Dell ObjectScale vs SwiftStack [EOL] comparison

Dell Technologies and NVIDIA are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NVIDIA users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 26, 2025

SwiftStack [EOL] and Dell ObjectScale are competing in the object storage solutions market. Dell ObjectScale seems to have the upper hand due to its robust feature set, offering superior value with advanced data management and strong data distribution capabilities.

Features: SwiftStack [EOL] is characterized by scalability, easy integration with existing infrastructure, and multi-cloud environment support. Dell ObjectScale provides advanced data management, seamless scalability, and robust data distribution.

Room for Improvement: SwiftStack [EOL] could benefit from enhanced advanced features. It lacks the comprehensive capabilities found in more modern solutions. Dell ObjectScale might improve upon its complexity in initial deployment and simplify its integration process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SwiftStack [EOL] is known for straightforward deployment and a focus on customer service aiding seamless integration. Dell ObjectScale offers a sophisticated deployment process with comprehensive documentation, appealing to larger, complex enterprise needs.

Pricing and ROI: SwiftStack [EOL] is appreciated for its attractive setup cost, providing fair ROI for those focusing on lowering initial expenses. Dell ObjectScale, while involving a higher setup investment, promises strong ROI through its advanced features, offering great value for long-term objectives.

To learn more, read our detailed File and Object Storage Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

January 2026

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

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Mahmoud Abuherra

Manager, Technical Services at AXS

Offers seamless protocol integration for diverse solutions with flexible API communication

We recommend Dell ECS to customers looking for GeoDrive, archiving, long-term retention solutions, or S3 protocol. It is proposed to sectors like government, education, and banking. Overall, I would rate Dell ECS eight out of ten, as it has shown a lot of enhancement compared to previous solutions like Centera and Atmos.

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reviewer1759539

System administrator at a library with 11-50 employees

A nicely-done product that provides a lot of graphs and reports to see what's happening in the background and makes configuration easier

It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st.

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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 features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"The most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution that provides ease of use and availability."

"I have found Dell ECS to be scalable."

"Dell ECS provides compatibility between on-premises and cloud-based storage, supporting protocols such as S3, which is commonly used in cloud storage, enabling integration between on-premises storage and cloud storage."

"The performance is good."

"I like that the solution is easy to scale and that's its stable."

"I would rate scalability ten out of ten since you buy what you want."

"The scalability is good."

"What I like best about Dell ECS is its stability. I also like that you can use it for large-scale data purposes. The solution works fine for me, and I haven't encountered any issues with it."

More Dell ObjectScale pros

"SwiftStack is also quite flexible when it comes to hardware. It depends, of course, on the use case and the kind of hardware you want to buy. But you have quite a bit of choice in hardware. The SwiftStack software itself does not impose anything on you."

"The scalability is phenomenal. It seems infinite, as long as you put enough storage in place, add enough nodes."

"The most valuable feature is its versatility. We use 1space and we can use it for almost anything: for our cloud service, for backups of VMs."

"The SwiftStack Controller, which is the web UI, provides out of band management. This has been one of the best features of it. It allows us to be able to do upgrades and look at performance metrics. It is a top feature and reason to choose the product."

"The graphs are most valuable. They have a lot of graphs and reports that you can run to see what's happening in the background to configure OpenStack Swift."

"In terms of the hardware flexibility, with SwiftStack not being a hardware company, I literally buy any hardware that's the least expensive, from any vendor... from a flexibility standpoint, I think it's fantastic. I can go to anybody, anywhere - any vendor - and get my hardware."

"The general consensus on what we've done is that the restores coming back from it have been faster than they were from our prior vendor. Ingest speeds are fine. The restore speeds have improved."

"The biggest feature, the biggest reason we went with SwiftStack, rather than deploying our own model with OpenStack Swift, was their deployment model. That was really the primary point in our purchase decision, back when we initially deployed. It took my installation time from days to hours, for deployment in our environment, versus deploying OpenStack Swift ourselves, manually."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pros

Cons

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"The solution is expensive."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Dell EMC ECS could improve by having Relational Database Services(RDS) to review progress. Additionally, if the training was provided it would be a benefit, it would be good for our engineers."

