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Azure Stack HCI vs HPE Hyper Converged 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Stack HCI
Ranking in HCI
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE Hyper Converged
Ranking in HCI
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Stack HCI is 3.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Hyper Converged is 3.2%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Nicholas Diesel - PeerSpot reviewer
The storage for local usage is very efficient for an HCI product but virtualization needs improvement
Azure Site Recovery is brilliant. The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent. Additionally, Azure storage for local usage is very efficient for an HCI product. There has been some return on investment in terms of time usability and reduction of footprint, and obviously, HCI two emissions and other factors.
GosayeErko - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."
"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 scalability is extremely good."
"The solution has the latest processor."
"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."
"What I really like about this program, is that it needs little space and it works really fast, so it saves us time."
"It is easy to manage; the administration is simpler. It saves a lot of rack space in the data center because you can consolidate 20 servers into three to five nodes. The client will be able to benefit from power savings and cost savings as well."
"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."
"One of the solution's strong points is the deduplication capabilities of SimpliVity."
"The most valuable features are resiliency and data protection."
"The solution's most valuable features are scalability, easy migration, easy recovery, and flexible backup possibilities."
"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."
 

Cons

"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 biggest challenge with the tool is not being able to manage everything from Microsoft Azure Portal."
"A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved."
"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."
"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."
"Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware."
"I think that OneView should be replaced by something else for the management."
"We have faced some challenges when upgrading. With Hyper Converged, you have to fully upgrade because there are no incremental upgrades available in this solution. For example, let's say we have two nodes. If we want to upgrade storage, we also need to upgrade computing. That means a full upgrade EME."
"The solution is not very stable."
"In my country, the biggest issue is probably pricing."
"I would like to see improvement in the hardware underneath it. Currently, it's a Gen9 DL380. One day, there will be a Gen10 DL380 and maybe they will have bigger or smaller sizes."
"Scalability requires using additional nodes."
"I would like to see a more intuitive, user-friendly UI."
"Currently, the HPE HCI is based on the VMware solution, and many clients are skipping VMware due to its changed licensing method."
 

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 solution is expensive - not only the hardware costs but server costs too. And the more you scale, the more expensive it gets."
"With this solution, I buy everything together, pre-packaged, pre-installed, and in just 15 minutes, it's installed."
"Pricing with Dell EMC is double the price which I paid for HPE. However, in the end, Dell EMC is double in performance. This is not an apple to apple comparison though, as I have a four node from Dell EMC and a three node."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"It could be cheaper, everything could be cheaper."
"The price per value compared to other solutions, like Nutanix and SimpliVity. (We made the deal before approval of HPE SimpliVity deal)."
"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."
"It is an expensive solution, however. If they could adjust the pricing, that would be helpful."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Stack HCI?
The pricing is very competitive unless you are talking about the actual licensing itself. The licensing is quite expensive because it's per call.
What needs improvement with Azure Stack HCI?
A little bit of the storage architecture could be improved. The integrated switching could use some enhancements. The virtualization platform always has room for improvement. Hyper V seems to lag b...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Hyper Converged?
The pricing is competitive. Initially, I misunderstood and rated it as higher, but on a scale of one to ten where one is cheap, I would rate it as a four.
What needs improvement with HPE Hyper Converged?
I haven't had issues personally. I've heard from other people that maybe there could be some improvements around technical support.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE Hyper Converged 380, HPE Hyper Converged 250, HPE Hyper Converged 250 for Microsoft CPS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
North Lindsey College, FireWhat?, HudsonAlpha
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Stack HCI vs. HPE Hyper Converged and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.