I would like Sangfor to have a presence on some public cloud offerings, such as Azure or AWS, to build disaster recovery sites. This functionality is currently missing in the Pakistani market.
Initially, there were issues with wrong sizing and certain features being locked, although these have been fixed. The major drawback is its adoption in major tier-one sectors or banks, which is gradually improving. In its early days, Sangfor created hidden snapshots that led to storage penalties. This has been resolved. Another concern is the initial reluctance of tier-one banks to adopt a Chinese brand amidst large technology giants like VMware and Nutanix.
Project Head, Director of Sales and Operations at Core ISP Router
Real User
Top 10
Sep 2, 2024
Sangfor HCI's license mechanism is too complicated. The license agreement is a distributed license. Within the HCI platform, Sangfor HCI has multiple licenses in terms of services. Sangfor HCI has a separate license for the security services, a separate license for the Doctor services, and application services. They have multiple SKUs in separate forms. As per local market requirements, I think they need to couple up these or bundle up the license model.
Head of IT Governance, Cybersecurity & Network Infrastructure at Indus Motor Company
Real User
Top 5
Apr 16, 2024
Product certification could be improved. In Sangfor, when you accidentally delete a VM, it is moved to a recycle bin, which remains for 30 days before being permanently removed. This feature allows for easy restoration of the VM from the recycle bin, which is a significant advantage compared to VMware, where deleted VMs cannot be quickly restored from the data store.
My company faced some issues with the product, as our virtual machines crashed, and we had to face some security issues. Thanks to the remote help provided by the technical engineers from Sangfor, who helped our company deal with the issues in the product, after which, for a year and a half to two, the product has been running fine without a single issue. With Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, issues stemmed from the crash of virtual machines in our company, which is an area of concern where improvements are required. In my company, we use some sort of a more advanced backup mechanism right now. If a few advanced features for backup mechanisms or application features, like DR or CDP, are available, which are parts that are mostly included in the license-based modules in Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure currently, it would be great. Native backup mechanisms are available in Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, and we use them in our company, but a little bit more advanced features must be incorporated for basic users.
Learn what your peers think about Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
Senior Executive IT Infrastructure at Wateen Telecom (pvt.)
Real User
Aug 14, 2023
Sangfor’s hypervisor is not mature enough to handle all the flavors related to industrial needs. Hyper-V and VMware ESXi are two renowned hypervisors that easily support all OSs. Sangfor lacks performance while working with a new VM and assigning the hybrid resources to the existing VMs. When the mount point is already installed in the solution, and we migrate a VM from Hyper-V to Sangfor’s hypervisor, there is a lag in initiating the process due to the modem capabilities. The solution’s performance is very bad.
Sangfor HCI has room for improvement in terms of integration. So, the integration with Sangfor HCI is not as extensive as in Nutanix. Usually, the integration should be straightforward, but with Sangfor HCI, we need to use another API to make the integration happen. That's what happened with our client's project. In future releases, from a business point of view, Sangfor HCI needs to focus on coding, research, and testing, or involve the R&D department. Most of the time, Sangfor HCI utilizes this technology to follow the BIUI (Business Intelligence User Interface). Sometimes it becomes difficult to recall the exact details of a particular feature at the moment. Maybe the next feature should address this issue, so that we don't experience significant delays in the process.
Infrastructure Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Jun 16, 2023
It would be beneficial if Sangfor HCI provided us with more tools to perform various tasks. Currently, when we need to do capacity planning, we have to rely on Sangfor's support team for assistance. However, if there were dedicated tools available, we could handle it ourselves and increase efficiency. For instance, Nutanix has some tools called Nutanix sizing tools. I would like Sangfor to offer similar tools specifically for IT sizing. These tools would help us accurately size our infrastructure since we operate on a service basis. We have numerous customers with different needs, and being able to easily size the infrastructure based on specific criteria would be advantageous. Currently, we face challenges in obtaining customer information, as it is not feasible to visit each customer individually and collect data. Having a dedicated tool for this purpose would greatly improve our operations. I've heard from the community that such a tool exists, but I don't know where to download it or how to access it as a user. If such features exist, it would be beneficial to understand how we utilize those features, check their functionality, and manipulate them. We have documentation available for this solution. However, it may not provide detailed information about these specific tools. It's not easy to find comprehensive documentation for this type of tool.
