Dell PowerFlex vs NetApp HCI [EOL] comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell PowerFlex

Read 29 Dell PowerFlex reviews

8,727 Views
8,029 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews

88% willing to recommend

Dell PowerFlex

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Dell PowerFlex and NetApp HCI [EOL] 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: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

October 2026

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Helped 920,769 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

Dell PowerFlex

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

HCI (7th)

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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

Massimiliano Bartolozzi

Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.

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

"All of the features are useful, and we found that the issue we were having in our previous environment, which was high latency on the storage, we are not experiencing anymore because the high IOPS on the storage are very good for us."

"Dell PowerFlex is a highly scalable solution."

"The support is highly responsive."

"The solution saves a lot of space in the data center and that is a key advantage for us."

"The integration with AWS is a valuable feature."

"Our primary use case of this solution is for storage nodes and compute nodes and I like that it is all in one box."

"The catalog of APIs for automation has been most valuable, although they are quite limited."

"The most valuable feature is high availability."

More Dell PowerFlex pros

"We went with NetApp based on the cost-effective solutions, technologies, and protocols."

"It is scalable, and NetApp Deployment Engine (NDE) makes its deployment easier."

"When you are doing lifecycles for your equipment, you can just swap out pieces of equipment. We used to do one big iron to another big iron, and that's a major migration hassle. Whereas, with this environment, you can go with small nodes, one at a time, and do a refresh."

"The initial setup was straightforward; it was easy and fast to deploy, and NetApp Cloud Manager made getting up and running with Cloud ONTAP amazing, easy to use, simple, and it basically did everything."

"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."

"The benefits for our organization are the performance that we're able to get out of it, as well as the guaranteed minimum performance from a storage perspective."

"The most valuables features of it are the deduplication and the compaction because the ratios are much better than what we normally get on our FAS storage."

"The ease of deployment is a positive feature that allows us to scale easily."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros

Cons

"Compared to similar solutions, Dell PowerFlex is not cost-effective and has room for improvement."

"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."

"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."

"Licensing restrictions can be frustrating."

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

"The tool needs to improve its storage. It should also make migration to the cloud easier."

"We've had some issues around the licensing. There were some issues in terms of using the VMware license."

"The installation is complex."

More Dell PowerFlex cons

"It doesn't have all the data points we need and all the historical data that I would like."

"The setup was a bit challenging because it's a fairly new product and I think some of the stuff is not quite well baked yet."

"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."

"The administration side of it needs to be improved. We expect an easier interface and a single upgrade for updating the infrastructure."

"The problem is that it needs to be much more stable, for example, when I want to do the upgrade to 1.7 that just released, I also need to issue a ticket to the support guy in India and he asked me to deploy another mlock. There are a lot of manual steps compared with other products."

"We went with a different solution and having run that for a while, I would say that there is a lot more than they could do to make it more streamlined."

"The vCenter keeps crashing, meaning that there is no stability in our environment."

"I would like to see a better upgrade process, like the one that ONTAP has."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The pricing for this solution is good."

"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the price as eight and a half. The tool is expensive."

"The cost of this solution is fair."

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

"The price could be improved."

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

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

More Dell PowerFlex pricing and cost advice

"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."

"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."

"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."

"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."

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

"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."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

19%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	19

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 44% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 5% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 3% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs Dell PowerFlex

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell PowerFlex Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 21% of the time

VxRail vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 12% of the time

VMware vSAN vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 12% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Hyper Converged vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell PowerFlex

October 2026

Download Dell PowerFlex product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp HCI [EOL]

October 2026

Download NetApp HCI [EOL] 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

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

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

American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: October 2026.

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