Microsoft Azure VMware vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) comparison

Microsoft Azure VMware vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

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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

Microsoft Azure VMware

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

10th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...

Ranking in Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

200

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (6th), HCI (3rd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Azure VMware is 3.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is 9.0%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)	9.0%
Microsoft Azure VMware	3.6%
Other	87.4%

Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms

Featured Reviews

DhammikaWeerakoon

Solutions Area Lead at Tech One Global

Cloud migration has reduced hardware dependence and optimizes security and AI-ready operations

Microsoft Azure VMware is an area that requires attention. I believe the VMware part should eventually merge with Azure as a single Azure platform, moving away from hypervisor-on-hypervisor architecture and instead bringing VMware features into Azure as native capabilities or as VMware-labeled features running in a true cloud environment. Some features should be brought in to achieve this integration. Additional improvements for Microsoft Azure VMware would include integration with Azure Site Recovery and disaster recovery capabilities. The ideal scenario would be VMware as primary with disaster recovery in Azure, connecting in a native manner. These improvements should be delivered as an integrated solution available out of the box rather than as separate components. Integration with other solutions such as Microsoft Site Recovery should encompass Azure native business continuity and disaster recovery with VMware. Microsoft Azure VMware would serve as primary hosting and connect natively to business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities with Azure. This should be available as a native feature.

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Obasanjo Biliaminu

Head Systems Administration/Security at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC

Infrastructure efficiency has improved significantly with quick server provisioning, though physical to virtual migrations need a streamlined in-house tool

From my experience with Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), there is one area that needs improvement. When moving a critical infrastructure from a physical machine to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), we currently have to use a third-party tool to convert the physical machine to a VM. We have to use VMware converter to perform this conversion before moving it to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). I would suggest that Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) should develop their own P2V (physical to VM) tools instead of requiring users to rely on third-party solutions.

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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 integration is very good."

"Since organizations are already on VMware, they can lift and shift everything to Microsoft Azure VMware, allowing the data center to be moved as a whole rather than as separate servers."

"Regarding stability, it is like a five-star solution."

"The capabilities are like a lift-and-shift operation for moving existing VMware environments to the cloud. The time for migration onto the cloud has substantially reduced."

"For new users, if you have a scalable environment where a VMware data center makes sense for your business, I definitely recommend AVS."

"I can use VMware or Hyper-V license, if I already have. But if I use a similar solution as Nutanix Acropolis hypervisor (AHV) that comes embedded in Nutanix solution, I can manage all my virtual environments with everything I need without spend more money on licenses."

"If you want to build a hybrid cloud, and have a good balance between cost and performance, then Nutanix is good option."

"What I like the most are the high-availability and scalability."

"There are a lot of things I really like. Perhaps the best part is taking a snapshot of a virtual machine. It's very quick. Another useful part is replication and creating a protection domain: using the protection feature to replicate a machine to a remote site for DR purposes."

"There are a lot of features in Nutanix that are different from other hyper-converged solutions, such as site-to-site replication. VM-based site-to-site replication is bundled with the software licensing. For the DR, it has the availability groups, which is one of the key features that Nutanix provides."

"We now increase the capacity of our datacenter without having to add more square footage, while increasing its horsepower, allowing us to run more servers utilizing less space than before."

"It is a good solution and it is easy to work on their platform."

"The cloud features in-site offering, which I found to be very interesting."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pros

Cons

"Well, sometimes they release product after product, so it's it's kind of hard to keep an overview of all the different aspects of of the solutions."

"Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities."

"Microsoft Azure VMware is an area that requires attention."

"The only issue is that a small challenge was found regarding the network...to have extended, smooth VLANs and everything else was a little bit complicated."

"Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities. One improvement could be more support for mid-sized or scalable environments."

"Customer Service: It's excellent, but expensive. Technical Support: It's excellent, but expensive."

"It would be fantastic if there was a built-in layer, in Nutanix, that acted like a cloud interface. So far, we need to integrate a cloud interface on top of Nutanix for billing the usage for specific customers' domains. It would be great if a cloud gateway was built-in, inside Nutanix."

"When moving a critical infrastructure from a physical machine to Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), we currently have to use a third-party tool to convert the physical machine to a VM."

"I'm not very technical, so I don't know if there are any features that are really lacking. Our customers seem pleased with it, and I haven't heard of any downsides."

"USB dongle-based licenses do not allow us to directly locate the USB ports on Nutanix."

"In a hybrid cloud setup, we should be able to port our floors from on-premises to the public cloud and from the public cloud to on-premises."

"They should support more VM, which is not currently supported."

"Areas for improvement would be the memory setting and the CPU setting reserve features, which are not available on Acropolis. I also feel that the DR solution, the reporting, and the component that is combined with the Nutanix OSP need to be improved."

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The mandatory requirements, such as a minimum of three nodes, make it expensive. The customers need to sign up for approximately $20,000 per month."

"The solution is very competitive."

"To be honest, the tool comes at a high price."

"My advice is to get the ultimate license, as it is worth it."

