The main use case for VMware vSAN is auxiliary services, such as Windows, Linux, and not a specific server, but mixed loads.
System Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Compatible legacy solutions, effective replication backup, and simple installation
Pros and Cons
- "VMware vSAN is compatible with the legacy hypervisor solutions and most of the features are good."
- "The technical support, it's not satisfactory. Whenever we raise a ticket it takes a lot of time to have an engineer get involved sometimes, or we receive a less experienced engineer. We then have to repeat the situation to the next engineer which all takes time."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We were able to replace lots of negative servers and replace them with VMware.
What is most valuable?
VMware vSAN is compatible with the legacy hypervisor solutions and most of the features are good.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately five years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is good. The node cluster they are using has been enough for them.
we have approximately 1,000 users using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support, it's not satisfactory. Whenever we raise a ticket it takes a lot of time to have an engineer get involved sometimes, or we receive a less experienced engineer. We then have to repeat the situation to the next engineer which all takes time.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is not complicated. The deployment of VMware vSAN with VxRail can be completed in three to four hours, for one cluster out of the physical setup. The physical setup could take approximately one day. After that, deployment is very easy to complete.
What about the implementation team?
We have four people that do the deployment and physical setup of the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution package depends on the nodes and other factors. The cost some of our customers paid was $500,000. The licensing cost for the components is very good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
My customers were comfortable with VMware and then they decided to use VMware instead of another solution.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is if someone is interested in VMware vSAN it is a good solution. It is stable, supportive, and compatible with many solutions. VMware vSAN is the best.
Customers have to consider when choosing VMware to receive a lot of features, such as replication backup, and if they went with another solution it would be more expensive.
I rate VMware vSAN a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Total hyperconverged facility
Pros and Cons
- "The valuable feature of the solution is the total hyperconverged facility."
- "The solution functions as the marketing says, as long as you follow certain rules."
What is most valuable?
The valuable feature of the solution is the total hyperconverged facility. And that either it's hyperconverged, or it's standalone with storage arrays.
What needs improvement?
From the implementer side, the solution is very comparable to Nutanix. The only difference is that VMware requires more initial nodes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with VMware for fifteen years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Regarding the scalability of the solution, you've got 64 nodes into a stretched cluster for VMware. Nutanix goes a little bit above. The only problem is that due to licensing things, such as when you have Oracle and other things, what you tend to do is multiple clusters in order to avoid licensing costs.
The biggest network I have implemented was 16 nodes.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others looking into implementing VMware vSAN is to stick to the rules. That's where the problem is. If you don't stick to the rules and prerequisites, you end up having a nightmare.
People have a tendency to take hyper-converged solutions for granted. They function as the marketing says, as long as you follow certain rules. If those rules are not followed, you end up with a slower infrastructure than you ever had before.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten because it lacks flexibility. Those rules I'm talking to you about, how you have to follow the prerequisites, that is well hidden, is that you can't do what you want. You don't have total freedom. You have to respect the rules and that's why respecting the rules sometimes is a burden.
They always recommend that nodes are the same type, have the same disk structure, and if you change some disk structures, you have to change them on all the nodes. Although somewhere it's understandable, it's a burden. It should not happen.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSAN
June 2025

Learn what your peers think about VMware vSAN. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.
System support engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Stable, easy to set up and quick to deploy
Pros and Cons
- "The scalability has been quite good."
- "We would like to see even more storage capacity."
What is our primary use case?
We have a backup server using this technology. We move data in real-time.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very stable.
The scalability has been quite good.
The initial setup is pretty quick and easy.
What needs improvement?
We would like to see even more storage capacity.
Technical support could be more knowledgeable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for two to three years. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good. The solution doesn't have bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable and the performance has been great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. We have already upgraded to extend it. We do plan to extend it again and we are going to expand.
How are customer service and support?
We've dealt with technical support previously. It would be helpful if they were more knowledgeable. We had a bottleneck with the technical support team. We required a part and we just couldn't get it and it was delayed. It caused an issue around storage for us.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did previously use internal storage solutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very straightforward. It's so simple you don't need any technical assistance or anything like that.
The deployment is pretty fast and only takes one to three hours or so. It's not a long process at all.
What about the implementation team?