I'd like to see network support, it's very useful to have support with the sub-suite solution. I'd also like to see additional features included in the future.
Branch Lead at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Reseller
Jan 17, 2023
One question that has come up frequently in the last week is whether or not the renewal cost for Sangfor's HCI solution is too high. Customers are hesitant to renew their contracts because of this cost, but everything else about the solution is good. The features are fine and even better than VMware's. However, the renewal cost is a bit higher.
IT Sales Engineer at Comstar - Information Systems Associates Ltd.
Real User
Top 5
Dec 15, 2022
I have prepared this solution with VMware, and both of them are the same. However, the processing speed and cost should be improved in Sangfor HCI. VMware is more economical than Sangfor HCI.
Sangfor HCI could be improved with certification and the right ecosystem for ISVs like Oracle and SAP. In the next release, I'd like to see more adapters to allow us to migrate applications to the cloud when needed.
Chief Technical Officer at Cypher Technology Pvt. Ltd.
Real User
Apr 5, 2022
It should have object storage. It already has network virtualization and micro-segmentation, but it is missing object storage. It does not have object storage. vSAN also does not have object storage, but Nutanix has object storage, and it is natively integrated into its HCI. So, if you pay for the object storage license, you have that module pre-built. I would've been really happy if we had point-to-point network connectivity between the virtual firewall and the customer site lease line so that we could have a private IP VPN. Sangfor is relatively new in all markets. I would request the Sangfor team to come up with a partner training program with a free voucher so that we can get some of our staff trained and certified in Sangfor and educate them in a proper way.
As far as I know, no hyper-convergence solution includes security, so you have to buy security from another brand. For example, you buy SimpliVity or Nutanix. They don't really have a security solution inside the product. It would be good if there is a security solution inside this solution so that it is not only for the virtualization of CPU, RAM, disk, and network but also for security. Its price should also be better.
Junior Solutions Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Reseller
Dec 23, 2020
It can have more compatibility and new features. I would also like to see better performance. Some of the other HCI solutions already provide the SSD and flash storage and much higher Intel processors. Sangfor HCI can improve on that.
Sangfor HCI is an IT infrastructure platform built on converged architecture. It integrates server virtualization, distributed storage, and networking. Sangfor HCI provides a unified management platform that converges compute, storage, networking, and security on a single software stack. This approach delivers a simplified architecture, ease of use, and reliability for business-critical applications.
Hyperconverged infrastructure is a unified system of data storage. HCI combines storage,...
I would like Sangfor to have a presence on some public cloud offerings, such as Azure or AWS, to build disaster recovery sites. This functionality is currently missing in the Pakistani market.
Initially, there were issues with wrong sizing and certain features being locked, although these have been fixed. The major drawback is its adoption in major tier-one sectors or banks, which is gradually improving. In its early days, Sangfor created hidden snapshots that led to storage penalties. This has been resolved. Another concern is the initial reluctance of tier-one banks to adopt a Chinese brand amidst large technology giants like VMware and Nutanix.
Sangfor HCI's license mechanism is too complicated. The license agreement is a distributed license. Within the HCI platform, Sangfor HCI has multiple licenses in terms of services. Sangfor HCI has a separate license for the security services, a separate license for the Doctor services, and application services. They have multiple SKUs in separate forms. As per local market requirements, I think they need to couple up these or bundle up the license model.
Product certification could be improved. In Sangfor, when you accidentally delete a VM, it is moved to a recycle bin, which remains for 30 days before being permanently removed. This feature allows for easy restoration of the VM from the recycle bin, which is a significant advantage compared to VMware, where deleted VMs cannot be quickly restored from the data store.
Sangfor has to expand its service network to other countries. They have very good services in the Gulf but don't have local partners in Egypt.
My company faced some issues with the product, as our virtual machines crashed, and we had to face some security issues. Thanks to the remote help provided by the technical engineers from Sangfor, who helped our company deal with the issues in the product, after which, for a year and a half to two, the product has been running fine without a single issue. With Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, issues stemmed from the crash of virtual machines in our company, which is an area of concern where improvements are required. In my company, we use some sort of a more advanced backup mechanism right now. If a few advanced features for backup mechanisms or application features, like DR or CDP, are available, which are parts that are mostly included in the license-based modules in Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure currently, it would be great. Native backup mechanisms are available in Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, and we use them in our company, but a little bit more advanced features must be incorporated for basic users.
