Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
6.6
Number of Reviews
230
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of HPE Alletra dHCI is 4.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 15.6%, down from 18.6% 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…
Yves Sandfort - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources
Stability can be improved. Adding all these new features is nice, but we are now at the level where most of the features you need in production are there. The stability is not from a day-to-day operations perspective, but more from a supportability perspective, because currently some of the support scenarios require you to completely evacuate hosts or the complete cluster. That sometimes can be a stretch. This would clearly be an improvement if the support teams were given additional tools to make that easier. Upgradability could be a bit easier sometimes. We are now where vSAN can be updated without ESXi, but there is still enough dependency. So that would be good if that actually would be uncoupled even more. Dashboards are there, and we use vROps as well. So, we have all the beauty of capacity planning and everything over there. That's not really something where we need a lot of other things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution works well."
"Nimble is easy to use, but hard to install. Once it's installed, it's user-friendly. Reporting is another advantage because we get a lot of statistical forecasting. It helps us see into the future with that."
"The solution is useful for taking storage snapshots, has high performance, and the CASL architecture is good for optimizing workloads."
"The nice thing about it is that it truly integrates with the cloud, so I can move my volumes bi-directionally in and out of the cloud."
"The integration of AI tools for predictive analysis sets it apart from competitors."
"I love InfoSite. That gets you a lot of good detailed information."
"HPE Alletra dHCI was good because we could have the vVols, which we are using for our production server, with the snapshots."
"Artificial intelligence is built into the product. If there's a failure, HP support will proactively call the client about the issue."
"Technical support is very helpful and very good at resolving issues."
"It scales well. We have plenty of room to grow."
"VMware vSAN's most valuable features are the capability to consolidate standalone physical infrastructure into virtualization and the ease of management."
"I like the scalability and the fact that it reduces your total cost for storage over several years."
"The technical support is good."
"Being able to deploy multiple applications with virtual servers is the most valuable for us. The capacity of the system is quite constant so it's got some of the good features."
"The product’s most valuable features are performance and expandability."
"I have found that the multi-homing feature is very valuable in VMware vSAN. It is an easy-to-use solution."
 

Cons

"They should improve just the support."
"I rate Nimble one out of 10 for ease of setup. Setting up Nimble Storage was a nightmare. It took us three months to deal with all the kinks and bugs. We had two people from HPE assisting us and two from our team."
"The product’s performance needs improvement. It could also help with more environment monitoring and AI technologies to improve the performance and thresholds."
"The solution must be hypervisor-agnostic."
"The implementation process was problematic due to firmware incompatibilities and lengthy support intervention."
"The deployment of a new server could be improved."
"The product does not support file services."
"The only issue I'm really running into is we have a SQL server that we're having a lot of high IO latency on one of my drives and it's my data drive from my SQL server. It's not really giving me any good information as to where that latency is coming from, so that's what I'm trying to track down and troubleshoot."
"There's already a concern with VMware with ransomware and security issues. VMware could focus on improving security."
"While I like the replication and compression features, there is a problem with them running too slowly."
"Pricing is something of a concern."
"The platform's cost affects the business. This particular area needs improvement."
"This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work."
"If the support could be provided more quickly, it would be very helpful."
"I would like to see better performance graphs, maybe something that you can export outside to a different console, and maybe a little bit longer time period. The 18-hour maximum, or 24-hour maximum, is kind of short. Also, the hardware compatibility limitations are a little frustrating sometimes, but as everybody's starting to adopt vSAN more, you get more options for hardware."
"On the DevOps side, if there could be more automation it would be more helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think it's priced right and it's extremely intelligent."
"The price of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is expensive."
"The solution’s pricing was very good."
"The customers have found the solution to be expensive. However, when compared to the competition the price is reasonable."
"The product licensing costs vary depending on whether VMware or other solutions are used."
"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."
"With the features that HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides, I cannot say its pricing is more."
"The price of vSAN could be lower."
"Its reasonable, compare with other storage vendors"
"The cost is expensive. I purchased two servers. The hardware cost was $19,000. The software cost for these two servers, including the vSAN, was $30,000, which is $11,000 more than the hardware. Then I had to pay another $5,000 for installation and implementation for professional services. In total, it was $54,000 for two vSAN Servers."
"With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive."
"I have been told that if I used VxRail it would be cheaper than the system we are using now with buying the products separately. The solution is expensive overall."
"Perhaps a bundle, like Essentials, would allow more businesses to make the leap to the product."
"The solution is relatively expensive compared to similar products."
"The licensing cost is high and should be taken into account."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
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?
The price of HPE Alletra dHCI is considered expensive for small businesses, however, it is suitable for medium to large companies.
What needs improvement with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?
The deployment of a new server could be improved. I would like to add servers to the existing stack more easily, and there should be a function to reinstall servers with a one-click installation pr...
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

Information Not Available
Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Alletra dHCI vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.