NetApp HCI [EOL] vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance comparison

NetApp and StarWind are both solutions in the HCI category. Additionally, 88% of NetApp users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of StarWind users who would recommend it.

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Read 32 NetApp HCI [EOL] reviews

88% willing to recommend

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Read 66 StarWind HyperConverged Appliance reviews

3,575 Views
2,503 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

NetApp HCI [EOL]

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between NetApp HCI [EOL] and StarWind HyperConverged Appliance based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI.

To learn more, read our detailed HCI Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HCI

June 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 900,644 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

NetApp HCI [EOL]

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

StarWind HyperConverged App...

Average Rating

9.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (12th), HCI (14th)

Featured Reviews

Massimiliano Bartolozzi

Chief Information Officer at Lucart S.p.A.

Crashed continuously, complex to deploy, and bad after-sales support - NETAPP FIXED the problems in 2022

Their after-sales support, SLA, and third-parties availability should be improved. NetApp's support is very difficult to engage. We have an SLA of onsite support within 24 hours. but they don't respect the SLA. Its stability was very bad. It has been crashing continuously. In one year, we got three crashes, which is unbelievable for an appliance that is guaranteed for 10 years without any crashes. In 2022, NetApp Italy, driven by the country manager Davide Marini, fixed all our issues and added additional computation power for free. This is a great example of customer care. They could have done it right the first time of course, but admitting the errors and putting in place such a remediation plan has been a very professional behavior.

Read full review

Russ Le Puill

IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School

Proactive support with improved speed and resilience

There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

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 initial setup was straightforward; it was easy and fast to deploy, and NetApp Cloud Manager made getting up and running with Cloud ONTAP amazing, easy to use, simple, and it basically did everything."

"Where we lost nearly 75 percent of our infrastructure due to a malicious attack and were able to recover two and a half hours into it due to the integration, it saved us and all of our customers."

"It has reduced our hypervisor footprint by around 20%."

"I like how the solution gives you the ability to basically grow compute and storage separately, and there is no compute processing used for storage IO so that means that the compute is purely satisfying user workloads."

"Now you don't have to be a storage administrator to provision or do anything, and any VMware system administrator, with the ease of a button, would get storage provision, which makes their lives easier."

"The best thing about the product is this is the only appliance in the market that separates control of storage from compute."

"The solution integrates well with all the other applications that we use on our environment."

"Since implementing this solution, we have to do less work."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pros

"Using the StarWind solution, I was able to consolidate all the servers, hardware and firmware, with a three-node StarWind cluster, based on Hyper-V, and as a result I have seen gains in I/O rates on the order of ten times what they were and a better performing environment."

"It improved all services running on the new cluster and took up less space and less energy."

"It is the perfect solution for hyper-convergence at a fair price. Our customers have Hyper-V and VMware environments, with Windows servers and Linux."

"With StarWind's Proactive monitoring we can go about our day helping our customers and not have to worry about our cluster's health."

"Overall, StarWind provides a solid product and addresses our remote office branch office needs."

"I love StarWind HCA because of the cost and the redundancy."

"Having this all backed up by pro-active support gives us good peace of mind."

"The most valuable feature is the high-availability. We have three nodes, and all data will be synched instantly through all the nodes. Even if we had a disaster where two nodes failed, containing dozens of critical machines, almost automatically, all the loads would be run on the remaining node."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pros

Cons

"The fact that it doesn't have all the data points we need and all the historical data that I would like. I find that a lot of the performance analysis is done through support, where they have something that we don't have. It would be nice just to have all that on-prem."

"The deployment process has room for improvement. I would like for it to be a cookie-cutter deployment."

"I would like to have the ability to replicate to multiple sites."

"I would like to have more variety, like GPU cards."

"I would like to see higher level graphics support because we are going to be doing some virtual desktop for our CAD software, and I want to be able to support AutoCAD and Cantillo on remote desktop machines."

"The price should be lowered. It's a little expensive."

"They could improve the packaging."

"The price of the solution is okay but could improve."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] cons

"The monitoring and reporting console can be improved in the sense that it can have more information on it."

"The only thing that can use improvement is the StarWind Management Console and Command Center."

"I do wish there was a little more "Here's how it works." There could be more documentation given to administrators to know, just in case you have to troubleshoot this by yourself, what you should look out for."

"What would have to be done urgently, however, is the adaptation of the hardware to the configuration."

"We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance."

