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Dell XC Appliance vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure 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
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converg...
Ranking in HCI
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is 3.9%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure3.9%
Dell XC Appliance1.1%
Other95.0%
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.
KashifAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Head, Director of Sales and Operations at Core ISP Router
User-friendly GUI, capable technical support team but complicated license mechanism
Sangfor HCI's license mechanism is too complicated. The license agreement is a distributed license. Within the HCI platform, Sangfor HCI has multiple licenses in terms of services. Sangfor HCI has a separate license for the security services, a separate license for the Doctor services, and application services. They have multiple SKUs in separate forms. As per local market requirements, I think they need to couple up these or bundle up the license model.

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."
"The solution's hardware is great."
"It's an extremely stable solution, and I highly recommend it."
"What I like the most is that it is easy to implement, easy deployment and that it's easy to manage."
"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."
"From a single screen, I can view VM details, performance, and hardware issues, such as power supply or fan malfunctions, along with RAM module problems."
"When we compare it to normal hardware servers, I'd say it is quite easy to configure and deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it."
"You can get almost all the features of the tool at a low cost. The tool also has built-in backup mechanisms. It also has a physical firewall for internet management which other competitors lack."
"Sangfor has many solutions, and you can easily manage their machine servers with just one management. They're always striving for greatness, and they continuously update their products. For example, they have now built endpoint security within the firewall. They are continuously improving not only the security but also all other products."
"We find the topology feature of Sangfor HCI particularly valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the built-in recovery functionality. The migration is simple to do from other solutions, such as VMware."
"The extraordinary product quality, unmatched support services, and the third-generation HCI offering are some of the most valuable features of Sangfor HCI."
"It was not expensive at all."
"Their GUI interface is a bit easier than VMware's."
"Sangfor HCI has a strong GUI interface in terms of graphical representation for management purposes."
 

Cons

"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers."
"The main issue with the DirectVXL appliance is that it only supports a single orchestrator or hypervisor."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"We have had issues while integrating VMware with Sangfor HCI. The tool should be also faster in terms of customization."
"The interface could be a little bit better."
"The initialization is not fully automated and has room for improvement."
"The error reporting needs to be improved."
"It can have more compatibility and new features. I would also like to see better performance. Some of the other HCI solutions already provide the SSD and flash storage and much higher Intel processors. Sangfor HCI can improve on that."
"Currently, when we need to do capacity planning, we have to rely on Sangfor's support team for assistance. However, if there were dedicated tools available, we could handle it ourselves and increase efficiency."
"Stability is also an area for improvement here as well."
"I would want the product to include Continuous Data Protection (CDP) which can help to easily retrieve the data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We received a good price from Dell."
"The pricing for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The pricing is good."
"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 dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"The solution has a good initial cost but a high renewal cost."
"Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is a reasonably priced product."
"Considering the capabilities provided, the product is expensive."
"The solution is very cheap."
"The solution is on-premise which does not have a subscription. However, there is a need to purchase support. The solution is on a perpetual license model. There is not any extra cost other than the standard licensing fees."
"Sangfor needs to be more aggressive because this is a new market or territory for Sangfor. Nepal is a very price-sensitive market, so Sangfor needs to be a little more aggressive with its pricing. I would rate them 3.75 out of five in terms of the price."
"The pricing of Sangfor is very competitive."
"The product's pricing is less expensive and competitive than other alternatives. I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
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 Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise3
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor HCI?
I rate the pricing of Sangfor HCI at a five, as it is thirty to thirty-five percent more efficient than other solutions in terms of total cost of ownership.
What needs improvement with Sangfor HCI?
I would like Sangfor to have a presence on some public cloud offerings, such as Azure or AWS, to build disaster recovery sites. This functionality is currently missing in the Pakistani market.
What is your primary use case for Sangfor HCI?
The primary use case for Sangfor HCI involves running all workloads that were not for SAP on conventional servers using Hyper-V. We migrated all of these instances from Hyper-V to Sangfor HCI. We a...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cardlytics, AEW Energie, Aubert, Zhongtong Information Service, Commune de Villepinte, Teikyo University Hospital
TOSHIBA TEC Singapore, J&T Express Indonesia, Crowne Plaza Vietnam, Hermina Hospital Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XC Appliance vs. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.