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Dell XC Appliance vs VxRail 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
VxRail
Ranking in HCI
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 VxRail is 10.4%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VxRail10.4%
Dell XC Appliance1.7%
Other87.9%
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.
Saleh Khalid - PeerSpot reviewer
computer scientist at Imam University
Experience improved integration and cost-efficiency while facing support challenges
The best features of VxRail are its compatibility with VMware, its hyper-converged solution capabilities, and its single line of support. These are the most beneficial aspects of VxRail. I switched from the previous HP solution to Dell solution because it was a good decision. With HP servers, we dealt with a vendor for the compute servers, another vendor for the storage servers, and another vendor for the networking, which required us to manage multiple vendors. Now, we have a single team who can handle VxRail and a single line of support. We don't need anything other than that, and these are the differences we noticed after we switched.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Overall, the Dell XC Appliance is a very good product."
"It's an extremely stable solution, and I highly recommend it."
"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."
"The solution's best feature is its simplicity."
"The solution's hardware is great."
"Scalability is probably one of the biggest reasons people choose VxRail."
"It offers a very solid service alongside its innovative features and capabilities."
"The solution has simplified our operations."
"It's very easy to upgrade."
"If you're providing a platform that has consolidated compute, storage, and fabric, then it's basically a turnkey type of solution that organizations can use."
"VxRail's feature that we found most valuable was its really good performance. That was one of VxRail's advantages."
"We have seen a return on our investment; we see it mainly in the fact that we are saving money in space and storage, we can use two and a half racks for something else, we also cut down on power consumption because now we have an empty rack that isn't powered on, and we haven't had to replace it, fix it, or do anything that has cost us any money."
"The support is very good from the dataset."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution's storage size could be improved."
"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers."
"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"Obtaining support was hindered by the frequent changes to the hotline numbers."
"If VxRail could also offer file services in addition to virtualization, that would be nice because sometimes people want to complement their environment with file services, and you don't have that in VxRail."
"From a hardware and software perspective, there could be an improvement in the sales cycle, as there are a lot of hoops to go through to get pricing on a solution."
"Dell wants to implement the disaster recovery site in the new year, but they haven't decided yet."
"We have some issues, but they are possibly out-of-the-box issues. There was a host that was dead on arrival, and there were some file issues on other hosts. We're currently working actively with Dell to resolve all these issues. Once they are resolved, the product should be stable."
"There's a specific procedure to follow when shutting down a VxRail system."
"When you converge the solution, you have to be very careful because the great scalability comes at an important cost."
"It still has compatibility issues with the latest version of VMware vSphere 6.5. In fact, we spend around six months waiting for a confirmation and firmware upgrade to confirm this step."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 for Dell EMC solutions is quite expensive and not really made for small or medium-sized businesses."
"The pricing is dependent on the technology and is in direct relation to the manufacturer and the components."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Compare the VxRail product to Nutanix. Nutanix has more features, but its pricing is higher."
"There is an advantage for those who have a good deal with Dell. Its price is good. From a company's perspective, it is always too expensive, but it is about value for money."
"The real ROI is the benefit of being able to do a true hybrid cloud, not having to move from CAPEX to OPEX in a pure break."
"Most of hyper-converged solutions require additional licenses for the virtualization layer (like VMware)."
"A typical node that I would sell to a customer has a list price be between $80,000 and $100,000 per node. Organizations typically start with four nodes. That's the hardware, software, VMware licensing, everything. Customers typically pay about half of that - approximately $45,000 to $50,000 a node. On average, it costs about $200,000 to get your foot in the door."
"The price could be lower."
"The licensing aspect is the most painful for some of our customers. Customers go for a VMware license that's standard and then they find they have to go with the enterprise solution and adjust the license. If you have a limited budget, that's difficult."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
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 Business42
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise57
 

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 Nimble Storage compare to VxRail?
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI Vs. VxRail One of the best things about the HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is the three, two, one, zero rule. That means I need three copies of my data on two different types of me...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?
While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VCE VxRail
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cardlytics, AEW Energie, Aubert, Zhongtong Information Service, Commune de Villepinte, Teikyo University Hospital
World Wide Technology Inc, Renault Sport Formula One Team, 8x8 Inc, Brownes, Canadian Pacific, Canopy, Denton, EDF, Unilin, Xerox
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell XC Appliance vs. VxRail and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.