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StarWind Virtual SAN vs VxRail 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
StarWind Virtual SAN cuts costs and downtime, enhancing ROI with high performance and savings on hardware and consulting.
Sentiment score
5.2
VxRail delivers ROI through simplified management, reduced costs, quick deployment, and seamless integration into hybrid cloud environments.
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.
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.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.1
StarWind's customer service is praised for promptness, expertise, and exceptional support, ensuring smooth operations and positive client experiences.
Sentiment score
7.7
VxRail support is praised for knowledge and resolution but criticized for response times and international availability challenges.
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.
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.
When we set it up, they validate our settings and configurations to ensure we don't miss anything.
A key area for improvement for VMware would be response time.
The support is all provided by Dell, and it is quite good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for seamless scalability and flexible licensing, accommodating various business needs efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.6
VxRail is highly scalable, effortlessly expanding resources, supporting up to 64 nodes, ideal for diverse organizational needs.
I believe that scalability should be further improved, especially considering the possibility that environments may grow exponentially.
I have never needed to scale up or add additional nodes with StarWind Virtual SAN, but we have had to expand, and customer support has been excellent.
StarWind Virtual SAN's scalability is good, and I have had an easy experience adding more space to the system.
There are limitations, such as the inability to upgrade from a single to dual CPU in certain configurations.
Scalability is easy with VxRail.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for its stability, reliability, and efficient performance across diverse hardware, ensuring minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
8.5
VxRail offers high stability, reliability, and robust performance, with users appreciating its minimal issues and graceful handling of failures.
In my experience, StarWind Virtual SAN is very stable, and I have never had a single instability issue.
It has been working for five years and the customer is still happy with it.
I ran it on a two-node Hyper-V cluster setup, and I didn't experience any unexpected crashes or major issues.
It is a very stable and mature product, with centralized management and upgrades being perfect for us.
The product is very stable, and I rate its stability as nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

StarWind Virtual SAN requires better documentation, automation, interface, network configuration, feature trials, pricing, cloud integration, and enhanced storage management.
VxRail users face compatibility, scalability, and cost issues, seeking better integration, automation, and improved support while managing complexities.
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.
There have been cases where not understanding exactly what's failing on the Virtual SAN has been an issue.
Limited feedback in the management GUI is the main area where I would like to see StarWind Virtual SAN get better.
It requires a very clean environment to proceed without issues.
The major issue with VxRail is the razoring process, which can only be performed by Dell.
Stabilizing the update procedure further would make it better.
 

Setup Cost

StarWind Virtual SAN is praised for competitive pricing, low setup costs, simple licensing, and excellent price/performance for SMBs.
VxRail is competitive but costly, with potential negotiation benefits, yet high initial costs concern smaller organizations.
The costs are acceptable and very competitive compared to other hardware-only HCI solutions.
I talked to the sales team, they gave me a quote with a perpetual license with the support and everything went through smoothly.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that it was easy to implement, license, and the cost was very good.
Previously, the cost was higher, however, recent changes in VMware pricing have reduced it.
The cost varies for us as a large company because we receive special offers from Dell.
Purchasing VxRail is quite expensive compared to a simple Dell server.
 

Valuable Features

StarWind Virtual SAN excels with high availability, ease of use, cost reduction, and robust support, ideal for SMBs and enterprises.
VxRail enhances productivity with seamless integration, centralized management, scalability, and cost-effective hyper-converged infrastructure for efficient resource consolidation.
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.
StarWind Virtual SAN helps us keep customer satisfaction and provides the solutions we need without having to hire many IT specialists.
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.
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.
The most valuable feature of VxRail is the VxRail Manager, which centralizes resources like storage built with vSAN.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

StarWind Virtual SAN
Ranking in HCI
5th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (1st)
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
133
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual SAN is 1.9%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 16.1%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VxRail16.1%
StarWind Virtual SAN1.9%
Other82.0%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Vladimir Simion - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Rami Jadallah - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline management and integration with seamless upgrades
The primary reasons customers choose VxRail include ease of management, ease of upgrades, and integration with VMware. The hyper-converged infrastructure simplifies software and hardware upgrades. 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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business159
Midsize Enterprise54
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise42
Large Enterprise56
 

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...
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 testing purposes, so there was no cost involved during my evaluation. That made i...
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, I had access only to the free version, which required using PowerShell scripts ...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

StarWind SAN & NAS
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about StarWind Virtual SAN vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,483 professionals have used our research since 2012.