OpenNebula vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure comparison

OpenNebula and Sangfor are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. OpenNebula is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.5, while Sangfor is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.7. OpenNebula holds a 5.8% mindshare in CM, compared to Sangfor’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of OpenNebula users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Sangfor users who would recommend it.

OpenNebula

Read 15 OpenNebula reviews

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2,889 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converg...

Read 31 Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure reviews

4,072 Views
814 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

OpenNebula

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converg...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

Sangfor HCI and OpenNebula compete in the Hyper Converged Infrastructure market. Sangfor HCI seems to have the upper hand due to its integrated features, reducing ancillary license needs, and competitive pricing.

Features: Sangfor HCI offers features like competitive pricing with integrated CDP and firewalls, reducing ancillary licenses. It provides significant ROI through reduced costs in power, cooling, and space. The solution also supports public cloud use with efficient resource utilization. OpenNebula offers ease of use and simple deployment, with good support for hypervisors and a robust API. Its Marketplace simplifies VM deployment, and it supports multiple views and data centers in one UI.

Room for Improvement: Sangfor HCI can improve by addressing price increases and simplifying its interface further. There's potential in increasing scalability options and enhancing its cloud management capabilities. OpenNebula could enhance its enterprise edition to compete with solutions like VMware. The transition from free to paid licenses could be smoother, and community support could be more robust for better adoption.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Sangfor HCI provides easy management with a single management console and reliable support, though initial setup can be complex. OpenNebula excels in straightforward deployment and boasts an active community for support. Its documentation is comprehensive, enhancing user experience.

Pricing and ROI: Sangfor HCI offers competitive pricing despite recent hikes, maintaining value through integrated features and superior ROI on power, cooling, and space savings. OpenNebula offers a free open-source version and a cost-effective enterprise edition, largely attracting users needing flexibility and customization options while managing lower hardware costs.

To learn more, read our detailed OpenNebula vs. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula vs. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

September 2025

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Helped 868,759 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

OpenNebula

Ranking in Cloud Management

6th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

HCI (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of OpenNebula is 5.8%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
OpenNebula	5.8%
Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure	2.0%
Other	92.2%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

FOURES Jean-Philippe

Products Manager at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

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KashifAli

Project Head, Director of Sales and Operations at Core ISP Router

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.

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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 live migration feature has been great and is something we use very often."

"It is quite easy to deploy."

"OpenNebula is easy to deploy and manage compared to other solutions like OpenStack."

"The solution provides templates for configurations that can easily be exchanged to VMs."

"For the entire data center, as a private cloud, I believe that user management, expert management, and the virtual data center is completely magic for the users."

"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 most valuable feature of OpenNebula is that it scales very well."

"With a single click, we could set things up and initiate them."

More OpenNebula pros

"Sangfor HCI's best features are the ability to scale to a bigger size and the roadmap, whereby if they need to replicate their production to disaster recovery, they can do so on the same platform."

"It is flexible like a hyper-convergence system. You can add nodes, and you can scale to have better performance and stability. I also like the backup feature, the recovery system, and the web interface GUI to handle everything."

"I would rate the user-friendliness an eight out of ten."

"Very user-friendly and simple."

"It was not expensive at all."

"I am impressed with the product's firewall and virtualization."

"Sangfor HCI has a really good GUI. It allows us to monitor the temperature of the server and many other things."

"The most valuable feature of Sangfor HCI is the native backup of their own VMs, which sets them apart from Nutanix and Dell's VxRail."

More Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure pros

Cons

"The front-facing API can be improved to support lots of requests when the platform is huge with lots of virtual resources."

"The web interface could be better. It's not very difficult to use, but there's room for enhancement."

"An area for improvement in OpenNebula is the number of features it has. The solution doesn't have that many cloud features compared to other solutions. You'd say, "Okay, simplicity over a rich feature list?" Some say, "No, I need a big machine or a cloud interface for my customers to manage resources. I don't have to go and do it for them." Some people do it that way, and it works, but I'd like to improve the limited features in OpenNebula."

"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."

"The protocol for clusterization is rough and doesn't work well."

"It should have a simple REST API like most other tools. It's the industry standard format. An XML-RPC API gives you an XML document that you have to convert and then do something with that. REST API endpoint provides outputs in a JSON document. I would also like to see support for user data or heat templates, which OpenStack offers, but OpenNebula doesn't have this yet."

"There are small things that are hard. For example, making sure that it is going to be installable on public clouds."

"Backup features are only available in the enterprise edition. The community version lacks a good solution for making backups."

More OpenNebula cons

"The interface could be a little bit better."

"One question that has come up frequently in the last week is whether or not the renewal cost for Sangfor's HCI solution is too high."

"It should have object storage. It already has network virtualization and micro-segmentation, but it is missing object storage. It does not have object storage. vSAN also does not have object storage, but Nutanix has object storage, and it is natively integrated into its HCI. So, if you pay for the object storage license, you have that module pre-built."

"Sangfor HCI has room for improvement in terms of integration. So, the integration with Sangfor HCI is not as extensive as in Nutanix."

"There are certain aspects of sizing of the solution that need improvement."

"I would want the product to include Continuous Data Protection (CDP) which can help to easily retrieve the data."

"The solution could improve by including backup capabilities."

