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.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

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

Parul-Patel

Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.

High performance and throughput enhance IT backup management

The multi-dimensional scale-out design feature of Pure Storage FlashBlade is not in use in our environment. Regarding data reduction technologies, we don't get much deduplication because the data is already deduplicated from our FlashArray before we get to backup, so there is no benefit of deduplication. Regarding the integration with cloud-native ecosystem tools, we are not on cloud; we are strictly an on-premises solution. Pure Storage FlashBlade is not used by any end-user; it's used only for IT backup, with only about four people in our group managing it. I cannot recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other users depending upon their financial situation because it's an expensive solution, and the cost is very high, including licensing and renewal every year. I rate Pure Storage FlashBlade an eight out of ten.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"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."

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

"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."

"The initial setup is pretty quick."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"The solution is 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."

Cons

"I would like to see more deduplication."

"We initially encountered challenges with the assembly process due to issues with the documentation required during setup, an area where Pure Storage needs improvement."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"Its configuration should be easier."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

"There is some room for new features related to authentication and integration with Kubernetes, and other solution using S3 Bucket."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"The reporting mechanisms need improvement."

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

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

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

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

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

"The documentation could be better."

"The integration has room for improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is very expensive."

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

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"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."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

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."

"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 of Portworx Enterprise is high."

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

"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."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Software Defined Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

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...

See all answers

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

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

See all answers

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What do you like most about Portworx Enterprise?

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

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

StorMagic SvSAN vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 42% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 34% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Spectrum Accelerate

Compared 25% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Accelerate Competitors

Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 43% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 14% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 9% of the time

Dell Container Storage Modules vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Portworx Enterprise

Compared 6% of the time

More Portworx Enterprise Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

September 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Accelerate product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Software Defined Storage

September 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

September 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: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM Spectrum Accelerate vs. Portworx Enterprise report.

See our list of best Cloud Software Defined Storage vendors and best Software Defined Storage (SDS) vendors.

We monitor all Cloud Software Defined Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.