Sangfor’s hypervisor is not mature enough to handle all the flavors related to industrial needs. Hyper-V and VMware ESXi are two renowned hypervisors that easily support all OSs. Sangfor lacks performance while working with a new VM and assigning the hybrid resources to the existing VMs. When the mount point is already installed in the solution, and we migrate a VM from Hyper-V to Sangfor’s hypervisor, there is a lag in initiating the process due to the modem capabilities. The solution’s performance is very bad.
Sangfor HCI has room for improvement in terms of integration. So, the integration with Sangfor HCI is not as extensive as in Nutanix. Usually, the integration should be straightforward, but with Sangfor HCI, we need to use another API to make the integration happen. That's what happened with our client's project. In future releases, from a business point of view, Sangfor HCI needs to focus on coding, research, and testing, or involve the R&D department. Most of the time, Sangfor HCI utilizes this technology to follow the BIUI (Business Intelligence User Interface). Sometimes it becomes difficult to recall the exact details of a particular feature at the moment. Maybe the next feature should address this issue, so that we don't experience significant delays in the process.
It would be beneficial if Sangfor HCI provided us with more tools to perform various tasks. Currently, when we need to do capacity planning, we have to rely on Sangfor's support team for assistance. However, if there were dedicated tools available, we could handle it ourselves and increase efficiency. For instance, Nutanix has some tools called Nutanix sizing tools. I would like Sangfor to offer similar tools specifically for IT sizing. These tools would help us accurately size our infrastructure since we operate on a service basis. We have numerous customers with different needs, and being able to easily size the infrastructure based on specific criteria would be advantageous. Currently, we face challenges in obtaining customer information, as it is not feasible to visit each customer individually and collect data. Having a dedicated tool for this purpose would greatly improve our operations. I've heard from the community that such a tool exists, but I don't know where to download it or how to access it as a user. If such features exist, it would be beneficial to understand how we utilize those features, check their functionality, and manipulate them. We have documentation available for this solution. However, it may not provide detailed information about these specific tools. It's not easy to find comprehensive documentation for this type of tool.
I'd like to see network support, it's very useful to have support with the sub-suite solution. I'd also like to see additional features included in the future.
The solution could improve by including backup capabilities.
The initialization is not fully automated and has room for improvement.
One question that has come up frequently in the last week is whether or not the renewal cost for Sangfor's HCI solution is too high. Customers are hesitant to renew their contracts because of this cost, but everything else about the solution is good. The features are fine and even better than VMware's. However, the renewal cost is a bit higher.
I have prepared this solution with VMware, and both of them are the same. However, the processing speed and cost should be improved in Sangfor HCI. VMware is more economical than Sangfor HCI.
Sangfor HCI could be improved with certification and the right ecosystem for ISVs like Oracle and SAP. In the next release, I'd like to see more adapters to allow us to migrate applications to the cloud when needed.
The migration process could be easier.
I can't recall missing any specific features. The interface could be a little bit better. We'd like the solution to offer a built-in firewall.
It should have object storage. It already has network virtualization and micro-segmentation, but it is missing object storage. It does not have object storage. vSAN also does not have object storage, but Nutanix has object storage, and it is natively integrated into its HCI. So, if you pay for the object storage license, you have that module pre-built. I would've been really happy if we had point-to-point network connectivity between the virtual firewall and the customer site lease line so that we could have a private IP VPN. Sangfor is relatively new in all markets. I would request the Sangfor team to come up with a partner training program with a free voucher so that we can get some of our staff trained and certified in Sangfor and educate them in a proper way.
Sangfor could improve its built-in CAP system. Right now, we need to use an external tool for CAP.
As far as I know, no hyper-convergence solution includes security, so you have to buy security from another brand. For example, you buy SimpliVity or Nutanix. They don't really have a security solution inside the product. It would be good if there is a security solution inside this solution so that it is not only for the virtualization of CPU, RAM, disk, and network but also for security. Its price should also be better.
Its virtual machine tools can be improved. These tools should be enhanced for use in other applications and operating systems, such as Linux.
It can have more compatibility and new features. I would also like to see better performance. Some of the other HCI solutions already provide the SSD and flash storage and much higher Intel processors. Sangfor HCI can improve on that.
The error reporting needs to be improved.
Sangfor does not support a SAS configuration, which is something that we would like. I would like to see support for Kubernetes and Docker.