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HPE Alletra dHCI vs VMware vSAN 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

HPE Alletra dHCI
Ranking in HCI
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.8%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 15.0%, down from 18.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Antonin Pavlik - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortless upgrades with one-click feature while new server deployment needs a smoother process
I have a data center, and all the servers are connected to HPE Alletra dHCI. I use it for data management with VMware running on the servers The most valuable feature of HPE Alletra dHCI is the one-click upgrade function, which allows all drivers and services to be downloaded to all servers…
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables efficient multi-environment cluster deployment and resource management with versatile features
While VMware vSAN is quite comprehensive, if we are running multiple infrastructures, applications, databases, and other elements, having a diagnostic tool to identify the actual problem area, whether application-side or infrastructure-side, would be beneficial. A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Artificial intelligence is built into the product. If there's a failure, HP support will proactively call the client about the issue."
"With regards to performance, configuration, and longevity it is upgradeable, which means it has a good TCO rate. These are valuable aspects to me."
"It's helpful as you stand on high-end storage. Alletra offers up to 99% availability, providing excellent stability. You also get the benefits of an HCI solution with a template and upgradability at any time."
"HPE Alletra dHCI was good because we could have the vVols, which we are using for our production server, with the snapshots."
"Very good in-line compression."
"I love InfoSite. That gets you a lot of good detailed information."
"We have the ability to increase the storage without any additional costs."
"Nimble DHCI is really user friendly and not complex"
"The feature we have found most valuable is the compatibility of VMware products with VCF and VMware Cloud Foundation."
"If we decide to expand, vSAN could offer us some flexibility. We are researching ways to set this up from a new data center, which is located somewhere different from the current location right now."
"The product's initial setup phase was very straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the simplification of storage. We no longer need to deal with Fibre Channel and the external storage arrays."
"One of the valuable features for us is the ability to restrict the performance capacity per client. Other solutions don't have this feature."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the simplicity of its scalability: being able to grow it without having to make sure you get the right disks and the right nodes. The solution is also easy to manage. It's all right there in the vSphere Client. You're not going through multiple things. You don't have to know, once you've created the vSAN node. You add storage, it sees it, and you create your data storage from there. Everything is right there for you."
"The technical support is good."
 

Cons

"The solution must be hypervisor-agnostic."
"I can tier my data in different storage on the cloud, but I cannot tier the data with HPE Alletra dHCI."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI currently is promoting only VMware as a hypervisor, whereas if they can look into other OSs, such as KVM or Red Hat, it would be an improvement."
"Software upgrade is still more complicated than the competitors, so that's an area of improvement."
"Cost-wise, this solution is slightly more expensive than other hyperconverged solutions."
"They could expand product support to Microsoft Hyper-V and Red Hat Linux platforms."
"Nimble Storage's integration with the management software could be better."
"I'm not sure if there are features lacking."
"The ability to access SAN environments with fiber channels (or even NVMe) would be a good addition."
"Currently, one of the available features is shareable VMBKs. You can create the VMBK disc and you can make them shareable between the ends. But as soon as you start using this feature, you lose the ability to create snapshots."
"I would like to see more support for applications. I think currently it only supports applications between two vSAN clusters."
"The server files are larger than before."
"I would have liked it to have been more scalable. It's scalable but not as much as, for example, the ScaleIO systems were or the Kaminario"
"There are certain shortcomings in the stability of the product where improvements are required."
"vSAN does not have online dedup. When opening the inline dedupe, the performance will be lower than off inline."
"Licensing costs are a little too high for smaller sized companies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is expensive."
"HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is much cheaper than the competition and has value proposition. Customers can see an ROI in three months. There are no additional costs, and VMware licenses can be reutilized."
"The product is very affordable."
"I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is cheap."
"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"The solution’s pricing was very good."
"My customers have found VMware vSAN to be a little expensive."
"What made us go with this solution was price point. When you can utilize existing storage infrastructure, and not have to continually purchase new SAN products out there that are going up in price as time goes by, then it's a wonderful thing."
"It is an expensive solution. There should be more flexible with licensing to allow small businesses the essentials of the solution's features."
"It is expensive. It should be cheaper. It has a perpetual license as well as a subscription-based license, but they are moving towards subscription-based licenses."
"It is not a subscription model. It is a purchase model, but it is very important that you also buy technical support from VMware. This is probably the only disadvantage of vSAN. It depends on the use case, but it can be very expensive."
"With the new pricing model, it's expensive for the customer."
"In comparison with other solutions, such as HP or Cisco, I find the solution to be quite pricey."
"It is not that expensive, and it is not even cheap. If it is designed in a proper way, it has good pricing, but if you do oversizing, the price will be high. There are different licensing models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
50%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
Pricing is rated at six, which is normal. The price is appropriate for the capabilities and features that the customers receive.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
I would like the HPE Alletra dHCI to provide options to install products separately. When extending or when servers are already present, normal Alletra systems are more suitable. dHCI projects ofte...
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...
Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.