Dell PowerFlex vs FlexPod XCS comparison

The compared Dell Technologies and NetApp solutions aren't in the same category. Dell Technologies is ranked #4 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 7.0% mindshare in the category. NetApp is ranked #2 in CI , and holds a 12.3% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 29 Dell PowerFlex reviews

8,176 Views
7,440 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

FlexPod XCS

Read 295 FlexPod XCS reviews

3,863 Views
1,932 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

FlexPod XCS

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and FlexPod XCS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

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

Dell PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (4th)

FlexPod XCS

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

295

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerFlex is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 7.0%, down 12.9% compared to last year.
FlexPod XCS, on the other hand, focuses on Converged Infrastructure, holds 12.3% mindshare, up 8.6% since last year.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell PowerFlex	7.0%
VxRail	13.2%
VMware vSAN	10.7%
Other	69.1%

HCI

Converged Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
FlexPod XCS	12.3%
HPE ConvergedSystem	11.7%
Dell VxBlock System	9.4%
Other	66.6%

Converged Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Serdar De

IT Manager at ÜÇGE Shopfitting & Design

Initial setup has been straightforward and it has reasonable pricing

We are new to this, so we are still learning about the valuable features The solution is okay overall. It could be easier to learn. We haven't had any issues. They could have more AI functionality in the future. I have been using the solution for six months. I have not encountered any problems…

Read full review

John Kevin

Deputy IT Manager at MBBank

Enforces standardized setup procedures following Certified Validated Design (CVD) guidelines and offers greater flexibility and control over the system compared to traditional systems

The GUI setup follows the right setup, meaning we have to follow the CVDi.e. Certified Validated Design. Everything is clear, because you can build CI yourself, but without rules, it can be messy. With FlexPod, there are rules to follow, making it more standardized. This helps with troubleshooting and compatibility assessments, simplifying troubleshooting significantly. We also use FlexPod pre-validated architectures to validate the design. It is very, very important to us because we had a bad case in 2015 where separate items integrated poorly due to no version or firmware compatibility certification. Troubleshooting became a nightmare. So, standards are crucial for us, and everything entering production should be verified or at least documented for certification.

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

"It is easy to use for management and operations teams because the tools are in one place."

"We've had no issues with scaling the solution."

"The most valuable feature is high availability."

"It is more stable, more powerful, and has more integration features."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is integration."

"It has reduced downtime. Before, on our previous solution, we used to have downtime on some of the servers because of the sort of convention. But currently I've not experienced any downtime on any of the servers, and there is no more resource congestion."

"The program is stable."

"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"FlexPod is easy to setup, maintain and has great stability."

"The product is easy to deploy and use."

"Everything is preconfigured. We can ship it and manage it remotely from any server. It is all in a box."

"The ease of set up is probably the most valuable feature for us."

"We got the product and we have a small environment, but it was able to be scalable to when we started to grow."

"You can add more boxes and you can have more IOPS available if you want. It's very easy to add new hardware to the cluster."

"It's all converged into one consolidated platform, which works well together."

"FlexPod gives us the opportunity to deploy a product which is fully built and racked with minimal touch installation when it arrives onsite, so we can do all the configuration remotely."

More FlexPod XCS pros

Cons

"We are still hoping for better ways to incorporate AI. We have to extend third-party access to PowerFlex by calling the API. It would be easier if the product had built-in AI integration. If PowerFlex can contribute more to AI, it would be more useful."

"The installation is complex."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface."

"For customers with a budget, it is a ten out of ten for the product, though it becomes challenging for those with mid or low budgets since it is very costly compared to other solutions such as PowerStore."

"The solution needs to offer more documentation and educational materials."

"It would be great to get earlier access to beta builds because we have to develop providers on our own. The APIs and enablers for custom automation could also be improved."

"Exporting data from the dashboard is not very user-friendly. It's just designed in a way that it's going to cover let's say 90%, 80%, of the end-users needs. If you need more sophisticated reporting it's not easy to have."

"The tool is a bit difficult to configure, making it an area where improvements are required."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"We would like better management of cases. For example, if you open a FlexPod case, it's not always straightforward. It would be nice to have centralized resource to open FlexPod cases and ease up management of our cases."

"Perhaps the automation interface could be improved."

"They need to improve the user interface to make it easier to work in this environment. The older version is poor."

"One of the things that I've wanted would be availability of a health status, similar to Active IQ from my converged platform, on an app. I have dashboards so I can see the health of the system when I'm in the office, but when I'm not in the office I can't."

"I have noticed a lot of customers, they will kick it over the fence. It is FlexPod; it is that mystery animal. The room for improvement is to better present it to those users, so they will not have to be afraid of it."

"A progress bar would...be pretty cool."

"I would like to see better operations, a single pane of glass to manage and monitor the entire design across VMware, Cisco, etc. I would also like the upgrade process to be a little smoother."

"Maybe in the future, they could include the HCI solution into the mix."

More FlexPod XCS cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is expensive."

