems Administration at Monster Digital

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

There are limitations, such as the inability to upgrade from a single to dual CPU in certain configurations.

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Scalability is easy with VxRail.

AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Scalability is good with VxRail.

AhmedEdwan

Presales + Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.4

StarWind Virtual SAN offers stable, reliable performance with minimal issues, seamless updates, and efficient VM migrations, even during failures.

Sentiment score

8.4

VxRail is praised for its stability, reliability, seamless maintenance, and minimal issues, even during updates and hardware failures.

In my experience, StarWind Virtual SAN is very stable, and I have never had a single instability issue.

Julian Clarke

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

It has been working for five years and the customer is still happy with it.

Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

I ran it on a two-node Hyper-V cluster setup, and I didn't experience any unexpected crashes or major issues.

Daniel Philot

Hosting Operations Senior Analyst at Equinix Brasil

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

It is a very stable and mature product, with centralized management and upgrades being perfect for us.

AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The product is very stable, and I rate its stability as nine out of ten.

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Room For Improvement

StarWind Virtual SAN needs better documentation, automation, integration, setup simplification, monitoring, and feature enhancements like deduplication and encryption.

VxRail needs improved VMware integration, pricing, automation, upgrades, security, scalability, and streamlined processes for enhanced customer satisfaction.

A more intuitive interface or an improved dashboard for monitoring the cluster would also be helpful, as it would facilitate performance tracking and help identify potential issues before they affect services.

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

There have been cases where not understanding exactly what's failing on the Virtual SAN has been an issue.

Kyle Buxton

Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better.

Julian Clarke

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues.

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

VxRail could be enhanced through additional integration with NVMe technology.

AhmedEdwan

Presales + Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The major issue with VxRail is the razoring process, which can only be performed by Dell.

AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Setup Cost

StarWind Virtual SAN is competitively priced, simple to license, easy to implement, and offers excellent value with flexible options.

VxRail is a costly yet cost-effective VMware solution with integrated licensing, offering competitive pricing and reduced operational expenses.

The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.

Julian Clarke

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I talked to the sales team, they gave me a quote with a perpetual license with the support and everything went through smoothly.

Vladimir Simion

Pre Post Sales Engineer at Logiccomputer

This is a great product and good support even you are using free version!

Jose Escario

Infrastructure Manager at Beacon Fronline Solutions Inc

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Previously, the cost was higher, however, recent changes in VMware pricing have reduced it.

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The cost varies for us as a large company because we receive special offers from Dell.

AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Purchasing VxRail is quite expensive compared to a simple Dell server.

Peter Braack

Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Valuable Features

StarWind Virtual SAN offers cost-effective, high performance solutions with easy management, excellent support, and seamless integration for various platforms.

VxRail offers centralized management, scalability, and rapid deployment with VMware integration and third-party compatibility for optimal performance.

Thanks to its seamless integration with Proxmox, the implementation of high availability servers has drastically reduced downtime, which is crucial for our security-focused company.

WJHG

Soporte IT at Sildan Security

StarWind Virtual SAN helps us keep customer satisfaction and provides the solutions we need without having to hire many IT specialists.

Kyle Buxton

Manager, Field Support at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

StarWind's storage virtualization and failover capabilities have made a difference for my clusters through uptime improvements, with zero downtime specific to server host maintenance or even maintenance of the StarWind software itself.

Julian Clarke

Solution Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the StarWind Virtual SAN report

Customers prefer the single pane of glass management and integration with VMware, which makes it easier for them to proceed with decisions involving VMware products.

Rami Jadallah

Data Center Solution Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN.

AlexOltean

Technical architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The features of VxRail that we find most useful for our customers include the easy update mechanism and the support for both VMware and hardware.

Peter Braack

Principal Consultant at Sycor GmbH

For more quotes and insights, download the VxRail report

Categories and Ranking

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)

VxRail

Ranking in HCI

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 13.8%, down from 20.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VxRail	13.8%
StarWind Virtual SAN	2.1%
Other	84.1%

HCI

Featured Reviews

Jccerong Heron

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.

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Saleh Khalid

computer scientist at Imam University

Experience improved integration and cost-efficiency while facing support challenges

The best features of VxRail are its compatibility with VMware, its hyper-converged solution capabilities, and its single line of support. These are the most beneficial aspects of VxRail. I switched from the previous HP solution to Dell solution because it was a good decision. With HP servers, we dealt with a vendor for the compute servers, another vendor for the storage servers, and another vendor for the networking, which required us to manage multiple vendors. Now, we have a single team who can handle VxRail and a single line of support. We don't need anything other than that, and these are the differences we noticed after we switched.

Read full review

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	165
Midsize Enterprise	54
Large Enterprise	34

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	42
Midsize Enterprise	43
Large Enterprise	56

Questions from the Community

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...

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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...

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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...

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How does HPE Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...

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What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...

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What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...

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Comparisons

StorMagic SvSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 13% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

VMware vSAN vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 10% of the time

Scality RING vs StarWind Virtual SAN

Compared 3% of the time

More StarWind Virtual SAN Competitors

VMware vSAN vs VxRail

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VxRail

Compared 21% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VxRail

Compared 18% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VxRail

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs VxRail

Compared 5% of the time

More VxRail Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN

December 2025

Download StarWind Virtual SAN product report

Buyer's Guide

VxRail

December 2025

Download VxRail product report

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS

VCE VxRail

Overview

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

VxRail is a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance co-engineered by Dell Technologies and VMware, designed to optimize VMware environments by simplifying compute, storage, virtualization, and management.

Built on VMware vSAN software, VxRail ensures high performance, reliability, and flexibility. It supports a broad array of workloads, from business-critical applications to next-generation use cases. VxRail simplifies infrastructure management with powerful integration and seamless scalability, offering centralized management and user-friendly interfaces. Streamlined updates, robust lifecycle management, and one-click upgrades facilitate a user-centric experience that minimizes deployment complexity and staffing needs. However, its performance with disk deduplication, integration with public clouds, and processor support can be enhanced, along with pricing and licensing improvements.

What features define VxRail?

High Performance: Optimized for superior efficiency in VMware environments.
Seamless Scalability: Scales effortlessly to accommodate growing demands.
Centralized Management: Simplifies control through unified interfaces.
Effortless Integration: Easily integrates with VMware tools and services.
Automated Updates: Ensures ongoing system availability through streamlined updates.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Resource Efficiency: Reduces staffing requirements and optimizes resource use.
Flexibility: Supports a variety of use cases and workloads.
Reliable Support: Provides robust support to ensure operational continuity.
Reduced Complexity: Facilitates ease of deployment and minimized setup times.

Organizations across sectors such as finance, telecommunications, education, and manufacturing utilize VxRail for its scalability, ease of deployment, and infrastructure management capabilities. It aids in server and application hosting, storage, and virtualization management, often employing VMware integration. The platform is valued for its ability to consolidate IT components, support VDI solutions, and enhance cloud readiness and resource allocation.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Baker Tilly BVI, CMS Internet, Board Harpeth Hall School

World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual SAN vs. VxRail

December 2025

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