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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs RHEV comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (6th), HCI (4th), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (3rd), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
RHEV
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) and RHEV aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 9.0%, down 9.6% compared to last year.
RHEV, on the other hand, focuses on Server Virtualization Software, holds 2.6% mindshare, down 2.7% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.0%
VxRail9.3%
VMware vSAN7.8%
Other73.9%
HCI
Server Virtualization Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
RHEV2.6%
VMware vSphere18.2%
Hyper-V17.4%
Other61.8%
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

JD
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
Hyper-converged storage has improved performance and now supports high redundancy for our VMs
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) was transparent because we were on a regular infrastructure before. We went on NCI and were able to improve performance, but it did not really change how things worked. The performance was really better for applications and access times to the data. I regularly looked at the analytics to see what was going on in my servers and what it was saying to optimize performance. It was pretty interesting because it could analyze and give insights on how to get things working better. In the latest versions, the Prism interface has been replaced by Prism Central. This requires another machine to be deployed to manage the servers.
Mike Neuliep - PeerSpot reviewer
Linux Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Has supported virtualization projects in side jobs but has required workarounds due to lack of maintenance
In my opinion, the best features of RHEV are that it is a real hypervisor and it is free, so it performs better than VMware. I have used the live migration feature in the past with RHEV. There is a free clone of it that is based on the open source. Live migration is a nifty feature if your app is not highly available and you need to do maintenance on a machine. You can migrate the VM off of it, do your maintenance, and move it back when you are done. RHEV has a high availability architecture with a built-in monitoring feature where you could see machines other than the one you are operating on. I tend to implement high availability not so much in RHEV, but by using standard application high availability strategies. Red Hat has another product specifically for high availability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Acropolis has a great interface and lots of management features packaged with it at an affordable price."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS is stable. We didn't receive any concerns regarding any problems, The customers have no concerns about the reliability."
"It's probably the most stable, hyper-conversion environment I've seen on the market."
"This is so dramatically more stable than other hypervisor solutions I have used its almost hard to believe."
"The most valuable feature of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is it has centralized management."
"A lot of features are there, but for us, on the server administration side, creating a clone of the VM is valuable because many times, we have to deploy security patches. For deploying these patches, it helps to have a clone so that if something goes wrong, we can discard that VM and put back the clone VM. That is a very cool feature."
"Nutanix does a superb job with technical support."
"Stability and speed are the most valuable aspects."
"Red Hat is the most stable system; it's better than other OS solutions."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the popularity of the OS."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the support portal."
"The solution is easy for us to deal with when comes to application migration and has good compatibility with multiple components."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is overall very good with all the facilities. It is user friendly, easy to configure, has documentation, and support is available."
"They are so advanced today and so mature in what they do that they could easily give any top-notch industry leaders a run for their money."
 

Cons

"The cost of the solution is too expensive. There are other options, such as VMware, that are offered for less money. In Latin America, it seems to be overpriced for the market."
"We ran into an issue as a managed service provider because Acropolis isn't designed to be used the way we are running it. For example, if we want to deploy a Kubernetes service, the customer networks need to reach our protected cluster network. We have isolated our customers in separate VLANs. However, our customers' networks must access our cluster network to get features like iSCSI or Kubernetes to run. It's challenging."
"As of now, Acropolis and VMware cannot talk to each other. Until we have some kind of interface, it would be much better for Nutanix if they built an interface which can talk. Otherwise, if I have a VMware stack and I already have a Nutanix stack, I create containers, I create clusters on VMware, I create clusters on Nutanix. All of these clusters cannot talk to each other. Then it has to be then subverted as a parallel execution. What happens then is that I have to work in two different environments within my data center. Practically, they are two different data centers but physically and logically, they are one. If they cannot talk to each other that creates a lot of issues. That is something which Nutanix has to develop because for Nutanix it is very simple. For example, Oracle is using a function called GoldenGate. They have a feature called GoldenGate which allows them to talk to various different environments which must really help."
"Nutanix needs to improve network features like Passthrough – SR-IOV. It could be improved by supporting SR-IOV, if they had that support, I would not have needed to implement the VMWare vSAN."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's cloud platform management software could be improved so that I can manage my load between the cloud and on-premises."
"If you're willing to spend on hyper-convergence technologies be prepared to pay more and be locked down to a specific hardware vendor."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure lacks compatibility with certain older processors."
"If your server virtualization, network and storage teams operate in silos and are constantly at war with each other, then HCI is probably not for you at this time."
"The GUI interface needs improvement. Not 90%, but 50% or 60% of the work is done from the command line and so on, so the GUI needs work because people are looking for an easier way to manage the environment."
"The RHEV management plane could be improved, particularly the management interface."
"It would be better to have more patches, especially kernel-level updates, live and online so that we can keep the business up and running during this period."
"When we do a direct comparison, then obviously VMware does better in terms of having Fault Tolerance and doing active disaster recovery and these kind of things. This is something that can be improved within Red Hat."
"RHEV can improve by keeping pace with new features and new enhancements."
"There are two things that I would like to see improvement in when it comes to Red Hat. First is the pricing and second is the support."
"Its scalability can be improved. It is not easy to scale, and we hope that Red Hat can provide a more scalable system."
"They don't know how to sell their great products and don’t really seem to be interested in taking care of their partners who trust and really know their products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is less expensive than the VMware alternative."
"We got the renewal done recently, and there was no cost involved."
"While cost may seem higher than your traditional 3-tier architecture, you need to look at the bigger picture. You're not just buying hardware here. You're buying a complete environment."
"We just have a support license for Nutanix."
"Pricing for Nutanix Acropolis AOS is higher. This is one of the reasons why we were looking into other options."
"If they could further reduce the cost, that would be great. I would like to see the cost be less than the equivalent three-tier architecture."
"We renew our license on a yearly basis and have no costs in addition to the standard fee."
"I don't feel that I am receiving the performance which I am paying for."
"We buy a license for commercial use, and we also use the free editions."
"I would say the price is acceptable."
"This is an open-source solution."
"Its price depends on the use cases."
"The price of RHEV is high. It is an open-source solution, the price should be less. The price should not be on par with a solution, such as VMware. It's not more or equal to VMware, it's less, but the difference should be more substantial."
"I believe we pay on a yearly basis."
"RHEV offers pricing based on a per-physical-machine licensing model."
"This product has a variety of licensing options available. However, the level of licensing, and therefore the cost of licensing, is dependent on the number of servers being utilized."
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Comparison Review

VL
CIO at Robusta Technology & Training
Jan 13, 2015
vSphere vs. RHEV vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer
We have used the following functions: 1. Hypervisor: to ensure that the virtual server provide web and email services to the company, thus providing a stable operation a with single sign-on integration of an AD server and vCenter. 2. Network and Storage: centralized data server…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise76
Large Enterprise88
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for RHEV?
It's the open source. There's not much cost. It's very minimal comparably. Compared to what I am paying for VMware, it's negligible.
What needs improvement with RHEV?
RHEV is not improving because it has been discontinued. It has been discontinued for years. I would love to get back into RHEV, but the job market is difficult and no one is hiring. RHEV is designe...
What is your primary use case for RHEV?
I have done some consulting where I used RHEV, taking on side jobs to run virtual machines in the financial industry for a startup. The last time I used RHEV was in my home lab, but that has been d...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Qualcomm and Bonham's Auction House.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Broadcom, StarWind and others in HCI. Updated: October 2026.
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