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Dell PowerPath vs NetApp ONTAP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
7.3
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Storage Software category, the mindshare of Dell PowerPath is 15.4%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp ONTAP is 19.6%, down from 41.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Storage Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp ONTAP19.6%
Dell PowerPath15.4%
Other65.0%
Storage Software
 

Featured Reviews

Derrick Brockel - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
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.
BK
Senior Storage Engineer at Shell
Data management and availability improve operations, but cost and support need attention
For snapshots, there should be something similar to a recycle bin. When someone mistakenly deletes a snapshot, it should be stored for about two days before disappearing from the system. Regarding storage optimization, when purchasing a 10 terabyte disk, after formatting, you can only use approximately 8 terabytes. They should improve this so users can utilize 90% instead of 80% of the disk space. The support response needs improvement, especially for P1 cases. When critical cases are raised, they should ensure they call the customer and follow up properly. Comparing NetApp ONTAP to other solutions such as EMC, the cost of contract renewals and warranties is relatively expensive. They should extend their renewal window beyond the current six months to one year options. A longer warranty period of two years for new systems, controllers, or filers would be beneficial. Overall, they should reduce subscription costs for businesses.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have found the solution to be quite flexible and very scalable."
"This multipathing software has certain features which we normally don't have on native multipathing software, especially in terms of load balancing and the way it captures the IO metrics and boosts the performance of different operating systems."
"OS-aware multipathing is a valuable feature of the product."
"In the last four or five years, we have not had any issues."
"The product is very reliable."
"The solution has improved our performance, reliability, and redundancy."
"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 most valuable feature of this solution is migration without disruptions."
"I love the replication technologies which keep a customer out of risk. At any time, we can do a seamless failover/failback, and have the latest data on it. The SnapVault is another excellent feature. It's used for remote disk-based backups so we don't need to depend on tape backups with their long restore times."
"It gives us a location to store data across multiple mount points."
"Scalability is perfectly fine. Right now I only have the two nodes and one shelf. I'll be able to easily upgrade additional shelves. They gave me plenty of cabling when I got the unit so all I have to do is disconnect and reconnect the cabling and that's it."
"If someone was looking to buy one I would say: I love the ONTAP operating system."
"The deduplication is valuable."
"I would rate this solution a ten because of what NetApp provides us from a quality layout. The partnership that they provide us and their assistance is very important and the work that they communicate with us on a regular basis is outstanding."
"If you need something in the NAS area, consider or test the NetApp products."
"It is easy to use, it has been stable, we haven't had any problems with it, and getting support from our VAR and the vendor has been good."
 

Cons

"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The solution is quite stable, although they have not quite worked out all of the kinks."
"If there is an operating system that is discontinued, PowerPath will now also stop the support for that operating system; for example, in the case of Solaris."
"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 product must adapt to other storage technologies like HPE 3PAR."
"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 solution should provide extensive reports on backups and backup failures."
"The aggregate system needs improvement."
"I would like to see Synchronize Snap mode in the next release."
"The technical support is poor. The first line people that pick up the phone are, quite honestly, awful."
"Some of our DR tests have been not successful, so it's been a little troubling."
"Some of their products have been really good for us, on certain versions. We've run into a bunch of verts, though. That's NetApp's word for their bugs. Stability has been the main complaint that I've had with the product. Because it's so feature-rich and has so much software related to it, it does come with a decent amount of bugs so we do a lot of upgrades to patch bugs."
"You really need OnCommand to do a lot of cool stuff with NetApp, and they make it hard to get."
"They could expand what is possible to do with automation as there are gaps in the Ansible module coverage they have."
"If they could come up with some more automation, this would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"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."
"Pricing is good. I don't have any issues with the pricing of this solution."
"There are no additional costs associated with the product."
"The price of the solution is fair."
"Recently, we have seen ROI."
"With the duplication and compression, we have been about a one and half to two times savings since we are not running all-flash."
"NetApp ONTAP is a pricey product, but you pay for what you get. I rate NetApp ONTAP a five out of ten for its pricing."
"The product costs an arm and leg; it's expensive."
"The pricing for NetApp ONTAP is moderate."
"We have seen ROI, especially with the deduplication. We have a high ratio of deduplication and are way past 70 percent of our VDI, as we have almost 400TBs on our VDI. We have been able to save at least a quarter of a petabyte of space."
"Because of the dedupe technologies and Data ONTAP servers, we have saved 20% on hardware. This is a lot of money for us."
"There could be improvements, its proprietary software so it can be pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Transportation Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise68
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
What needs improvement with NetApp ONTAP?
File level restoration could be improved. Currently, NetApp ONTAP provides volume level restore, but file level restore is somewhat difficult to execute. If NetApp were to provide an option for fil...
 

Also Known As

PowerPath
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Healthcare Residential Service Company
1&1 IONOS, Acıbadem Healthcare Group, Adder Technologies, Aero Vodochody Aerospace
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerPath vs. NetApp ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.