IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs Portworx Enterprise comparison

IBM and Pure Storage are both solutions in the Cloud Software Defined Storage category. IBM is ranked #4, while Pure Storage is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Pure Storage users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM Spectrum Accelerate and Portworx Enterprise based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Cloud Software Defined Storage solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise Report (Updated: May 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise

May 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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reviewer1154616

IS Auditor at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

A robust solution with good performance and support

This is a solution that scales well, although I think that we have stabilized in terms of use. With respect to scalability, we have an open question as to whether we will be able to grow into a cloud-based deployment. We don't know in what ways this solution will assist us with the migration, or whether we can still use it for DR. We don't know about the type of backup, be it full, incremental, or otherwise. We are also looking for a cost-savings if we migrate. These are things that we will find out over time. We have about two petabytes of data.

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Paulo Jose Bosco Otto

Consultant at PBOservicos-Informatica

A solution backed by strong customer support, that is stable and scalable

As a company managed in a Kubernetes environment, being trusted by a Kubernetes vendor, Red Hat creates barriers against using other certified solutions that work. Because IBM is a competitor of Pure Storage, things seem to be getting worse. I don't have plans to use Portworx Enterprise in the future because, at the moment, I am working with Ondat, and I have to follow NetApp's direction on that. When evaluating Portworx, one should make sure their company has already chosen Pure Storage. Still, if they are evaluating the solution on Ondat or Dell or other platforms, they should get a roadmap statement from Pure Storage, that they will continue to develop storage hardware diagnostics. I rate Portworx a nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"I like its size. It is smaller than the other competitors. We can plug in many blades, and we can have data up to one terabyte."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The most valuable feature is the robustness, which is typical of IBM because their software generally just works."

"The ease of use is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's very user-friendly."

"Portworx virtualizes the aspects of the underlying block storage. That is good because they can also use block storage for their future deployment instead of just NFS."

"I like that you have a small dedicated file system that is fast and resilient for containerized workloads."

"A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications."

"The solution is user-friendly."

"The best thing about Portworx is the Stork, they have called the VPS (Volume Replacement Strategy) and they also have topology awareness, and these are the three features I like."

"Portworx is a simple solution. It's similar to Pure Storage products. They're all easy to use and install. You need to have a little expertise with containers to use Portworx, but it will be no problem for you if you understand containers."

Cons

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"Recently, while upgrading the version code, one of the controllers failed. Replacing the controller took between 14 to 20 days."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"he interface is not user-friendly so the ease of use could be improved."

"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."

"It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately."

"They have not integrated Portworx with Ondat since they are too focused now on Pure Storage APIs and not on users like us."

"The integration has room for improvement."

"I think the vendor could provide more training for new users who may not be familiar with containers."

"The documentation could be better."

"I would like to see a more native mapping to mainframe-type systems."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The product is very expensive."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"The price is a little high."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"If you are cost-sensitive then this solution is not for you."

"For a database, on a yearly basis, we pay approximately $3,500 for licensing fees. The solution is sold as a subscription on a yearly basis so there are no other ancillary costs."

"I'm not sure how the licensing was broken out, but I don't think our offering of the Portworx was more than USD $20,000."

"It has two offerings. One is free, which is limited to only five nodes. The other is enterprise, which is a bit pricier."

"The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM."

"The price of Portworx Enterprise is high."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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What do you like most about Portworx Enterprise?

A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, provid...

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What needs improvement with Portworx Enterprise?

It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchas...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Portworx Enterprise?

I would recommend ensuring that you perform regular backups, specifically the TX backup, which is essential for Portw...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 52% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 48% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Accelerate Competitors

Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 45% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 15% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 10% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 5% of the time

More Portworx Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

May 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Accelerate product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Software Defined Storage

June 2025

Download Portworx Enterprise product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM XIV

No data available

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

IBM Spectrum Accelerate is a software-defined block storage solution designed for rapid deployment across heterogeneous infrastructure for hybrid cloud and delivering consistent service levels to a dynamic workload mix. It is based on proven grid-architecture, enterprise-scale IBM XIV technology. IBM Spectrum Accelerate can be deployed, including as hyper-converged infrastructure, on any x86 server, on pre-installed third-party appliances or on public cloud infrastructure, and is available as a service on IBM Cloud infrastructure.

IBM

Portworx is the solution for running stateful containers in production, designed with DevOps in mind. With Portworx, users can manage any database or stateful service on any infrastructure using any container scheduler, including Kubernetes, Mesosphere DC/OS, and Docker Swarm. Portworx solves the five most common problems DevOps teams encounter when running stateful services in production: persistence, high availability, data automation, security, and support for multiple data stores and infrastructure.

Pure Storage

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Silverpop

NIO, GE Digital, DreamWorks Animation, Lufthansa, beco, NEW CONTEXT

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise

May 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.

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