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Dell XC Appliance vs HPE SimpliVity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

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 XC Appliance
Ranking in HCI
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HPE SimpliVity
Ranking in HCI
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
155
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 1.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE SimpliVity is 6.3%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE SimpliVity6.3%
Dell XC Appliance1.7%
Other92.0%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Enables seamless integration with multiple software and outstanding AI tools
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it. I find it overly reliant on VMware. In cases of company mergers involving different platforms, software that can handle a multi-hypervisor environment would facilitate quicker integration.
Mohammed Lokman Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager, Enterprise Technology Services at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Has integrated solutions and rapid recovery made management smoother and more reliable
There is the latest update from HPE regarding HPE SimpliVity. For virtualization, HPE has to depend on other manufacturers, OEMs such as VMware or Hyper-V. Recently, HPE declared the VM essential virtualization solution. In the future, if HPE integrates HPE SimpliVity with VM essential, that will be a great combination. Functionality-wise, I am totally satisfied with HPE SimpliVity, but for improvement, if HPE integrates its own virtualization solution, this combination and integration will be beneficial because this integration can be configured with the cloud-based system. A VM can be uploaded to the cloud from this, which will be advantageous for backup to other sites.

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 feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly."
"To other customers who are looking to implement Dell XC, it's a very good hyper-converged solution."
"Dell's appliances provide several key benefits, including horizontal and vertical scalability up to 64 nodes, proprietary artificial intelligence tools that are uncommon in the industry, seamless iDRAC integration with VMware to monitor VM details, performance, and hardware issues from one screen, and CloudIQ software that proactively addresses configuration errors."
"The stability of the product is pretty good, as there have been no bugs, glitches, or crashes that I'm aware of."
"The most valuable features are the deduplication and the compression features."
"The solution's best feature is its simplicity. It's so simple to deploy it. You've got the VMware, and it's own appliance. It is really helpful. The system is online within half a day and saves so much time."
"It's an extremely stable solution, and I highly recommend it."
"Overall, the solution is great."
"HPE Simplivity improved the space of disk with deduplication, reduced the time of backups and recovers."
"We were under promised and over delivered!"
"Valuable features include ease of use, disaster recovery, and reliability."
"The ease of managing this system."
"It easily backs up our systems, allowing us to recover them, and it makes my job simple."
"We use the Omnicubes to replicate our data to a second datacenter. By having our company data on the Omnicubes, we ensure that all of our data is constantly replicated within the defined intervals to the remote site."
"The system has been very stable and trouble-free for the six months that it has been in service and we expect it to remain this way for many years."
"The whole backup and recovery capability, where we are able to create full backups and restore full backups in typically 40 to 50 seconds with a data reduction ratio of 290:1, has been a great feature."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"Dell needs to do a lot of work to simplify the maintenance and life-cycle upgrades for the product."
"The solution's storage size could be improved."
"To improve this product, I think there is a lot of work that is required by Dell to simplify the maintenance and life cycle upgrades."
"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's appliance won't support it."
"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"I have not seen ROI."
"It would be better if it could integrate more easily with other vendors."
"The solution could have an optimization site."
"They don't provide a portal to create a ticket directly for the HPE SimpliVity. We have a web portal to create a ticket when we have an issue, but for HPE SimpliVity, we need to call the local vendor for support."
"When it comes to performing backups, the dashboard is not intuitive and not user-friendly."
"The compatibility with other products needs an improvement."
"HPE SimpliVity could be more flexible and scalable. I don't feel SimpliVity is flexible or easily scalable because I still need to buy another server to add to my clusters."
"Its performance can be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The price point is very fair for a product in this category but can vary depending on the components selected within the family of products."
"The pricing is good."
"We received a good price from Dell."
"The pricing is dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"It seemed like it was expensive at first. Now that I have had it installed for a period of time, I think I got a great deal."
"We did get some quotes from Nutanix, and they were ballparks. So, it is not cheap, and there is nothing free, but those two were comparable."
"There is not a license required for the solution."
"The licensing cost could be lower."
"Customers always complain that SimpliVity is a little bit higher in price point as compared to other solutions available in the market."
"It's about $10,000 monthly."
"We spent $250,000 back in the day, and that was for two servers in my data center for that cluster. We then ran what they call an arbiter, and that took the place of a third server or the third node in the cluster. My DR site was one standalone server, and its horsepower was more than the two at my main site. It included my Cisco Switches that I needed to re-upgrade. It was comparable to what we were paying a year in VM."
"It is not too expensive, but it is quite expensive for me."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business67
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise80
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering Dell XC Appliance?
My advice for people who are selling this product is to first make sure that you educate the customers. The customer doesn't often know much about HCI and what the need to be using it for. If they ...
What needs improvement with Dell XC Appliance?
The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor. If multi-hypervisor support is required and VMware does not provide it, then Dell's applian...
What is your primary use case for Dell XC Appliance?
Dell offers several benefits with its appliances. Primarily, I can combine them horizontally and vertically, reaching up to sixty-four nodes. Additionally, Dell employs its own artificial intellige...
How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?
HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...
What do you like most about HPE SimpliVity?
The solution's technical support is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE SimpliVity?
Standalone HPE SimpliVity is more expensive than other OEMs and solutions. Regarding the software side, VMware is costing significantly more nowadays compared to other solutions in the market. The ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SimpliVity, HPE HCI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cardlytics, AEW Energie, Aubert, Zhongtong Information Service, Commune de Villepinte, Teikyo University Hospital
Red Bull Racing, Mandarin Oriental, Brigham Young University, UCLA, Merlin Entertainments, Sasa Cosmetics, Travelport, St. John’s Riverside Hospital, Princess House
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XC Appliance vs. HPE SimpliVity and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.