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Portworx Enterprise vs VMware Software Defined Storage 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

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Portworx Enterprise
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Software Defined Storage (3rd), Data Storage for Kubernetes (1st)
VMware Software Defined Sto...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (15th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
David Ivorra - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Lynx View
Modern data platform has simplified Kubernetes backups and disaster recovery across environments
Portworx Enterprise is a leader in the market according to consultancies and consultant agencies, but one area for improvement could be the visibility about how applications are working on a low level, especially regarding how they are messaging between all those microservices. Cybersecurity in those kinds of environments needs to be rock solid and really secured. With all those AIs working now to infect and attack environments, this is something that Portworx Enterprise should put more focus on even more than they do now. There are security solutions already implemented in Portworx Enterprise, including anti-ransomware, but as the environment grows, the possibilities of having cybersecurity issues increase, so they should focus even more on that part.
Mohammad Jundiah - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Qatar Datamation Systems
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very reliable."
"Once it's set up, it just runs on its own and only requires the occasional checkup."
"Pure Storage FlashArray has significantly improved our data center performance. It handles high workloads efficiently, providing better performance in the environment. With increased storage capacity, it has led to improved overall system performance. The tool's technology is a standout feature. It has helped me reduce storage costs by 15 percent."
"The stability is perfect, the reliability is 100%, and the latency is always lower than 1 millisecond."
"We have integrated the solution with VMware, and the process was seamless."
"The most valuable features of Pure Storage FlashArray are simplicity, ease of use, and dashboard management."
"Technical support has been amazing."
"There was a dramatic improvement in operating costs just as a result of the environmentals and space, let alone the cost of the unit itself."
"The best thing about Portworx is the Stork, they have called the VPS (Volume Replacement Strategy) and they also have topology awareness, and these are the three features I like."
"If I containerize a database server, I know that not only is Portworx providing a persistent and resilient storage backend, but it also meets the database's IOPS requirements, in a containerized environment."
"I like that you have a small dedicated file system that is fast and resilient for containerized workloads."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"Portworx is a simple solution. It's similar to Pure Storage products. They're all easy to use and install. You need to have a little expertise with containers to use Portworx, but it will be no problem for you if you understand containers."
"We are offering two kinds of environments: one for customers working with modern data and modern application development, and they are finding that it is easier for them to migrate workloads from on-premises to cloud or the other way around."
"A custom IBM script is designed to tackle the storage management challenges within containerized environments, providing crucial data services and features required for enterprise applications."
"Portworx virtualizes the aspects of the underlying block storage. That is good because they can also use block storage for their future deployment instead of just NFS."
"The single management panel is the main feature that is wonderful for the customer."
"VMware Software Defined Storage gives higher availability against data corruption."
"The solution is simple to configure and provides good performance and less footprint."
"The best part of the solution is that you can actually scale up to a large number of operating systems without the requirement of additional hardware, which is the biggest advantage."
"The product is user-friendly from an administrative standpoint and very easy to use."
"The most valuable features of the solution are that it is easy to deploy and the support is really good."
"This is an easy-to-use product for adding flexibility to your storage solution."
"The technical support is awesome."
 

Cons

"For large storage needs, it is expensive."
"I wish they could add more of a monitor on the machine itself so you don't have to rely on a KVM or something to look at the display, such as an onboard diagnostic display."
"The solution is expensive."
"It's not so scalable. It's got moderate scaling capabilities right now. The clustering technology needs a bit of work, they need to improve that."
"The integration capabilities could be improved."
"We would like to see better troubleshooting aspects. It helps us if we can find out where the problem is. Right now, it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the issue. If they had more visibility and more troubleshooting feature built into the tool that would really help."
"I would like to migrate to the cloud in the future and know how that would actually work with this product."
"The solution needs an integrated NAS platform, file platform."
"I would like to see a more native mapping to mainframe-type systems."
"Regarding pricing, I found that a couple of customers did not purchase the project because, at least in Spain, there are customers finding the pricing a little too high for the service they receive."
"The integration has room for improvement."
"It would be highly advantageous to include an integrated backup solution within the same license, rather than purchasing backup separately."
"They have not integrated Portworx with Ondat since they are too focused now on Pure Storage APIs and not on users like us."
"The documentation could be better."
"I think the vendor could provide more training for new users who may not be familiar with containers."
"Simplifying the licensing model and making it cheaper would improve the solution."
"It's easy to scale and expand but the main catch is the cost. It's expensive."
"There is room for more integrations and plugins into more storages."
"The performance is not as good as some competing products and reporting can be improved."
"The cost of the product is where an improvement could be made. It's generally very expensive and requires a lot of architecture that needs to be designed according to specific situations."
"It doesn't have the ability to be deployed on any kind of hardware and network connectors."
"The license model of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The solution has some limitations in terms of replication to remote sites or cloud infrastructure, which need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We feel that the pricing is fair and the licensing process was easy for both."
"While it comes with a higher price tag, this investment often translates to significant improvements in performance."
"There should be quite a bit of reduction of TCO with just licensing (and stuff) because we run the VM environment off it."
"The pricing of Pure Storage is all-inclusive. It is very fair, and very easy. In comparison, Dell EMC has licensing that needs to be added if you wan to work in a complex environment or in specific functionalities."
"I would prefer that they lower their pricing."
"We evaluated Oracle and Hitachi, but Pure Storage had the better pricing."
"We would like them to improve the pricing, so we could put them to use some more product, like backup or long-term storage. In the future, if the price goes down, then we could buy different types of products."
"We consume it as a service, and that's actually something we really like, or at least I really like from the technical perspective. That's because it means there is no hassle when we need to upgrade arrays to add capacity. We just interact directly with technical counterparts, and we say, "Hey, we're filling up," and they say, "All right, here's another data pack." They ship it in, and we install it. So, the as-a-service model has worked very well. Given the outstanding data reduction rates, it has improved our profitability because we're selling allocated volumes as part of the cloud service or recovering those costs from our tenants. It is very efficient, but that has offset the premium price. It started out that way, but over time, as we've added capacity, the price per gig has gone down a lot because we have a lot of it."
"The price is competitive, but it is too expensive when paired with Red Hat IBM."
"I'm not sure how the licensing was broken out, but I don't think our offering of the Portworx was more than USD $20,000."
"It has two offerings. One is free, which is limited to only five nodes. The other is enterprise, which is a bit pricier."
"The price of Portworx Enterprise is high."
"The solution is very expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The product is quite expensive and is among the most expensive for this type of solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portworx Enterprise?
Regarding pricing, I found that a couple of customers did not purchase the project because, at least in Spain, there ...
What needs improvement with Portworx Enterprise?
I see some limitations such as operational complexity. Configuring Portworx initially requires an understanding of ke...
What advice do you have for others considering Portworx Enterprise?
My advice for others considering Portworx Enterprise is that if you operate in a cloud-native environment such as Kub...
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
No data available
VMware SDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
NIO, GE Digital, DreamWorks Animation, Lufthansa, beco, NEW CONTEXT
Helse Nord, Sky
Find out what your peers are saying about Portworx Enterprise vs. VMware Software Defined Storage and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.