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Azure Stack HCI vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.5
Azure Stack HCI delivers substantial ROI via cost savings, Azure Arc benefits, and reduced licensing costs compared to VMware.
Sentiment score
6.8
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure delivers ROI by reducing costs and simplifying management, enhancing resource efficiency and minimizing downtime.
There has been some return on investment in terms of just time usability and reduction of footprint.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.8
Azure Stack HCI support is mixed; expertise and resolution times vary, with Premier support recommended for better assistance.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's customer service is praised for quick, knowledgeable support and effective resolution despite some cost concerns.
Not every support team member is very knowledgeable about Azure Stack HCI, creating delays in resolution.
The technical support from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is excellent, deserving a nine out of ten rating.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.0
Azure Stack HCI provides scalable, reliable cloud integration, handling numerous virtual machines, with performance comparable to VMware.
Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers seamless scalability, allowing effortless, efficient cluster expansion to accommodate diverse business sizes and needs.
The scalability of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) deserves an eight out of ten rating, as there is no solution that is 100% efficient and there is always room for improvement.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.0
Azure Stack HCI is stable and scalable, praised for performance but needs more features and better integration.
Sentiment score
8.2
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers outstanding reliability and stability, with minimal downtime and prompt support addressing minor issues effectively.
It does not feel like a well-oiled machine yet, with too many idiosyncrasies and insufficient documentation and integration, feeling more like software that is still in beta.
Compared to VM, we find it most stable.
Regarding stability, I would rate Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) a seven out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Stack HCI needs improvements in networking, deployment, and stability; it faces integration challenges and limited multi-cluster management.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure needs improvements in pricing, setup, integration, user interface, performance, and multi-tenancy features for users.
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.
Hyper V seems to lag behind compared to VMware.
They should add AI features in the future.
I would suggest that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) should develop their own P2V (physical to VM) tools instead of requiring users to rely on third-party solutions.
We hope Nutanix can integrate inside our current license module.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Stack HCI's pricing includes OS and OEM licenses, is competitive, significant, and €10 per core monthly.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure provides competitive pricing and flexible licensing, offering good ROI and TCO benefits despite hardware costs.
The licensing is quite expensive because it's per call.
It costs more compared to VMware due to different licensing areas.
The pricing is renewed every year, at almost $100,000 per year.
It is expensive to move to the cloud.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Stack HCI enhances VM management, networking, and cost-efficiency with Microsoft licensing, supporting infrastructure and seamless analytics.
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers high performance, user-friendly management, scalability, integration, and cost efficiency with seamless updates and monitoring.
The integration with Azure using Azure Arc is excellent.
When technology development or devops teams request server provisioning, the setup time has been reduced from hours to less than 20 minutes.
It is easy to use, and it's easy to maintain.
The replication method between Nutanix clusters is a valuable feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Stack HCI
Ranking in HCI
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Ranking in HCI
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Azure Stack HCI is 3.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 9.6%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.6%
Azure Stack HCI3.7%
Other86.7%
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.
MahendraPanchotiya - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a unified platform, reduces downtime, and simple updates
Nutanix offers a unified platform for managing databases, virtual machines, and applications. This simplifies management by consolidating everything into a single interface. While Nutanix may have a higher upfront cost compared to other hypervisors, it can significantly reduce the resources needed for infrastructure management. With our previous hypervisor, we needed nearly ten IT personnel. Nutanix has allowed us to streamline our team to just three members. We use a combination of database technologies, including SQL databases and web servers such as IIS, BHP, and NGINX. Nutanix features helped our organization reduce downtime. I don't recall the last time we had downtime related to Nutanix because it is such a stable product. Nutanix, a reliable product, helps us streamline our processes, which in turn improves company revenue. We began to see the benefits after two years, with a 40 percent reduction in operational costs. We migrated 200 servers from AWS to Nutanix. Nutanix may not consolidate applications, but it helps us run them more efficiently on its platform. Updating is simple with one click. I would rate the updating processes 10 out of 10. Adding compute and storage on demand is not difficult. However, we need to factor in the existing and new firmware and software requirements.
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Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise76
Large Enterprise82
 

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?
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 h...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Stack HCI vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.