"The price could be improved."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

"The price of the solution is fair, it is priced in the average range amongst competitors."

"From my perspective, pricing is expensive. If they can reduce the pricing or offer more customer incentives, it would attract more users."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a two out of ten."

"We have a good contact in Dell and he prepared all the information and provided everything to us."

"The solution's pricing could be much cheaper and affordable."

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"Make sure that you engage as much with whom you are buying from as a partnership, not just as a purchase."

"Anytime that you are buying any storage make sure you understand storage. Do not just buy storage based on what somebody sells you in terms of IO or throughput."

"It's expensive, but when you pay for enterprise support and enterprise products, you have to pay the big bucks."

"We purchased the solution through CDW. They are a partner and knowledgeable."

"It seems very cost effective once it's in place, and it's easy to expand and easy to add capacity without a lot of extra money."

"Coming from a rack and stack server model to FlexPod, it has saved us a lot of time (approximately hundreds to thousands of hours)."

"Buy storage based on the solutions you need, the technologies you need, and what will make your life a lot easier down the road."

"The footprint in the data center is quite large, especially when you scale out. Maybe find some hardware in the future, where if a new blade comes out, then Cisco can say, "Look, we'll buy those blades back off you, and we'll give you this blade for X amount of money." A buyback scheme would be good for hardware, and even NetApp as well. Something like a buyback scheme for blades and stuff moving forward would be good, because I know that they're going to put more power into them. E.g., replacing four blades might equal one blade, which would be awesome, but we are still going to have those four blades around. Maybe having something where it will give you this much money for these blades so we can upgrade. That would be perfect."

More FlexPod XCS pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Healthcare Company

Marketing Services Firm

31%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Performing Arts

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	66
Large Enterprise	182

Questions from the Community

What are the major differences between VxRail and Dell EMC PowerFlex?

VxRail vs. Dell EMC PowerFlex VxRail provides stable solutions for technical problems while at the same time not being too expensive for a company to invest in. Even if the user is working with a l...

See all answers

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

Dell PowerFlex is a premium software-defined infrastructure solution and while the initial investment may seem higher than traditional SAN or mid-tier HCI solutions, the long-term TCO is competitive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC PowerFlex?

Area of Improvement: While PowerFlex Manager is powerful, the UI could be more intuitive, especially for first-time users or non-technical admins. Streamlined navigation, contextual help and guided...

See all answers

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Comparisons

VxRail vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 41% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

Scale Computing Platform vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

HPE ConvergedSystem vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

Dell VxBlock System vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

Fujitsu PRIMEFLEX vs FlexPod XCS

Compared 8% of the time

More FlexPod XCS Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

February 2026

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

FlexPod XCS

February 2026

Download FlexPod XCS product report

Also Known As

VxFlex, VxRack FLEX, PowerFlex

No data available

Overview

Dell PowerFlex is a software-defined storage infrastructure delivering modern architecture and versatile deployment for on-premises or cloud. It achieves high performance, scalable storage, and workload consolidation through advanced automation.

PowerFlex's VMware compatibility ensures seamless integration, offering flexibility in compute and storage scaling. With its hyper-converged infrastructure, it caters to AI, cloud, and database environments, providing robust automation, resilience, and security. Flexible deployment options are complemented by a single-window management system, prioritizing cost optimization. However, enhancements are needed in monitoring tools, user interface, and AI functionality. Migration from Hyper-V and licensing flexibility also require attention, while improved documentation could simplify usage. Integration with services and streamlined upgrade processes are essential.

What are the key features of Dell PowerFlex?

VMware Compatibility: Ensures smooth integration and flexibility in deployment.
Scalability: Independently scales compute and storage resources as needed.
High Availability: Maintains continuous availability across deployed systems.
Low Latency Performance: Optimizes storage and compute operations for minimal delays.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: Combines compute, storage, and networking for streamlined operations.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Ease of Management: Simplifies administration with a unified management interface.
Cost Optimization: Provides opportunities for reduced operational costs.
Flexibility: Offers diverse deployment options tailored to specific needs.
Automation Tools: Enhances efficiency through robust automation capabilities.
Robust Storage Capacity: Supports growing data requirements with substantial storage options.

PowerFlex is essential in industries requiring support for mission-critical workloads and large-scale applications. It is instrumental for deploying storage, compute nodes, hyper-converged infrastructure, and private clouds. The platform integrates compute, storage, and networking, optimizing performance for modern applications like AI video analytics and disaster recovery.

Dell Technologies

FlexPod XCS is the secure platform your applications need from edge to cloud. Easily manage your suite of cloud-native, edge, and enterprise apps. Integrate advanced cloud services without compromising performance, security, reliability, or scale.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Canopy, 8x8Inc., Atos, Canadian Pacific, City of Denton, CenturyLink, BNP Paribas, Asyaport, EDF, CSC, Fox Sports, Insight, Hunter, KPIT, Paetec, Rosetta Stone, Sonda, Xerox

University of Sao Paulo, WD-40, The Commonwell Mutual Insurance Group

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