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Azure Local vs HPE Alletra dHCI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 21, 2026

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

Azure Local
Ranking in HCI
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Alletra dHCI
Ranking in HCI
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Local is 3.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.0%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Alletra dHCI4.0%
Azure Stack HCI3.2%
Other92.8%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

MC
IT Solution Architect at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
Experience with seamless cost-saving capacity, though integration and support need refinement
An area that could be possibly improved with Azure Stack HCI is the stretched cluster functionality, which was included in version 23H2 for disaster recovery purposes. However, this functionality has been put on hold for the next release, and Microsoft has decided to discontinue stretched cluster technology completely, which is disappointing. They promise to bring back a significant or similar solution in a future release, but currently, there is no such functionality for stretched clusters between two sites in the latest versions of Azure Stack HCI, which poses a problem as we were looking forward to utilizing it. The integration with Azure Arc provides a unified management experience, but I find it to be fairly clunky. The integration exists, but it is not smooth or very easy to use. While they've started to integrate the two, the integration lacks maturity and makes it difficult to manage effectively. There are discrepancies between managing VMs through Azure Arc versus managing them directly, as changes made not using the Azure Arc integration are not easily reflected in Azure Arc. For instance, if I have an Arc-enabled VM and make changes to it outside the Arc interface, those changes may not be registered directly in Azure Arc, leading to issues in fully viewing the status and configuration of VMs depending on the management tool used. You either manage VMs fully through Arc or not at all because mixing the two methods results in incomplete visibility and inconsistencies.
TW
IT Consultant at Autonubil System GmbH
Synchronous replication and strong support enhance storage and data protection
The most valuable features of HPE Alletra dHCI are the synchronous replication, the easy extension for more storage, and its strong support. Data protection is very good, offering features such as virtual lock for snapshots, multi-factor authentication, and encryption for volumes. The solution handles workload variability very well without any performance issues even for demanding applications like SAP, SQL, and Citrix.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution has the latest processor."
"Some of the best features of Azure Stack HCI are that, as we are primarily a Microsoft Windows Server organization using Microsoft Windows Server on most of our servers, we already own data center licenses for Microsoft operating systems, and the hypervisor, Azure Stack HCI, actually comes with that license, which allows us to switch from VMware to Azure Stack HCI without any additional cost, significantly reducing our operational costs, especially now that Broadcom has purchased VMware, to $0."
"Azure Local, formerly known as Azure Stack HCI, is gaining attention due to its offering of a cloud experience on-premises."
"Azure Stack HCI has been very beneficial for disaster recovery operations, though the main data center still has a mix of infrastructure between other products."
"The scalability is extremely good."
"The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent."
"The features of Azure Stack HCI that have proven to be the most beneficial for optimizing our company's data center operations revolve around its performance."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."
"The product provides zero downtime."
"The technical support services are good."
"It is easier to manage compared to the other vendors."
"The integration of AI tools for predictive analysis sets it apart from competitors."
"We have the ability to increase the storage without any additional costs."
"HPE Alletra dHCI was good because we could have the vVols, which we are using for our production server, with the snapshots."
"HPE Alletra dHCI is very comfortable with high performance and quick installation."
"So far, the solution's performance is very good."
 

Cons

"The implementation was very difficult for the operation team at that time, as the necessary skills to implement and integrate this product were not available."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement. Since I've been working very closely with this product, there are many areas, especially in software-defined networking. We had to improve multiple areas because we depended on the service fabric cluster to manage the software-defined network. That means we're already running a hypervisor inside a VM, and we're managing the control plane of the software-defined network. That's another cluster. So, multiple layers make the complexity more. So, from an operational perspective, it's very difficult to manage."
"A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved."
"Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware."
"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The biggest challenge with the tool is not being able to manage everything from Microsoft Azure Portal."
"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."
"The product does not support file services."
"Software upgrade is still more complicated than the competitors, so that's an area of improvement."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI's website does not open properly or work consistently."
"Sometimes the technical support would get back to us in two hours, but other times it would take them two or even three days to respond."
"The solution could improve by providing better file-level restoration and DVX system options."
"I rate Nimble one out of 10 for ease of setup. Setting up Nimble Storage was a nightmare. It took us three months to deal with all the kinks and bugs. We had two people from HPE assisting us and two from our team."
"A potential area of improvement for HPE Alletra dHCI could be including integration with applications because it is currently just for virtualization and more insights of what is running inside the virtual machines."
"Companies in small countries face problems with spare parts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main licenses are the OS licenses, the OEM licenses, and so on. They are very much aligned with the cost of expectations. We never had any challenges with the licensing at all."
"The pricing is high compared to other tools."
"The product is very affordable."
"The product is costly."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The prices are very high."
"The cost of the licensing is reasonable."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stack HCI?
This solution costs €10 per core per month. The whole stack is free if you are renting Windows Server Datacenter.
What needs improvement with Azure Stack HCI?
There could be improvements with Azure Stack HCI regarding the license and price, as they have significantly higher prices compared to other competitors. The end-to-end encryption provided by Azure...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Pricing is rated at six, which is normal. The price is appropriate for the capabilities and features that the customers receive.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately. When extending or when servers are already present, normal Alletra systems are more suitable. dHCI projects ofte...
What is your primary use case for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Our customers' usual use cases for HPE Alletra dHCI ( /products/hpe-alletra-dhci-reviews ) are the same as with the Nimble ( /products/nimble-32125-reviews ) systems: virtualization, storage for bu...
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Local vs. HPE Alletra dHCI and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.