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Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

Cisco and NetApp are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 89% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of NetApp users who would recommend it.
NetApp HCI [EOL]
Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews
    88% willing to recommend
     

    Comparison Buyer's Guide

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    Executive Summary
    We performed a comparison between Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] and NetApp HCI [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    September 2025
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    Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

    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

    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [...
    Average Rating
    8.0
    Reviews Sentiment
    6.7
    Number of Reviews
    90
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    Average Rating
    8.0
    Reviews Sentiment
    5.6
    Number of Reviews
    32
    Ranking in other categories
    No ranking in other categories
     

    Featured Reviews

    Nuno Mendes - PeerSpot reviewer
    High performance solution that makes it easy to efficiently manage VM resources
    In our case as a credit recovery company working with the state, our infrastructure is fixed and stable as we don't have the same need for growth as other types of companies. That said, one of the biggest problems with HyperFlex HX is that if you want to adjust your solution in terms of processing power, memory, or disk capacity, you have to buy completely new hosts. From a financial perspective, it can be very expensive to do so, and from a legal perspective, there are all kinds of compliance issues we would have to sort out before buying any new solution or application. Since we as a company will only be operating for perhaps the next ten years, when our HyperFlex solution comes to its end-of-life in 2024 our next step will likely not be with HyperFlex or any other solution from Cisco. Instead, from a financial point of view, we will likely turn toward a cloud solution because, that way, we won't have to spend so much money on physical infrastructure. We are, after all, only a small company and HyperFlex can be very expensive for other companies of our size, whether in Portugal or elsewhere like the United States. One other area for improvement is in regard to HyperFlex's integration with VMware. HyperFlex integrates with a specific version of VMware in such a way that HyperFlex doesn't always resolve security issues with VMware at the same pace as what you see in native implementations of VMware. This has happened in one or two situations in the past. On the other hand, the integration is otherwise adequate, especially in terms of availability and virtualization features (such as being able to split up each of our four hosts within VMware).
    Read full review
    MB
    Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022
    Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.
    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

    "Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is simple to use, user-friendly and has been best for our purposes."
    "Cisco HyperFlex HX has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the time to deliver a VM takes me five minutes. In comparison, my cloud team's response is a couple of days based on all their overhead policies, procedures, and ticket requests. This is substantial."
    "The possibility to share the workload is one of its most valuable features. We have many applications which have need of workloads only a few times in a month, so we share HyperFlex with them."
    "I like Cisco Intersight."
    "It is very scalable. It is also easy to scan."
    "It's easy to get the tool started."
    "The most valuable features of this solution are scalability, performance, and reliability. It scales well inside of a large data center."
    "It is a complete package. For any kind of on-premises hyper-converged solution, we usually have to separate networks, but Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series is a complete solution. It has its own network and storage. The storage part is the most valuable feature."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pros
    "The most valuable feature is the software design storage that really provided a faster, agile, easier to scale up and out storage path."
    "The NetApp Deployment Engine that comes with it makes the actual deployment and usage very easy. That's our primary focus and it's hyper-converged. That's something that we want to use as well."
    "Simple setup and having the storage and compute right on one deployment is the most valuable aspect of this solution. They're able to get set up and ready to go and start having their DevOp team deploy to that environment."
    "The most valuable feature is the convergence."
    "The solution is very scalable."
    "The scalability is great, because it can scale independently."
    "The most valuable feature, currently, is the density of the system as hardware. I'm able to leverage the density of the product and remove bigger hardware which requires more space, cooling, and power costs, obviously. There are cost savings, obviously."
    "It's an all-flash solution. NetApp guarantees 3-to-1 or more than 3-to-1. It has guaranteed performance, like 15K IOPS per node."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros
     