"We have had issues when the ECS is expiring or the NetBackup is expiring images."

"One area for product improvement would be the garbage collection process. It takes longer than expected, so speeding up that process would be beneficial."

"The troubleshooting feature of this solution needs to be improved, to allow organizations to fix issues without having to contact the support team."

"Its security can be improved."

"From an improvement perspective, Dell ECS should aim to offer a better pricing plan to its users."

"The deployment is not easy, and some expertise is required to configure the virtual data center and replication groups."

"In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."

More Dell ObjectScale cons

"They should provide a more concise hardware calculator when you're putting your capacity together."

"[One] thing that I've been looking for, for years as an end user and customer, for any object store, including SwiftStack, is some type of automated method for data archiving. Something where you would have a metadata tagging policy engine and a data mover all built into a single system that would automatically be able to take your data off your primary and put it into an object store in a non-proprietary way - which is key."

"On the controller features, there needs to be a bit more clean up of the user interface. There are a lot of options available on the GUI which might be better organized or compartmentalized. There are times when you are going through the user interface and you have to look around for where the setting may be. A little bit more attention to the organization of the user interface would be helpful."

"At the moment we are using Erasure coding in an 8+4 setting. What would be nice is if, for some standard configurations like 15+4 and 8+4, there were more versatility so we could, for example, select 8+6, or the like."

"The biggest room for improvement is the maturity of the proxyFS solution. That piece of code is relatively new, so most of our issues have been around the proxyFS."

"It's very well done for what it's supposed to do, and I don't have anything to add, but I would like them to keep it available to the public. SwiftStack is going out of the market. NVIDIA purchased SwiftStack a couple of years ago, and they won't be making it available to the public anymore. Our license is up to March 31st."

"The file access needs improvement. The NFS was rolled out as a single service. It needs to be fully integrated into the proxy in a highly available fashion, like the regular proxy access is. I know it's on the roadmap."

"I would like to see better client integrations, support for a broader client library. SwiftStack could be a little bit more involved in the client side: Python, Java, C, etc."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"The product is very expensive."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The solution could be cheaper."

"We initially purchased all of the licenses at the same time."

"It is an expensive solution. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."

"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."

"It is an inexpensive product."

"It's a lease-based model, so it's capacity-based. We already negotiated the price a lot, but we're still doing that with Dell because somehow the product was not installed successfully, so there was a lot of struggle in the distributor territory between Dell and the environment itself. I would give the solution a 6 out of 10 for the pricing. There's a little room for improvement."

"If I remember correctly, Dell ECS is an appliance, so if you buy Dell ECS, you also have to buy the hardware, while IBM is standalone software, so you can buy IBM as software only without needing to buy the hardware. On a scale of one to five, I'm rating the pricing for Dell ECS a four."

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution."

More Dell ObjectScale pricing and cost advice

"Dollar per gigabyte, it costs us more because we are storing more. However, if you look at it from a cost per gigabyte perspective, we have dropped our costs significantly."

"We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."

"COST_SAVING; We have had a 40 to 50 percent reduction in CAPEX on the acquisition of new hardware, which is probably conservative."

"The pricing model is great and makes sense. We have talked about how to get into more of a frequent billing cycle than once a year. That would be an interesting concept to add into the product, having the ability to have monthly billing instead of having to do a one-year licensing renewal. However, the way the license works by charging for storage consumed is definitely what makes them the most competitive."

"The pricing and licensing are capacity-based, so it's hard to put my finger on them, because so many different vendors charge in different ways. We are still saving significantly over any of the other options that we evaluated because we can choose the best hardware at the best price, then put SwiftStack software on it. So, it's hard to complain, even though a part of me goes, "It would be nicer if it were less expensive.""

"It's pricey for us because we're a nonprofit. I'm not privy to any amount or cost, but I have been told that it is pricey. There are no costs in addition to the licensing fees, and it seems to come with the support."

"We find the pricing rather steep. Of course, you get quality for your money, that's absolutely true... [But] when you look at the prices of the licensing and the prices of your hardware, it's quite substantial."

"We are able to dynamically grow storage at a lower cost. We can repurpose hardware and buy commodity hardware. There is a huge cost savings, on average $100,000 a year compared to traditional storage for what we have at our size."

