Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs VMware Software Defined Storage comparison

Nutanix and Broadcom are both solutions in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category. Nutanix is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7, while Broadcom is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.3. Nutanix holds a 4.8% mindshare in SDS, compared to Broadcom’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Nutanix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 5, 2024

VMware Software Defined Storage and Nutanix Unified Storage compete in the enterprise storage market. Nutanix has the upper hand due to its integrated approach combining storage, computing, and networking, well-suited for modern enterprise needs.

Features: Nutanix Unified Storage offers a hyper-converged infrastructure providing a streamlined solution that simplifies management and optimizes performance. It unifies storage across different machines, increasing flexibility and scalability. Nutanix also ensures high availability and makes data management user-friendly with its self-service capabilities. VMware Software Defined Storage provides scalability and integrates well with existing infrastructures. Its redundancy protects against data corruption while ensuring flexibility during scaling, offering a comprehensive approach to infrastructure integration.

Room for Improvement: Nutanix can improve its data protection features, ensuring more efficient responses to security threats and refining its configuration options. Additionally, better integration with other platforms could enhance its versatility. Cost-effective scaling options should also be considered. VMware SDS could work on improving initial setup simplicity and configuration processes. Enhancing compatibility with a broader range of hardware might offer users more adaptability and ease of use. Pricing model transparency is another area for potential enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware supports flexible deployment allowing customization to specific requirements, which is advantageous for businesses with unique needs. Nutanix focuses on simplicity and quick deployment and is praised for its strong customer support. Its straightforward setup ensures a faster time-to-value, appealing to businesses prioritizing efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: VMware SDS offers a flexible pricing structure suitable for varying budgets, though initial setup may be costly. This flexibility may accommodate different business sizes and financial plans. Nutanix Unified Storage potentially involves a larger upfront investment but provides long-term ROI benefits via reduced operational complexity. The comprehensive nature of Nutanix’s solution often leads to greater long-term value, attributing higher returns on the investment.

To learn more, read our detailed Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. VMware Software Defined Storage Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

February 2026

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Software Defined Storage (SDS) category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 3.4%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is 4.8%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Software Defined Storage is 2.3%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)	4.8%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	3.4%
VMware Software Defined Storage	2.3%
Other	89.5%

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

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Amarnath Charugundla

System Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Unified management and cost-effectiveness lead to positive experiences and future savings

Improvement is necessary wherein the memory or storage should not breach 90%, because if breached, it becomes unmanageable. We have to set alerts or CPU triggering for 95% for the first warning. Other activities on nodes or file systems should be properly maintained. We must monitor the dashboard for P1, P2 alerts in the Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) file share system including SMB, NFS, objects, and blocks. Attention should be maintained for any alerts such as CPU, memory, and RAM alerts, as exceeding these creates issues within teams. If triggered to 95% and forgotten, it crosses the SLA breach, causing disturbances to application, web, and platform teams. Continuous monitoring on the Nutanix dashboard is essential. Even a highly experienced person in Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cannot provide a 10 rating out of 10 because it is a vast system. I would rate it eight from my perspective.

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Mohammad Jundiah

Solutions Architect at QDS

Data security and performance excel but integration and licensing need improvement

I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Additionally, I worked with VMware Software Defined Storage both internally and with partners to consolidate servers into one solution The most valuable features of VMware Software…

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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 most valuable feature is Safe Mode."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"It's very easy-to-use."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"What I appreciate most about Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) is how easy it is to use and how simple it is to create new volumes and containers, and it's pretty quick."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a seven."

"The most valuable features of the solution are replication and backup and our company needs a tool to help us with disaster recovery and the security of our data."

"DR and the replication power are valuable."

"The life cycle managers of the PCMs are very impressive, and I like them. They make our lives easy when managing patches and security updates when they come in. A life cycle manager helps to consolidate different vendors."

"Nutanix Objects is reliable."

"We have seen reduced overheads and increased efficiency with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)."

"My overall rating for Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) would be nine out of ten, as I have no complaints."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pros

"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."

"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without additional hardware."

"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."

"The most valuable features of VMware Software Defined Storage are scalability, high availability, and performance."

"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."

"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."

Cons

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"I would like to have Snapshots and Snapmail in the next release. People who came from a NetApp background, especially expect these features."

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"In the realm of micro-services, I think that Pure Storage can do well if they start getting in there and making their arrays more micro-services ready."

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

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

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"There should be more automation. Going deeper, I would appreciate seeing out-of-the-box automation for storage provisioning and maybe some more customer-facing, web portal-type or API functionality to Jira or ServiceNow."

"There are some techniques that need to be improved because sometimes, during processes, it gets stuck on the console, requiring command line interventions, indicating gaps between the GUI and command lines."

"I have heard that there have been latency problems."

"Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) needs improvement, particularly for firmware upgrades, as sometimes updates take a whole day and it can be unclear whether the issue is with Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) or the hardware, requiring us to reconfigure everything, which is a main point we want consolidated into one solution."

"The solution's monitoring and security features could be improved."

"When considering the difference in cost benefits, if you consider it only as a storage solution, you may find it expensive."

"The escalation process with technical support could do with some improvement."

"Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) sits in a good place for us. The biggest improvement would be to make it more cost-effective from a storage node and storage perspective, so that the solution isn't such a question when it comes to cost-prohibitiveness versus potentially other vendors."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) cons

"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"I'd like to see improved hardware compatibility"

"VMware Software Defined Storage should include a shared database on a standard version."

"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."

"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."

"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."

"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."

"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"It's a costly solution, but Pure Storage FlashBlade doesn't require additional licenses. All of the software is combined into one bundle."

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

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

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

"The product is very expensive."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Nutanix is priced a bit higher than some of its competitors. A lot of Chinese companies like Huawei are entering the Saudi Arabian market trying to provide similar solutions for a lower price. It offers a good value, especially the support. Nutanix has a highly competent team. The after-sales support is excellent."

"With all of the Nutanix equipment, the licensing is expensive. We operate in the enterprise space, but we're a midsized company. At times, the price tag is a little bit shocking for a company with only 35 employees. We're not a Fortune 500 company, but we deal with Fortune 500 drug and energy companies. We have to play in that enterprise space if we're going to have enterprise customers. I'm very price-conscious, but I understand that if I want the best, I've got to pay the price."

"The product has an annual licensing fee."

"In the manufacturing industry, we operate under very lean principles where costs are heavily scrutinized. There was some initial hesitation, but the performance we've experienced since switching to the Nutanix platform, along with the peace of mind from having confidence in our platform to not give us issues that keep us up at night, has smoothed over much of that scrutiny."

"I'm happy with the cost and licensing because I don't have big volumes."

"It is very good. It is much more competitive than a dedicated storage platform."

"It is not too high for what we are using."

"Nutanix is very competitive."

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) pricing and cost advice

"I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting."

"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."

"The solution is very expensive."

"VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution."

"A single socket costs you around US $6,000 for three years. At a minimum, you have a three load cluster for a medium or enterprise-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other side. It comes to around $30,000."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	30
Large Enterprise	66

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Large Enterprise	6

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?

Regarding pricing, it is okay; we needed exactly this in size, and the price was a lot lower than competitors, making...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

In my opinion, one way Pure Storage FlashBlade can be improved is by having more compatibility between the FlashArray...

See all answers

What do you like most about Nutanix Unified Storage?

Nutanix has excellent product documentation available on their portals, written in simple, easy-to-understand language.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nutanix Unified Storage?

It is very cost-effective compared to the traditional environment. With new hardware, it's a long-term investment but...

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What needs improvement with Nutanix Unified Storage?

To improve Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS), cost is always an issue for every company, especially when we talk about la...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Software Defined Storage?

The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for...

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Software Defined Storage?

There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages. More automation, such as using Playbook on Ansibl...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Software Defined Storage?

I used Nutanix for its hyper-converged infrastructure capabilities and VMware Site Recovery for disaster recovery. Ad...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 18% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 8% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

Pure FlashArray X NVMe vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

Compared 3% of the time

More Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) Competitors

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 21% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 16% of the time

DataCore SANsymphony vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware Software Defined Storage

Compared 11% of the time

More VMware Software Defined Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

January 2026

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)

January 2026

Download Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Software Defined Storage

January 2026

Download VMware Software Defined Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

Nutanix Files Storage, Nutanix Volumes Block Storage, Nutanix Objects Storage

VMware SDS

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

Nutanix Unified Storage offers seamless scalability and high availability with a user-friendly interface, supporting multi-protocol operations while integrating effortlessly with cloud platforms. It enhances performance and security with features like ransomware protection and advanced data management.

Nutanix Unified Storage streamlines storage management by consolidating infrastructure and optimizing virtualization. It reduces operational complexity and enhances performance across diverse workloads. Despite feedback on integration challenges and suggestions for improving pricing, API capabilities, and security, it remains a key choice for dependable storage solutions. Calls for streamlined implementation and enhanced AI capabilities reflect its potential to better support evolving organizational strategies, driving cost efficiency and data accessibility.

What are the key features of Nutanix Unified Storage?

Intuitive Interface: Simplifies management with easy navigation.
High Availability: Ensures minimal downtime and reliable performance.
Seamless Scalability: Adapts to increasing data requirements effortlessly.
Multi-Protocol Support: Facilitates comprehensive operations across different systems.
Advanced Security: Offers ransomware protection and secure data backup.
Cloud Integration: Allows smooth interaction with cloud platforms.

What benefits and ROI should users evaluate?

Operational Efficiency: Reduced complexity through streamlined management.
Cost Optimization: Achieved via data compression and consolidation.
Enhanced Data Visibility: Improved insights with advanced data lens.
Performance Improvement: Significant uplift in workload handling and database performance.
Scalable Infrastructure: Enables growth and adaptation to changing demands.

In industries, Nutanix Unified Storage is deployed to centralize storage needs, improve database efficiency, and enhance file sharing and security. Organizations use it to consolidate infrastructure, support virtualization, optimize costs, and facilitate virtual machine hosting. It's instrumental in scalable object storage, ransomware protection, integrating legacy systems, and catering to critical applications.

Nutanix

VMware software-defined storage is a simple, yet intelligent, storage data center architecture that aligns with business and application demands—eliminating static, purpose-built and inefficient hardware with dynamic, agile and automated solutions.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco

Helse Nord, Sky

Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

February 2026

Free Report: Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs. VMware Software Defined Storage

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