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OpenNebula vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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

OpenNebula
Ranking in Cloud Management
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converg...
Ranking in Cloud Management
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
HCI (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of OpenNebula is 6.6%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

FOURES Jean-Philippe - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable, simple to manage, and offers great technical support
The support of VXLAN fits with our network management. Thanks to this we can propose mixed solutions using virtual resources on OpenNebula and bare metal servers hosted in our facilities linked to each other on the sale network. This use case is very useful when some applications need bare metal power (Kubernetes workers, huge databases, AI models computations, et cetera). The cluster management is very useful for splitting our different clusters (mutual vs dedicated). We can manage deployments and capacity planning without pain. The API is also really simple and it helped us to develop the Terraform provider to manage OpenNebula like any other cloud infrastructure.
KashifAli - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly GUI, capable technical support team but complicated license mechanism
Sangfor HCI's license mechanism is too complicated. The license agreement is a distributed license. Within the HCI platform, Sangfor HCI has multiple licenses in terms of services. Sangfor HCI has a separate license for the security services, a separate license for the Doctor services, and application services. They have multiple SKUs in separate forms. As per local market requirements, I think they need to couple up these or bundle up the license model.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is quite easy to deploy."
"It's easy to integrate OpenNebula with our IT systems."
"OpenNebula has very good integration with SAP Storage."
"I also like the ability to build custom functions. I can define a function where I have two types of views and configure the dependencies. The virtual data centers concept allows me to define users. If a user wants to join certain kinds of machines, the host and the other user won't see them. It gives me the flexibility to define multiple views and data centers in one place."
"The solution provides templates for configurations that can easily be exchanged to VMs."
"With a single click, we could set things up and initiate them."
"The service feature appeals most to us, thus it is the most valuable."
"The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often."
"The solution provides a single management console."
"The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the built-in recovery functionality. The migration is simple to do from other solutions, such as VMware."
"We find the topology feature of Sangfor HCI particularly valuable."
"Sangfor HCI has a strong GUI interface in terms of graphical representation for management purposes."
"Their GUI interface is a bit easier than VMware's."
"The extraordinary product quality, unmatched support services, and the third-generation HCI offering are some of the most valuable features of Sangfor HCI."
"Sangfor HCI has a bundle of security features that are easy to monitor on the HCI dashboard."
"I would rate the user-friendliness an eight out of ten."
 

Cons

"They should add more features like object storage."
"Most of the competitors are offering some sort of billing software to transform their installation to work as a small-sized public cloud, but those offerings from OpenNebula are still missing."
"The protocol for clusterization is rough and doesn't work well."
"As with all enterprise software licensing, the pricing is not intuitive and must be negotiated; grandfathered contracts are better than anything offered today."
"They have been saying for the past two and a half years that they would develop a feature to hot-add RAM and CPU, but it does not work."
"There are no payment gateways in OpenNebula."
"Hosting platforms are limited so the deployment process needs improvement."
"Backup features are only available in the enterprise edition. The community version lacks a good solution for making backups."
"As far as I know, no hyper-convergence solution includes security, so you have to buy security from another brand. For example, you buy SimpliVity or Nutanix. They don't really have a security solution inside the product. It would be good if there is a security solution inside this solution so that it is not only for the virtualization of CPU, RAM, disk, and network but also for security."
"The migration process could be easier."
"There is a feature to upgrade multiple VMs simultaneously, but it crashes."
"The error reporting needs to be improved."
"The processing speed and cost should be improved."
"We have had issues while integrating VMware with Sangfor HCI. The tool should be also faster in terms of customization."
"The documentation and support from the community are not as good or as mature as VMware or Hyper-V."
"Support may be an issue for customers in some industries. For example, financial institutions may require 24/7 support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."
"We use the Community Edition, rather than the Enterprise Edition."
"OpenNebula gives good value for money."
"The licensing for OpenNebula used to be free, but now it's no longer free. A customer contacted me asking to move to another provider because of the changes in the licensing terms for OpenNebula. I have no information on how much the OpenNebula license is because the customer pays for it, and I only do the integration."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"OpenNebuoa has recently come up with a new subscription model that is economical and a lot of new customers are choosing this as it is an easy subscription model."
"The solution is affordable."
"From a business perspective, we use Sangfor HCI due to its competitive pricing compared to other competitors such as Nutanix."
"I would say its pricing is between cheap and reasonable and would rate it as three out of five."
"The tool’s pricing is better when compared to VMware or Nutanix. The product’s licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The price of Sangfor is cheaper than other competing products."
"Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is a reasonably priced product."
"The product's pricing is less expensive and competitive than other alternatives. I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is on-premise which does not have a subscription. However, there is a need to purchase support. The solution is on a perpetual license model. There is not any extra cost other than the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about OpenNebula?
The live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often.
What needs improvement with OpenNebula?
The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement. Another area for improvement is the integration with hardware to manage the lower layer of the n...
What do you like most about Sangfor HCI?
It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten... Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor HCI?
I rate the pricing of Sangfor HCI at a five, as it is thirty to thirty-five percent more efficient than other solutions in terms of total cost of ownership.
What needs improvement with Sangfor HCI?
I would like Sangfor to have a presence on some public cloud offerings, such as Azure or AWS, to build disaster recovery sites. This functionality is currently missing in the Pakistani market.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Akamai, BBC, Fermilab, Terradue, Surf Sara, Produban, Netways, ESA, China Mobile, BlackBerry, Deloitte, Fuze, Telefonica, Trivago, Nokia, Encore Tech, Beeks.
TOSHIBA TEC Singapore, J&T Express Indonesia, Crowne Plaza Vietnam, Hermina Hospital Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenNebula vs. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.