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Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Storage Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.8, while NetApp is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Dell Technologies holds a 17.3% mindshare in SS, compared to NetApp’s 42.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of NetApp users who would recommend it.
Dell PowerPath
Read 8 Dell PowerPath reviews
  • 249 Views
  • 76 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
NetApp ONTAP
Read 90 NetApp ONTAP reviews
  • 881 Views
  • 243 Comparison Views
98% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Dell PowerPath and NetApp ONTAP compete in the storage management solutions category. NetApp ONTAP has an upper hand due to its advanced features, despite pricing and support leaning towards Dell PowerPath.

Features: Dell PowerPath provides reliable multipathing, load balancing, and efficient data migration capabilities. NetApp ONTAP offers comprehensive data management, advanced monitoring, and seamless data replication across systems.

Room for Improvement: Dell PowerPath could enhance its monitoring tools and expand support for non-EMC storage systems. Additional automation features would be beneficial. NetApp ONTAP could improve deployment ease by simplifying initial setup and providing better integration with non-NetApp environments. Faster support response times and enhanced migration tools would also be advantageous.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell PowerPath is praised for its straightforward implementation and effective customer support, facilitating quick integration into existing systems. NetApp ONTAP, while more complex, offers extensive customization options, necessitating longer initial setup. Its support is effective but less accessible than Dell's.

Pricing and ROI: Dell PowerPath provides a cost-effective solution with affordable initial fees and rapid ROI, ideal for budget-conscious businesses. NetApp ONTAP offers long-term value through its robust features and scalability, justifying the higher initial investment.

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To learn more, read our detailed Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
June 2025
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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 PowerPath
Ranking in Storage Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp ONTAP
Ranking in Storage Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 17.3%, up from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 42.1%, down from 43.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Software
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
A resilient and reliable solution that has many load-balancing technologies and provides high availability
People who want to buy the solution must create a scorecard of Dell PowerPath against other products. They must run database tests. They must consider factors like pricing, performance, ease of use, visibility, and reliability. They must also run tests to understand which product recovers faster. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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Naveen Radhwani - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good performance, stability, and complete data security
Our upcoming investments would be prioritized around a hybrid cloud solution because we ourselves promote the cloud in the market. We are the premium service provider for AWS, so we have that inclination toward cloud computing. From the experience that we had during the pandemic, we are looking for some kind of hybrid solution for our environment. NetApp should focus on a hybrid cloud solution because none of the media houses are opting for cloud storage. The files are quite heavy, and it becomes quite difficult to maintain them on the cloud. If NetApp can provide such technology and fill the gap of storing media files in the cloud, it would give them an advantage.
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 provides a high availability and will increase the performance of any server or operating system."
"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."
"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."
"The user interface is good."
"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that disaster recovery scenarios are very good and easy to use in Dell PowerPath since it is available in a simplified form."
"The product is very reliable."
"It is very easy to scale, so we started with a four-node cluster and added it to a six-node cluster. We've also done some other modifications in between."
"The solution has helped our organization reduce its overall cost of storage by allowing us to have multiple sites using the multi-tenant security model, segregated from each other, while at the same time using the same resources."
"It's very fast, NetApp is always dependable, so if we have an issue, they're very responsive."
"The initial setup and deployment were straightforward"
"NetApp ONTAP has absolutely been a game changer for our organization. We support and use different storage services, but this is the first time we have a service and storage that supports multiple protocols, such as SMB, NFS."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is to be able to do multiple clusters on one pane of glass. We used to have to log on to each cluster per NetApp to view statistics on it or the logs if something was wrong. But now we can use ONTAP to view all the clusters and it shows us if something is full of space or not."
"Its typical use case is storing files and getting data, so it does its use case well."
"One of the things I find most valuable is the way they do the Snapshots, taking incrementals at points in time... Often someone will say, "Hey, I deleted this thing yesterday, can you get this back for me?" It's good that we have all those incremental Snapshots at different points in time that we can refer back to, to get them whatever they need."
More NetApp ONTAP pros
 