    Cons

    "Unlike other options, you need to pay a subscription to Cisco yearly instead of paying for the hardware outright, which makes it more expensive in the long run."
    "Technical support is very good. Not excellent, but good. There's still not enough data available on the web. For example, for the integration to VMware, I had a case recently and I searched for more information but didn't find any."
    "Its price could be better."
    "When it comes to customer needs, the licensing price could be better."
    "They should give us a little more information about how to use the CLI and offer more commands."
    "Some of our customers do not want to adopt the Cisco ACI solution. They want to manage Cisco HyperFlex by integrating it with their own management solution."
    "The architecture separates data, computing, memory, and storage into different parts."
    "The initial setup could be faster, due to the prerequisites."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] cons
    "The networking needs improvement."
    "There's a limitation with a block in the file. That's where I see that it's not very efficient for upgrades and for management."
    "The vCenter keeps crashing, meaning that there is no stability in our environment."
    "There are some legacy applications which still cannot be migrated. That is why we have to keep two environments: legacy and the new one. We would like to see more compatibility to move stuff."
    "HCI has not enabled us to consolidate workloads or break down silos and has not increased application performance. It has also not resulted in more efficient use of compute resources."
    "I'm not a fan of how they don't log you out properly from some of their web tools for management."
    "It would be great if they took something like kernel storage and integrated straight into the NetApp as well."
    "I would like for them to fall a little closer to like the VMware release model. The new features and new solutions tend to come from the VMware side. I would like for NetApp to follow along closely with VMware's release schedule."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons
     

    Pricing and Cost Advice

    "Comparable solutions with switches, storage, and services are cheaper than HyperFlex. It should be cheaper."
    "We would not have invested if we didn't feel the return was there for our customers."
    "Cisco is quite expensive, but not in the initial first buy."
    "I would like a clearer licensing model. It should explain a bit more what you receive if you buy the more expensive license rather than the standard one."
    "It's roughly $30,000 per Hyperflex license, so that would be about $60,000 a year."
    "HyperFlex is relatively expensive, but you get good value for money."
    "Here in Brazil... it is very expensive. It's very hard for almost all companies to buy even the small version of this solution."
    "HyperFlex is a little pricey."
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] pricing and cost advice
    "All the licenses are included when you buy the program."
    "The price of the solution is okay but could improve."
    "Its price is comparable to the competitors in the market."
    "Its price is aligned with the market. In addition to the standard licensing fees, there is an integrator cost."
    "Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers. Because we were able to recover so fast from the attack, the solution paid for itself right there."
    "There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."
    "This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."
    "Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."
    More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice
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    Top Industries

    By visitors reading reviews
    Computer Software Company
    18%
    Financial Services Firm
    9%
    Government
    8%
    Manufacturing Company
    7%
    No data available
     

    Company Size

    By reviewers
    Large Enterprise
    Midsize Enterprise
    Small Business
    By reviewers
    Company SizeCount
    Small Business24
    Midsize Enterprise17
    Large Enterprise57
    By reviewers
    Company SizeCount
    Small Business8
    Midsize Enterprise9
    Large Enterprise19
     

    Questions from the Community

    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...
    See all answers
    How does VxRail compare with Cisco HyperFlex HX Series?
    VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if you are working with a limited budget, this platform offer...
    See all answers
    What do you like most about Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series?
    It's easy to get the tool started.
    See all answers
    Ask a question
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    Comparisons

    HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    HPE SimpliVity vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 63% of the time
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Logo
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    Compared 37% of the time
    More Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] Competitors
    No data available
     

    Product Reports

    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL]
    October 2025
    Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] reportDownload Cisco HyperFlex HX-Series [EOL] product report
    Buyer's Guide
    NetApp HCI [EOL]
    September 2025
    NetApp HCI [EOL] reportDownload NetApp HCI [EOL] product report
     

    Overview

    The Cisco HyperFlex HX Data Platform is a purpose-built, high-performance, scale-out file system with a wide array of enterprise-class data management services. The data platform’s innovations redefine distributed storage technology, giving you complete hyper-convergence with enterprise storage features:

    • Enterprise-class data management
    • Continuous data optimization
    • Securely encrypted storage
    • Dynamic data placement
    • Clusterwide parallel data distribution
    • Linear and incremental scaling
    • API-based data platform architecture
    • A simplified approach
    Cisco

    NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

    NetApp
     

    Sample Customers

    BluePearl Veterinary Partners, Ready Pac Foods, Bryant University, Bellevue Group, KPIT Technologies, City Harvest
    American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology
    Buyer's Guide
    HCI
    September 2025
    Download Free Report
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