More SwiftStack [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Performing Arts

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...

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What do you like most about Dell EMC ECS?

The tool is easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?

The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...

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What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?

I cannot think of anything as an area for improvement with Dell ECS. I do not see any pricing or usability concerns.

See all answers

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 18% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 4% of the time

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Amazon AWS vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 23% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 9% of the time

MinIO vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 6% of the time

Scality RING vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 4% of the time

More Dell ObjectScale Competitors

Cloudian HyperStore vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 22% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 18% of the time

Peaxy vs SwiftStack [EOL]

Compared 16% of the time

More SwiftStack [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Dell ObjectScale

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

SwiftStack [EOL]

January 2026

Download SwiftStack [EOL] product report

Also Known As

No data available

EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Dell ObjectScale is a next-generation S3 object storage platform known for scalability, performance, and efficiency. It integrates with Dell EMC products, combining hardware and software for seamless user experience in the AI era.

Dell ObjectScale implements the S3 protocol, integrating smoothly with Dell EMC solutions like ISILON. Its architecture supports data compression and interoperates with multiple protocols for enhanced performance. Enterprise features include immutability, geo-replication, and user-friendly management. However, it needs better integration with other systems, enhanced security, and disaster recovery. Write performance and scalability improvements, competitive pricing, and documentation enhancements are key areas for progress. The interface could be more straightforward, with more remote management features and native analytics.

What features does Dell ObjectScale offer?

S3 Protocol Implementation: Brings industry-standard access with wide application compatibility
Seamless Dell EMC Integration: Ensures stability and ease of use with existing systems
Data Compression and Protocol Interoperability: Enhances performance and storage efficiency
Immutability and Geo-Replication: Provides enterprise-level data protection
Optimized Pricing: Balances cost with comprehensive support

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Scalability: Supports expanding data requirements effectively
Integration Flexibility: Works with many existing systems for better interoperability
Ease of Management: Streamlines hardware and software operations
Enterprise-Level Features: Delivers advanced protection and efficiency

Industries leverage Dell ObjectScale for cloud-based object storage, archiving, and backups. It's favored for unstructured data management, CCTV integration, and document archiving. Strong in data analytics, it integrates well with high-capacity applications, enhancing data retention strategies across fields.

Dell Technologies

SwiftStack [EOL] offers robust cloud integration, rapid deployment, and hardware-agnostic capabilities, making it a preferred choice for organizations needing scalable and flexible storage solutions. It supports a variety of storage needs from object storage to enterprise-grade backup systems.

SwiftStack [EOL] is recognized for its seamless cloud integration and platform independence, enabling rapid deployment and superior scalability. Its metadata search, proxyFS, and 1space feature enhance versatility and backup efficiency. SwiftStack Controller provides an enhanced management experience with easy system upgrades and performance monitoring. While the management UI and ProxyFS maturity have room for improvement, users seek more organized interfaces and better REST API support. Enhancements in erasure coding configurations and data archiving, along with improved client library integrations, are highlighted needs. The demand for NFS integration improvements and options for data movement between storage policies is noted.

What are the key features of SwiftStack?

Rapid Deployment: Fast and efficient system setup.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing storage needs.
Flexibility: Hardware-agnostic and platform independent.
Resiliency: Robust data protection mechanisms.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with cloud services.
Metadata Search: Facilitates efficient data retrieval.
ProxyFS Capability: Offers versatile storage solutions.
1space Feature: Enhances backup efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should be expected in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces deployment and operational costs.
Performance: Fast data ingestion and access speed.
Enhanced Management: Simplifies system management with advanced tools.
Versatility: Supports diverse storage needs from backups to cloud services.

SwiftStack [EOL] is implemented in industries as a backup platform for Commvault and Veeam, cloud storage similar to Amazon S3 or Azure Blob. It's essential for SaaS platforms, data sharing in research, preproduction object storage, data center operations, and archival management for OpenStack Swift servers in educational and research institutions.

NVIDIA

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Atos

Pac-12 Networks, Georgia Institute of Technology, Budd Van Lines

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

January 2026

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