Azure Local vs HPE Hyper Converged comparison

Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the HCI category. Microsoft is ranked #12 with an average rating of 7.6, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.4. Microsoft holds a 3.5% mindshare in HCI, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

Azure Local

Read 8 Azure Local reviews

2,066 Views
2,066 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

HPE Hyper Converged

Read 38 HPE Hyper Converged reviews

2,578 Views
2,475 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Azure Local

HPE Hyper Converged

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 21, 2026

HPE Hyper Converged and Azure Local compete in high-performance infrastructure solutions. HPE Hyper Converged generally has the upper hand due to its ease of deployment and robust support, while Azure Local is preferred for its cloud integration capabilities.

Features: HPE Hyper Converged includes integrated compute, storage, and networking, eliminating the need for complex configurations and offering easy scalability. Its fast backup and security features are also highly regarded. Azure Local excels in hybrid cloud integration, software-defined networking, and supports Azure Kubernetes Service for managing and deploying microservices in data centers.

Room for Improvement: HPE Hyper Converged could enhance support for legacy systems and adopt more advanced deduplication and compression technologies. Azure Local can improve its VM migration capabilities from other platforms such as VMware and streamline its initial setup process. User interface enhancements could also improve overall usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Hyper Converged offers an intuitive setup with minimal expertise required, benefiting from its extensive support network. Azure Local's deployment might be complex initially, but Microsoft's robust support and integration with Azure services aid users through the process.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Hyper Converged provides competitive setup costs with strong ROI through cost-effective management and scalability. Azure Local, while possibly more expensive due to cloud integration features, offers substantial ROI for cloud-based operations, reducing operational costs for Microsoft licensed data centers.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Local vs. HPE Hyper Converged Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Local vs. HPE Hyper Converged

February 2026

Download the complete report

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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:

Categories and Ranking

Azure Local

Ranking in HCI

12th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

HPE Hyper Converged

Ranking in HCI

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Local is 3.5%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 2.9%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HPE Hyper Converged	2.9%
Azure Local	3.5%
Other	93.6%

HCI

Featured Reviews

Martin Coloumbe

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.

Read full review

GosayeErko

System Engineer at BIOS Engineering

Infrastructure management simplifies for clients with integrated interface and enhanced resource utilization

Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and most clients are skipping VMware because VMware has changed its licensing method. If HPE starts to use its own hypervisor for its HCI solutions, it will be the best solution. We push a different vendor for the backup and replication, so we only use the HCI, then we use Veeam for the backup and replication section.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."

"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."

"In my hybrid cloud setup, there are three features I've found very efficient. The first is software-defined networking. Similar to Azure where you create virtual networks and software load balancing, Azure Stack HCI lets you configure them with a drag-and-drop experience on the on-premises cluster. That's one of the good feature."

"The solution has the latest processor."

"The scalability is extremely good."

"Azure Local, formerly known as Azure Stack HCI, is gaining attention due to its offering of a cloud experience on-premises."

More Azure Local pros

"Hyper-convergence is the most valuable aspect of the solution. We can avoid downtime when there's maintenance or updates needed. Also, we have homogenous hardware, so we have a lot of trust in the solution's reliability."

"The product enables me to use any software or database."

"Ease of management, as I come from a software background, and I'm responsible for IT overall. I can get in there and turn some nuts and bolts and make things happen without any trouble."

"There are multiple advantages. Typically, being an all-flash storage, which is available through either SimpliVity or dHCI, the performance is much better because the IOPS goes high, so it's more powerful in terms of performance. Secondly, if I'm talking of SimpliVity Hyper Convergence solution from HPE, unlike the competition, even if three hard drives fail, you are still running the solution."

"The features of HPE Hyper Converged that are most effective and beneficial are its simplicity as well as its scalability."

"It scales very well."

"Hyper Converge is easier to manage and performs better than traditional infrastructure."

"HPE Hyper Converged is excellent because it can avoid the usage of storage area network."

More HPE Hyper Converged pros

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."

"A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved."

"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."

"Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware."

"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."

"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."

"I would like to see a more intuitive, user-friendly UI."

"One problem I've had is that I was trying to do a move and it was not working. I was given an error and a message asking me to shut down the machine first and then move it to another host."

"The initial setup of HPE Hyper Converged requires study and a comprehensive understanding of virtualization."

"Some improvement is required in the availability of the data and performance. The solution is too expensive for our customers. The pricing should be lower."

"Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and many clients are skipping VMware due to its changed licensing method."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"The software version on the HC380s we are using is version 1. It does not support spanned vCenter which we use since we have multiple sites."

"The solution can be improved on the management side. More management features should be added to future releases."

More HPE Hyper Converged cons

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."

"I would rate the price at seven out of ten. There are no additional licensing fees, but it would be cheaper to go with a dHCI solution."

"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."

"The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal)."

"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."

"HPE Hyper Converged is an affordable solution."

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"If I'm comparing with Dell, HPE Hyper Converged is definitely cheaper in my experience."

"The solutions cost us a lot."

More HPE Hyper Converged pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	18

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Stack HCI?

The solution has the latest processor.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about HPE Hyper Converged?

The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?

The product is intermediate in price, neither expensive nor cheap. We are talking about an on-premises solution without licensing for years. Currently, licensing is required for VMs and CPU cores. ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?

The initial setup of HPE Hyper Converged requires study and a comprehensive understanding of virtualization. The second step is to follow instructions step by step, as it can be complex to understa...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Azure Local

Compared 20% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Azure Local

Compared 18% of the time

VxRail vs Azure Local

Compared 7% of the time

Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series vs Azure Local

Compared 7% of the time

Verge.io vs Azure Local

Compared 4% of the time

More Azure Local Competitors

VxRail vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 23% of the time

VMware vSAN vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 8% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs HPE Hyper Converged

Compared 5% of the time

More HPE Hyper Converged Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Local

February 2026

Download Azure Local product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Hyper Converged

January 2026

Download HPE Hyper Converged product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS

Overview

Azure Local integrates on-premises infrastructure with cloud services, offering tools for software-defined networking, Kubernetes deployment, and VM management. It ensures cost efficiency through existing Microsoft licenses and robust disaster recovery, despite some complexities in deployment.

Azure Local is designed for businesses needing a blend of local and cloud services while remaining compliant with data privacy regulations. It excels in environments demanding high computing power, software-defined networking, and seamless scaling through Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure DevOps. Although it offers excellent VM management and analytics capabilities with Microsoft Fabric, deployment complexity and operational challenges remain. Businesses looking for a robust edge computing solution find significant benefits, especially with efficient local Azure storage and advanced hardware such as the latest processors and SSDs. There are areas needing improvements like multi-cluster management, stability, and Initial setup, which can be cumbersome. Pricing can be a concern against competitors, and enhanced support and training are needed for smoother user experience.

What are the key features of Azure Local?

Software-Defined Networking: Facilitates management with drag-and-drop setup.
Kubernetes Deployment: Provides Azure Kubernetes Service for managing microservices.
VM Management: Reduces server count and enhances efficiency.
Integration with Azure Arc: Seamless collaboration with Azure Arc for hybrid deployments.
Infrastructure as Code: Utilizes Azure DevOps for deployment.
Analytics Capabilities: Microsoft Fabric enhances insights and decision-making.

What benefits should businesses expect from Azure Local?

Cost Efficiency: Leverages existing Microsoft licenses for financial savings.
Improved Disaster Recovery: Advanced edge computing features bolster resiliency.
High Performance: Enhanced by the latest processors and SSDs for demanding applications.
Seamless Cloud Integration: Smooth transition capabilities between local and cloud environments.

Azure Local finds application in sectors like manufacturing and maritime operations where robust edge computing helps in seamless data management and analytics. Factories benefit from compliance with data privacy rules while blended local and cloud services improve efficiency on ships, providing an alternative to VMware with support for virtual desktops and SQL Managed Instances.

Microsoft

HPE Hyper Converged solutions combine intuitive software with the reliability of a world class platform to deliver cloud-like simplicity to your business.

Now, IT can become an internal service provider to end-users by quickly delivering the resources they need for application development and consumption. With HPE Hyper Converged systems companies can operate with cloud efficiency to simplify IT operations with one comprehensive control panel to deploy, monitor, analyze and update – with a single generalist; consume with cloud flexibility to deliver a cloud-like experience, with multi-tenant workspaces that eliminate stranded resources and flexes on demand; and deploy at cloud speed to empower developers and lines-of-business with a self-service portal that can instantly compose and recompose VMs in minutes. Built-in enterprise grade features, such as performance and resiliency enable HPE Hyper Converged systems to easily handle a wide variety of virtualized workloads, including general purpose virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and cloud.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha

Buyer's Guide

Azure Local vs. HPE Hyper Converged

February 2026

Free Report: Azure Local vs. HPE Hyper Converged

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