"It's been a few months since the implementation, and so far, the only improvement I'd like to see is the addition of a web console to manage the clusters instead of a client to install."

"Although the setup documentation was very complete and succinct, I found StarWind documentation to be a bit sparse."

"We did have some issues with shipping the product to one our sites."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees are renewed annually."

"You still have to pay for the licensing for VMware and Red Hat licenses separately. It's not all inclusive at this point."

"There are the overall infrastructure costs. Even though the initial costing was higher, we calculated for year-to-year for five years. That brought us into a position where we decided, we have to go for HCI rather than having distributor systems."

"This solution saved our organization time (35 percent) and money. We have a hefty group of developers, and if you multiply that by 30 to 35 percent, that is quite a bit of money."

"This solution reduced our maintenance costs. We were going to have to pay one to two million dollars to put in compute nodes. We are avoiding those costs."

"Its pricing is lower than our previous solution."

"All the licenses are included when you buy the program."

"Licenses run on a yearly basis, and there aren't any additional fees other than the standard licensing fee."

More NetApp HCI [EOL] pricing and cost advice

"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."

"I was able to bring the price per year down by going out to a five-year plan."

"I honestly feel that there's no one else in the market doing what they're doing for the price point that they're doing it at. That's why I asked them about investing in their company. I think that the options they're providing and the software that they have is sort of revolutionary for the price point... The total cost was $24,400."

"We looked at Nutanix and found it did almost the same thing but for more money. In fact, StarWind was nearly one-third of the price; it cost us £36,000. That includes five years of monitoring... The Nutanix was near enough £110,000 for relatively the same amount of performance and storage."

"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."

"Our entire package was around $35,000 for everything, including three years of support."

"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."

"It's an all in one package, making it very easy."

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Marketing Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

Marketing Services Firm

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	19

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	51
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.

See all answers

What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...

See all answers

Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 24% of the time

VxRail vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

VMware vSAN vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra dHCI vs NetApp HCI [EOL]

Compared 9% of the time

More NetApp HCI [EOL] Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 9% of the time

VxRail vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 9% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 5% of the time

Zadara vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

Compared 5% of the time

More StarWind HyperConverged Appliance Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NetApp HCI [EOL]

June 2026

Download NetApp HCI [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

May 2026

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance report

Download StarWind HyperConverged Appliance product report

Overview

NetApp HCI is the only true enterprise-scale hyper converged cloud infrastructure. NetApp HCI comes in a 2 RU chassis with 4 node expansion slots.

NetApp

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance integrates storage and computing power into a single platform, offering scalability and efficiency for high-availability virtual environments. It enhances cost-effectiveness by reducing hardware needs and eliminates the requirement for traditional SAN solutions.

StarWind HyperConverged Appliance provides a streamlined, pre-configured setup that simplifies deployment and management. Its compact design saves space while offering high availability and redundancy. The appliance supports real-time VM synchronization and proactive monitoring to enhance performance and reduce downtime. Although appreciated for its efficiency, users suggest improvements such as clearer documentation, better support team communication, enhanced monitoring tools, and a web-based management interface.

What are the key features of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?

Preconfigured Deployment: Simplifies setup with ready-to-use configurations.
High Availability: Ensures continuous operation with redundancy measures.
Proactive Monitoring: Offers peace of mind by monitoring and addressing potential issues.
Real-Time VM Synchronization: Maintains efficiency with instant synchronization of virtual environments.
Intuitive Management: Streamlines operation with simplified management processes.

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Cost Reduction: Decreases hardware expenses by consolidating resources.
Space Efficiency: Compact design optimizes physical space usage.
Operational Simplicity: Eases management workload with intuitive controls.
Rapid Scalability: Facilitates quick adaptation to changing demands.
Improved Performance: Enhances overall efficiency and reduces downtime.

In healthcare, StarWind HyperConverged Appliance supports critical applications with minimal downtime, ensuring patient data availability. Educational institutions leverage its simplified management for virtual classrooms, while financial services appreciate its rapid deployment capabilities for secure transaction processing. Industrial sectors benefit from its fault tolerance in maintaining seamless operation during production.

StarWind

Sample Customers

American Showa, Children's Mercy, Coca-Cola, Consultel Cloud, Evangelische Landeskirche in Wurttemberg, Imperva, Surface Mount Technology

Sears Home and Franchise Business

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI. Updated: June 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best HCI vendors.

We monitor all HCI 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.