We do have an integrator that can assist with the implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We do have to pay a yearly licensing fee. It's a subscription for the hardware.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. We are very satisfied with its capabilities.
I would recommend the solution to others.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Director at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Provides interoperability between VMware products but needs more support for applications
Pros and Cons
- "VMware comes with different stacks like VMware Cloud Foundation, which is integrated with different VMware modules. There's interoperability between VMware products."
- "I would like to see more support for applications. I think currently it only supports applications between two vSAN clusters."
What is most valuable?
VMware comes with different stacks like VMware Cloud Foundation, which is integrated with different VMware modules. There's interoperability between VMware products.
Another good feature is that you can create profiles for each VM. You can mirror one set of VMs according to another set of VMs. You can also define the quality of service for that profile.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see more support for applications. I think currently it only supports applications between two vSAN clusters. I heard that VMware is planning to have applications using vSAN at the hypervisor layer. I'm not sure whether it's available or it's being planned for the next release. I would prefer it to be on the storage layer than on the hypervisor layer.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with VMware vSAN for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with the stability of VMware vSAN.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with scalability, but I think historically it supports only 64 nodes. It's a VMware limitation, but in our deployment in Sri Lanka, hardly any customers use that many nodes. If you consider that aspect, then scalability is okay. The largest customer we have here uses two nodes.
For Nutanix, there is no such limit as far as I know.
How are customer service and support?
I'm not happy with the VMware support. There are so many delays attributed to different reasons, like when you transfer the case from one engineer to the other, the second engineer is not aware of what the first engineer has done, so we need to update the second engineer from the beginning.
Their response is also not that fast. We have seen that sometimes the competency of the backend engineers is not that high, and because of that VMware support is a bit of a concern for us. Apart from that, I don't have many issues with the product.
How was the initial setup?
Setup is not that difficult. We have had a few issues with the implementation. Initial setup is not as straightforward as Nutanix.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Compared to Nutanix, the design of VMware vSAN is probably the highest in the marketplace in terms of market penetration. I think it's number one, and Nutanix is not that far behind.
From an upgrade perspective, it's not as straightforward compared to a Nutanix. You need to do a lot of checks and balances before you do the upgrade. With Nutanix, you don't need to worry about it at all, probably because those nodes are coming from Nutanix itself. Because of that, they kind of keep everything to a single file where all these checks will be done initially when you run it. With vSAN, the server could be coming from different vendors like HP or Huawei. So it won't be that easy to come up with a single package to check all of these formula licenses because the upgrade is not that smooth compared to Nutanix.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution 7 out of 10.
My advice is to plan well which workload you're going to use for VMware vSAN. Not all workloads are suitable for VMware vSAN. Before using VMware vSAN, you should consider implementation planning, network sites, and group layout.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Managing Director at WISE VARY
Easy to manage, with a convenient dashboard and good stability
Pros and Cons
- "The solution fits well with my requirements."
- "It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for virtualization for our organization.
What is most valuable?
The solution is easy to manage due to the fact that it uses the same dashboard as Center.
vSAN is okay for HCI.
The solution fits well with my requirements.
The stability is good.
The product can scale.
I have always found the technical support to be helpful and responsive.
What needs improvement?
So far, the solution is okay with me.
It would be ideal if the solution offered some intelligent monitoring. Right now, most of these features are in another subscription such as Log Insight.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We currently have ten people that directly use the solution in our organization.
The scalability is simple. It's very easy to scale the HCI node.
How are customer service and support?
We rarely use technical support. We might use them for consulting purposes sometimes if, for example, we have a new system and then we are concerned that it might or might not be running on vSAN. We might need them to probe it first. So far, we have been satisfied with the level of support we get.
How was the initial setup?
I was not a part of the implementation process and therefore cannot speak to how easy or difficult it may be.
The solution has very few maintenance requirements. Occasionally, they may recommend a fix or patch by updating it, and we do so. However, other than that, it's pretty simple to maintain.
What about the implementation team?
Normally we use a local system integrator or distributor to do the setup for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is competitive with other vendors. It's mid-range in terms of pricing. It's not cheap and it's not overly expensive.
What other advice do I have?
We are a customer and an end-user.
We are using the latest version of the solution at this time.
I'd recommend the solution to other users. It's easy to deploy and great for virtualization.