"Currently, when we need to do capacity planning, we have to rely on Sangfor's support team for assistance. However, if there were dedicated tools available, we could handle it ourselves and increase efficiency."

More Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"VRA is very expensive but OpenNebula is free."

"The solution is open source so 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."

"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."

"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 tool’s pricing is better when compared to VMware or Nutanix. The product’s licensing is on a yearly basis."

"The solution has a good initial cost but a high renewal cost."

"I would say its pricing is between cheap and reasonable and would rate it as three out of five."

"Its price should be better, but I don't think they will change the price list. You have to pay for licenses, and you have to pay for support, so you have an annual fee. You can use the product without the fee, but it's really dumb because you need support. We are an IT company. We provide the product, and we need the support too for our customers."

"It is in the middle range as compared to other hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. There is a three-year warranty on the hardware. The license also includes other features. Sangfor has included Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and a built-in firewall with the license. Other top brands, such as VxRail and VMware, require a separate license for such features."

"Sangfor needs to be more aggressive because this is a new market or territory for Sangfor. Nepal is a very price-sensitive market, so Sangfor needs to be a little more aggressive with its pricing. I would rate them 3.75 out of five in terms of the price."

More Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

University

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	3

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenNebula?

OpenNebula gives good value for money.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 44% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs OpenNebula

Compared 9% of the time

Snyk vs OpenNebula

Compared 3% of the time

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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

Compared 24% of the time

VMware vSAN vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

Compared 13% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

Compared 9% of the time

Huawei FusionCube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

Compared 6% of the time

CloudStack vs Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

September 2025

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure report

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Overview

OpenNebula provides the most simple but feature-rich and flexible solution for the comprehensive management of virtualized data centers to enable private, public and hybrid IaaS clouds. OpenNebula interoperability makes cloud an evolution by leveraging existing IT assets, protecting your investments, and avoiding vendor lock-in.

OpenNebula is a turnkey enterprise-ready solution that includes all the features needed to provide an on-premises (private) cloud offering, and to offer public cloud services.

OpenNebula

Sangfor HCI is an IT infrastructure platform built on converged architecture. It integrates server virtualization, distributed storage, and networking. Sangfor HCI provides a unified management platform that converges compute, storage, networking, and security on a single software stack. This approach delivers a simplified architecture, ease of use, and reliability for business-critical applications.

Hyperconverged infrastructure is a unified system of data storage. HCI combines storage, computing, networking, and management, unlike traditional storage solutions. HCI systems enable you to build your private cloud, expand to a public cloud, or have your own true hybrid cloud. Sangfor HCI presents two product models: The Sangfor HCI server appliance is a hardware version that enables easy deployment. Sangfor HCI software is the digital version combined with a third-party server that enables flexible deployment.

Sangfor HCI supports Windows systems on desktop and is web-based. Its range of use cases cover a wide spectrum of industries, from healthcare to manufacturing. It is applicable for mid- and large-sized businesses. The software is customizable. Users can customize the logo and contact information in the user interface.

Benefits and Features

Stability: Sangfor HCI delivers high reliability and availability with 0 RPO and 99.99% availability. The infrastructure is fully redundant to ensure business continuity. This means no data is lost in the event of hardware failure.
Simplified infrastructure: The solution supports visual management, making it easier to use. The single platform provides a central control with access to resources.
High performance: One unit of HCI can support up to 100,000 IOPS. The solution supports data striping, data locality, SSD caching and AI-based DB optimization. It also supports linear expansion without bottlenecks.
Hyper-converged infrastructure that enables working with different scenarios. For instance, cloud transformation and data center consolidation. It is fully converged, which means it provides unified management, full resource visualization, and orchestration with SCP. The standardized HCI unit consolidates hardware appliances, a storage network, IP network, and server into a single unit.
Integration: Sangfor HCI offers deep integration with NFV components. Users can deploy complex SDN networks.
Pay-as-you-grow model: The pay-per-use model reduces operational expenses and total cost of ownership.

Use Cases

Sangfor HCI can be applied tin various scenarios:

Enterprise applications: Users can benefit from the reliability and performance of Sangfor HCI for business-critical processes. The system is optimized for enterprise applications to enhance their performance and stability.
Datacenter consolidation: The unified and software-defined technology simplifies the operational management and the architecture of data centers.
Cloud transformation: You can add a cloud management platform, transforming Sangfor HCI into a complete cloud computing solution. You can then run your cloud workloads and benefit from the automation features of Sangfor HCI.
Data protection and recovery: Sangfor HCI offers multiple data protection features, such as continuous data protection (CDP), which ensure the integrity of sensitive and user data. You can protect backup snapshots and take backups. It records virtual machine IO logs at frequent intervals. It offers disaster recovery capabilities that ensure business continuity.

Reviews from Real Users

Gabriele P., Senior Software and Systems Engineer at SAMU.IT, says "It is flexible like a hyper-convergence system. You can add nodes, and you can scale to have better performance and stability. I also like the backup feature, the recovery system, and the web interface GUI to handle everything."

A Junior Solutions Engineer at a tech services company adds that "Sangfor has many solutions, and you can easily manage their machine servers with just one management. They're always striving for greatness, and they continuously update their products. For example, they have now built endpoint security within the firewall. They are continuously improving not only the security but also all other products."

Sangfor

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

Buyer's Guide

OpenNebula vs. Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure

September 2025

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