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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
17th
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
7.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Dell XC Appliance is 1.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VxRail is 13.2%, down from 19.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VxRail13.2%
Dell XC Appliance1.4%
Other85.4%
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

"What I like the most is that it is easy to implement, easy deployment and that it's easy to manage."
"The solution's hardware is great."
"The most valuable features are the deduplication and the compression features."
"The most valuable feature is the low management overhead, and the lower skill set required to manage it."
"The most valuable feature is that you can assign a volume to an off-shore workload on the fly."
"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 cover points feature in VxRail is remarkable. It's unique. It has an intervention failover system as well as an automatic failover system, reaching clusters existing in VxRail. This makes all files act as a single file with a large and huge resource, and, of course, with customized administration, configuration, and resources. It provides automatic failover for redundancy and data recovery."
"VxRail has given us a lot of tools in a one-stop-shop environment."
"It is truly a hyper-converged infrastructure, so everything is there together."
"Initial setup is straightforward, as everything is pre-installed."
"VxRail supports straightforward scaling, allowing you to add as many nodes as needed for upgrades and simplifying the upgrade process."
"Depending on your architecture type, it's simple to manage and implement VxRail compared to other solutions. That's why most of our customers use it."
"VxRail's integration with VMware environments is very good. Our VxRail is built on VMware, and the integration is seamless. We haven't faced any challenges. We can migrate VMs between servers in real-time and replicate them to our DR site without any problems."
"The most valuable feature in the VxRail solution is the software that binds the management portal and its ease of use of managing the environment. The guys don't have to worry about getting multiple solutions specialist. You can have one person looking at and managing the whole environment."
 

Cons

"The cost of using the public cloud deployment is astronomical."
"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."
"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."
"Currently, there is no support for the servers that are not in the cluster."
"We are not always advised of new features or updates, so we must research to stay up to date."
"In the next release, I would like to see support for Docker and containers."
"There should be more provisioning capabilities within the solution."
"They need to keep upgrading the environment and improving automation so that the solution keeps getting better and better."
"The major issue with VxRail is the razoring process, which can only be performed by Dell."
"Lifecycle management (LCM) should be enhanced"
"It's not really flexible with different use cases."
"Integration could be improved."
"The licensing needs to be improved upon."
"It would be an improvement if VxRail could be integrated with some other hypervisors and not just with VMware."
"There are still some features which aren't built into Cisco, like virtualized networking, that use its applications. However, these can be purchased through another product as an additional licensing cost to us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 pricing is good."
"We received a good price from Dell."
"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 price is a little bit on the higher side but the system and management are so quick and easy that it's worth it for the customer."
"The licensing costs can vary depending on the number of processors and specific requirements, which may result in considerable expenses."
"Compare the VxRail product to Nutanix. Nutanix has more features, but its pricing is higher."
"It varies. It could be $100,000 at the smaller end and millions and millions of dollars at the higher end."
"The price is rather on the high side."
"Be mindful of your storage needs now and for the future."
"VxRail has a subscription model usually tagged with the appliance box only."
"We pay for annual support from VxRail."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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 Enterprise56
 

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: December 2025.
881,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.