I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Buyer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Reliable, scales well, and has good documentation
Pros and Cons
- "I like the tolerance of VMware vSAN."
- "The integration could be improved. I would like to see integration with other platforms."
What is our primary use case?
We use VMware vSAN to build storage for our virtual machines.
What is most valuable?
I like the tolerance of VMware vSAN.
What needs improvement?
The integration could be improved. I would like to see integration with other platforms.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using VMware vSAN in our environment. I have used this solution for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
VMware vSAN is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is easy to scale VMware vSAN.
In our organization, we have 100 members.
We may increase our usage in the future. With the company's growth, there are plans to expand in the future. We may require additional members. It's possible that we'll be able to scale this solution more in the future.
How are customer service and support?
We read the manual, which provided us with a thorough explanation. It was sufficient. We use technical support only on rare occasions.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Nutanix is a product that I am familiar with. We were able to use the Nutanix supported trial version.
In Microsoft's system center, both Nutanix and VMware can be easily maintained.
We will not be using the Nutanx system at this time.
Nutanix's integration with other platforms could be improved.
How was the initial setup?
This solution was easily installed by our team.
We have a team of four people to deploy and maintain this solution, including one administrator and one manager.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This solution requires the purchase of a license.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Because of COVID-19's impacts, we looked for a different IT system that would match our budget.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I would rate VMware vSAN an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Solution Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
High performance, scalable, and great technical support
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has high performance."
- "VMware vSAN could improve by adding NAS and object storage."
What is our primary use case?
VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage solution and there are no hardware dependencies. We use it for general-purpose workloads or Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).
What is most valuable?
The solution has high performance.
What needs improvement?
VMware vSAN could improve by adding NAS and object storage.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
VMware vSAN is scalable.
We have approximately 5,000 people using this solution in my organization.
Our last customer in India had over 180 servers running.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support has been great from VMware vSAN.
How was the initial setup?
The installation was straightforward. We did not find it difficult.
What about the implementation team?
We have a team of 50 that does the maintenance and support of the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay for a license to use the solution through our company CapEx and then we continue to pay annually.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate VMware vSAN a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
AVP Enterprise Sales at Ashtech Infotech (India) Pvt.Ltd.
Offers a single console for management, is easy to set up, and is very stable
Pros and Cons
- "I have found the solution to be scalable."
- "The pricing could be better when it comes to renewing the licenses."
What is our primary use case?
We're primarily using this solution for VDI.
How has it helped my organization?
Previously, we were using three-tier architecture. Therefore, we would have three different consoles. However, after adopting a CA solution, we are only on a single console and we have cut down the EU engineers we needed as we didn't require multiple engineers for managing multiple layers. Now, we have a single engineer who can manage everything from the top layer from a single console.
What is most valuable?
The single console for management is the most valuable aspect of the solution.
The initial setup is very simple.
The solution has been quite stable.
I have found the solution to be scalable.
What needs improvement?
VMware is currently working on quite a lot of improvements and they're coming out with lots of novel features in their new releases. There's only one improvement area, and that is it needs a little bit more software and hardware to make it similar to Nutanix.
The pricing could be better when it comes to renewing the licenses.
Technical support could have a faster response time.
It's hard to come up with an exact feature that might be good to include in a future release, as each customer is different and each customer likely has different feature needs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for almost four years at this point. It's been a while now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. We have been using VMware for almost more than 10 years and there have been no issues regarding VMware products. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is quite good. Occasionally, it could be faster sometimes, however, largely, I have been pleased with the level of response I get.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup is not overly complex or difficult. I found it to be straightforward and relatively easy. A company shouldn't have any issues with the setup process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
When it comes to the renewal of the license, it's a very expensive solution.
We require price protection. VMware doesn't provide price protection. Many other products provide that, however, it's not something that VMware does.
What other advice do I have?
We're a VMware partner.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
If you are using VMware for a long time, there is no need to change your platform, and you can easily add vSAN as a solution. On top of that, there are multiple tools available to be able to have a hybrid cloud solution available for vSAN. If you go with the VMware Cloud, you've got the SCA as well as a hybrid cloud solution in a single product. If you are not willing to use VMware, then you can definitely choose either Nutanix or maybe a Microsoft option or any number of other solutions that may be available in the market.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner

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