Cons

"The solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."
"The technical support is good but they are not available all the time."
"Although PowerPath is very mature and has been on the market for more than 15 years there are still a lot of bugs that have been profiled with PowerPath, specifically, during any OS upgrade."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"While I utilize it for data migration, I would love to do that data migration in a GUI from an ease of use perspective."
"Customers do not choose PowerPath unless they have Unix or Linux."
"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."
"The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"They use a lot of PowerShell for managing things and there are still a few things that you can't do through PowerShell cmdlets that you can do in the native CLI. It would be nice if they got more of those added in."
"I would like to see more evolution towards the cloud."
"The initial installation could've been quite easy, but there was a lot of miscommunications with professional services and there are a lot of details that they didn't quite provide which caused a very complicated installation."
"I wish tech support would be better. I wish I could talk to somebody more easily and qualified, because this is way it is supposed to be.."
"NetApp ONTAP could be improved with additional features to help handle the backup of more than 10 to 15 devices simultaneously."
"I could see the GUI being a little bit more refined, the presentation layer being a little stronger, a little less sluggish."
"Sometimes, we have had some delays, on holidays and weekends, getting the right resource for a specific problem."
"I believe that the next release should be a bit cheaper."
More NetApp ONTAP cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is fair."
"I rate the product's price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is affordable, and ten is really expensive. Dell PowerPath is an expensive tool."
"The solution is expensive."
"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"There are no additional costs associated with the product."
"They could reduce the price."
"We have been able to save about 3TB to 5TB of storage. We still need to do more on the compression bit, then provisioning, to save more going forward."
"While it is going to cost a lot of money, their technologies is worth it."
"I rate NetApp ONTAP's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Depending on the licensing you choose the price varies. For our company and our needs, the cost is very fair."
"NetApp is streamlined, reducing costs."
"With the duplication and compression, we have been about a one and half to two times savings since we are not running all-flash."
"It's very expensive."
More NetApp ONTAP pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Transportation Company
15%
Healthcare Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Media Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerPath?
The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerPath?
The product is a little bit expensive. It is a little pricey because it provides multipathing with other OSs. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Dell PowerPath?
The product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR. When we use 3PAR storage, we have to use another technology to load balance. The product must be integrated with other products l...
See all answers
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
See all answers
What do you like most about NetApp ONTAP?
We do not face any glitches or downtime.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp ONTAP?
The pricing is high. That said, we received favorable pricing at Intel due to the company's large NetApp ONTAP deployment across different organizations. While we're not in the IT department (we're...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 40% of the time
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 17% of the time
StorONE Storage-as-a-Service vs NetApp ONTAP Logo
StorONE Storage-as-a-Service vs NetApp ONTAP
Compared 9% of the time
More NetApp ONTAP Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath
June 2025
Dell PowerPath reportDownload Dell PowerPath product report
Buyer's Guide
NetApp ONTAP
June 2025
NetApp ONTAP reportDownload NetApp ONTAP product report
 

Also Known As

PowerPath
No data available
 

Overview

EMC PowerPath: Host-based software for automated data path management, failover and recovery, and optimized load balancing. PowerPath automates, standardizes, and optimizes data paths in physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments to deliver high availability and performance.

AUTOMATE FAILOVER/RECOVERY

PowerPath automates data path failover and recovery to ensure applications are always available and remain operational.

OPTIMIZE LOAD BALANCING

Adjust I/O paths constantly to leverage all available data paths and to monitor and rebalance the dynamic environment for the best application performance.

STANDARDIZE PATH MANAGEMENT

Simplify and standardize data path management across heterogeneous physical and virtual environments as well as cloud deployments.

Dell Technologies

NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimize their operations.

NetApp
 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company
1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace
Buyer's Guide
Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
June 2025
Free Report: Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP
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