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NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP delivers cost savings, increased efficiency, and improved performance, reducing storage, maintenance, and power expenses.
Sentiment score
4.7
VMware vSAN offers cost-saving infrastructure consolidation, though returns vary with high initial costs and difficult ROI measurement for some.
Starting with a smaller infrastructure and scaling as required allows us to save costs initially.
I have seen a return on investment; it's satisfactory in the long run.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP customer service is praised for expertise and responsiveness, with room for improvement in initial support.
Sentiment score
5.1
VMware vSAN customer support excels, particularly through technical account managers and experts, despite occasional initial slow responses.
I would rate their support nine points.
I am not satisfied with VMware support, particularly with the reaction times, SLAs, and those kinds of issues.
Sometimes the issue is that you don't get the best experience, whether it's the response time or first-level support quality.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers scalable growth, dynamic expansion, and flexibility, though large environments face data size limitations.
Sentiment score
5.7
VMware vSAN offers scalable expansion and adaptability, though it faces some limitations compared to competitor solutions like Nutanix.
It supports up to 64 nodes in a cluster, allowing us to add nodes and expand the cluster as needed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers high stability and reliability, with users valuing performance and responsive support despite occasional minor issues.
Sentiment score
5.1
VMware vSAN is praised for stability and performance, with proper configuration essential to avoid hardware compatibility issues.
In terms of stability, I give VMware vSAN nine points.
 

Room For Improvement

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP users seek improved scalability, integration, ease of use, and features like security, monitoring, and cloud compatibility.
VMware vSAN users seek enhanced management, stability, compatibility, performance, and features, including deduplication, resync speed, licensing, and backup options.
My opinion is that support is generally very good. There are instances where they take longer to respond or resolve issues, especially when customers have urgent needs, but ultimately, resolution is achieved.
A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.
Maybe incorporation of automation to build clusters in a more automated way would be beneficial.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users enjoy NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP for its features despite higher costs, with discounts available for extended commitments.
VMware vSAN's competitive pricing, while complex, offers cost savings and value, especially over traditional SANs, despite perceived high costs.
This has resulted in a slight cost increase.
 

Valuable Features

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP offers reliable, flexible data protection, seamless integration, and optimized storage across diverse cloud environments.
VMware vSAN offers scalable, cost-efficient storage with high performance, centralized management, and strong data protection for evolving infrastructure needs.
Hot add features are available by default in vSphere, allowing us to immediately increase memory, CPU, and hard drive without any downtime.
The VMware vSAN feature that has had the greatest impact on operational efficiency is the basic software-defined storage functionality.
A one-stack solution from one vendor is the main benefit here.
 

Categories and Ranking

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (2nd), Cloud Backup (13th), Public Cloud Storage Services (7th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
VMware vSAN
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
232
Ranking in other categories
HCI (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Punit Waghela - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers advanced features with notable emphasis on innovation
The best features of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP include deduplication, compaction, and autonomous ransomware technology that native cloud storage solutions in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud do not support. Moreover, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP allows the use of multiple protocols including NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI, whereas native options may only support NFS and iSCSI. Customers already using on-premises NetApp storage such as FAS, AFF, or ASA can experience the same functionality on the cloud with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which adds significant value. For data protection, customers can take advantage of the Snapshot technology available with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP. This technology facilitates data recovery by allowing snapshots to be stored either on the same storage or on a disaster recovery (DR) storage. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP helps us to take snapshots and store them on the same storage, with options for migration or replication of those snapshots to different storage, including on-premises DR storage or other cloud storage, providing excellent disaster recovery capabilities.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplica...
What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP does have a bit of initial complexity for users who are new to the system. Although it isn't overwhelmingly complex, first-time users may find it challenging until they b...
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

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard
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Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.