"When we purchase a new physical server or a couple of physical servers into our cluster, we always purchase it with Nutanix licensing. We are receiving the license from Nutanix directly and not from the vendor. In the way we're dealing, with the licenses it is a bit costly for us but as the company is getting larger, day by day or year by year, those licensing costs become lower each time for us. We are purchasing the licenses for three years for some of our clusters and for some others for five-year licenses and the licenses are still costly. We have good discounts for the licenses, but it is still expensive."

"We are aware of the pricing since we renew every year, at almost $100,000 per year."

"Our licensing fee on the total setup up was about R900 000."

"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's pricing is higher now."

"Its licensing model is easy, but the bad thing is that we need to pay for the whole capacity at once. With VMware vSAN, we only have to pay for the capacity that we are using, which is not the case with Nutanix. So, we have more overhead for the licensing cost with Nutanix."

"The license is quite clear to me. It's much clearer than what we had with our previous virtualization environment. The licensing is not complex to understand."

"It's a cost-effective solution"

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user244362

Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2015

Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod

Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

University

14%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	77
Large Enterprise	82

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure VMware?

The pricing is high, rated around nine to 9.5 out of ten. The mandatory requirements, such as a minimum of three nodes, make it expensive. The customers need to sign up for approximately $20,000 pe...

What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure VMware?

Azure VMware needs to cater to smaller enterprises, as it is currently meant for larger entities. One improvement could be more support for mid-sized or scalable environments. The licensing policy ...

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Azure VMware?

For Azure VMware services, most of our customers come from a public sector background. These customers are transitioning due to the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. They are moving from their on-pre...

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?

Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...

What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?

NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...

Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?

NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) vs Microsoft Azure VMware

Comparisons

Compared 36% of the time

Azure Stack vs Microsoft Azure VMware

Compared 26% of the time

VMware Cloud on AWS vs Microsoft Azure VMware

Compared 24% of the time

More Microsoft Azure VMware Competitors

VMware vSAN vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 9% of the time

VxRail vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 7% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 6% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 4% of the time

Azure Local vs Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure VMware

Download Microsoft Azure VMware product report

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)

Download Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) product report

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) report

Also Known As

No data available

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis

Overview

Microsoft Azure VMware provides a seamless integration of VMware environments into Azure, offering enterprises an efficient way to extend workloads and optimize their IT infrastructure. This facilitates a native VMware experience within Azure, ideal for scaling and modernizing services.

Azure VMware enables businesses to leverage existing investments in VMware tools and skills while taking advantage of Azure's scalability and global reach. Users find it valuable for disaster recovery, datacenter extension, and application modernization. It supports consistent operations and reduces complexity by simplifying operations and cutting IT costs. Additionally, users appreciate its ability to integrate with other Azure services for increased functionality and performance.

What are the key features of Microsoft Azure VMware?

Hybrid Platform: Integrates on-premise VMware tools with Azure for consistent management.
Scalability: Easily scale VMware-based applications leveraging Azure's infrastructure.
Disaster Recovery: Offers robust solutions for backup and recovery scenarios, ensuring business continuity.
Flexibility: Supports various VMware workloads, optimizing performance and costs.

What benefits should you evaluate in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Potential for reduced IT expenses by utilizing cloud resources for scaling.
Time Savings: Streamlines operations time with easy management and deployment.
Seamless Integration: Preserves existing investment in VMware tools and skills.
Enhanced Security: Utilizes Azure's comprehensive security features to protect workloads.

In industries like healthcare and finance, Microsoft Azure VMware is implemented to enhance datacenter capacities and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Its ability to integrate with existing resources allows companies to transition workloads without significant disruption, providing a flexible and scalable solution that supports innovation while maintaining operational continuity.

Microsoft

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure delivers high performance and scalability with central management and one-click upgrades. It enhances data protection and reduces deployment complexities, perfect for businesses seeking efficient virtualization.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure offers a comprehensive platform integrating compute, storage, and network for optimal infrastructure management. It supports multiple hypervisors, offering flexibility, efficiency, and ease of use. With features like Prism for centralized management, organizations can manage resources effectively while benefiting from data protection enhancements such as deduplication and compression. Hyper-convergence enables seamless integration, reducing operational costs and increasing scalability. Though the pricing is high, and setup and administration can be complex, the ability to support hybrid cloud implementations and critical infrastructures like VDI and databases provides notable advantages.

What are the key features of Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure?

Prism for Centralized Management: Simplifies resource management with a single control interface.
High Performance: Offers efficient I/O operations to enhance processing efficiency.
Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing business needs with one-click upgrades.
Data Protection: Uses deduplication and compression for secure data handling.
Hyper-Convergence: Integrates compute, storage, and network to optimize infrastructure.
Multi-Hypervisor Support: Provides flexibility to choose preferred hypervisors.

What benefits should users look for in Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure?

Cost Effectiveness: Reduces operational costs through resource optimization.
Ease of Management: Centralized control enhances administrative efficiency.
Scalability: Grows seamlessly with business demand.
Data Protection: Increases security and reliability of data management.
Performance Improvement: Streamlines server provisioning and resource management.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure finds adoption across industries for virtualization, cloud services, and infrastructure consolidation. Organizations utilize it for hybrid clouds and virtual server hosting, supporting applications like databases and virtual desktop infrastructures. They report enhanced data protection, disaster recovery capabilities, and improved performance, facilitating effective resource management.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.

Microsoft Azure VMware vs. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)