Rackspace OpenStack vs VMware vSAN comparison

Why PeerSpot?

The compared Rackspace Technology and Broadcom solutions aren't in the same category. Rackspace Technology is ranked #3 in CI , with an average rating of 7.7, and holds a 7.1% mindshare in the category. Broadcom is ranked #3 in HCI , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 7.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Rackspace Technology users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Rackspace OpenStack

Read 18 Rackspace OpenStack reviews

2,811 Views
1,940 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

VMware vSAN

Read 234 VMware vSAN reviews

19,457 Views
12,647 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Rackspace OpenStack

VMware vSAN

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Rackspace OpenStack and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, NetApp, Rackspace Technology and others in Converged Infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Converged Infrastructure Report (Updated: September 2026).

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Converged Infrastructure

September 2026

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Helped 913,806 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

Rackspace OpenStack

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Converged Infrastructure (3rd)

VMware vSAN

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

234

Ranking in other categories

HCI (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Rackspace OpenStack is designed for Converged Infrastructure and holds a mindshare of 7.1%, up 4.6% compared to last year.
VMware vSAN, on the other hand, focuses on HCI, holds 7.7% mindshare, down 14.0% since last year.

Converged Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Rackspace OpenStack	7.1%
FlexPod XCS	12.7%
HPE ConvergedSystem	11.1%
Other	69.1%

Converged Infrastructure

HCI Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
VMware vSAN	7.7%
VxRail	9.6%
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)	8.9%
Other	73.8%

HCI

Featured Reviews

Shbhaves Shbhaves

Manager Dev Ops at MSD

Private cloud control has deepened my DevOps automation and strengthened security practices

For improvement, I feel the documentation available for setting up and creating infrastructure using Rackspace OpenStack could be enhanced, as I personally find the existing documents are not sufficient for new learners or beginners. We can also work on improving the user interface; the Horizon dashboard is functional, but compared to AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, the UI feels somewhat dated. A more modern, intuitive interface with better navigation would enhance the overall user experience, especially for new users. Improving the documentation, including more real-world deployment examples, troubleshooting guides, and architecture best practices, would make onboarding much easier. Faster upgrades would also help; Rackspace OpenStack upgrades can sometimes be complex, so simplifying the upgrade process and minimizing downtime would assist organizations in maintaining their environments more easily. Additionally, improving monitoring capabilities would be beneficial, with advanced monitoring and analytics dashboards providing administrators deeper visibility into performance, capacity, and potential issues without relying heavily on third-party tools. Adding more managed services, similar to what public cloud providers offer, could reduce operational overhead while still allowing customers to retain the flexibility of a private cloud. Lastly, integrating AI could be valuable, with AI-driven recommendations for capacity planning, security monitoring, and automated troubleshooting improving platform management.

Read full review

ShyamikaThamel

Associate Tech Specialists at Seatrium

Managing mixed RAID workloads has improved data protection and delivers strong performance

VMware vSAN can be improved in certain areas. In cases involving our large data stores with large VMs, we experience some latency, not during normal operation, but during database backup operations. We observed latency due to buffer issues from the top-of-the-rack switches. These issues are mostly network-related because all storage data traffic travels through the network. I have recently used Nutanix, and I observed that Nutanix provides better performance than VMware vSAN due to its data locality features. VMware vSAN is now providing data locality, but we did not use that option. If VMware vSAN provides additional features in the next release, such as the VM balancing feature called DRS on the cluster that VMware previously had, it would be beneficial. With DRS, VMs can move easily from one node to another within the same cluster. Nutanix does not provide that flexibility. When placing a VM on a cluster in Nutanix, the placement uses a balancing component. After that, the VM remains on the same host. If any contention occurs on the CPU or memory side, the VM stays in place until contention happens. If issues occur, the VM migrates to another host while transferring all objects to the same host. This is how their data locality is maintained. When a VM moves to any host, it moves with all VM objects. VMware vSAN does not currently offer this option. If a VM moves to another host, it accesses the disk object through the network, which increases latency. VMware vSAN now offers an option to select data locality, but it does not function like Nutanix. This is why some latency remains. If VMware vSAN can improve this feature, it would be very helpful and VMware would regain its top position.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Administrators are very comfortable with the functionality and services OpenStack offers."

"There are many services that can be directly used which are not available in VMware."

"Rackspace OpenStack impacted my organization positively in that the drive helped me keep files in an organized folder, and obviously we needed email addresses to be able to communicate with each other and for outsiders to be able to email us."

"The initial setup isn't too difficult."

"The open-source nature of OpenStack provides significant value."

"It created a reusable library with OpenStack features."

"I like its integration with GitLab and its simplicity. OpenStack has a lot of third-party libraries that it uses."

"Apart from the main features, I really appreciate OpenStack's microservices architecture and its flexibility for deployment with different tools."

More Rackspace OpenStack pros

"Adding new nodes and expanding vSAN forward is simple and non-disruptive for a lot of our customers."

"In some of our environments, introducing vSAN helped reduce our datacentre hosting costs."

"It is simple to manage without the need for configuration which is the feature that I like the most."

"It's stable."

"I like the scalability and the fact that it reduces your total cost for storage over several years."

"Compared with competing products, it provides great cost savings."

"We use the solution for data storage virtualization."

"The product is highly scalable and significantly supports our organization's needs."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"It could use more examples in different languages (API use cases)."

"I cannot comment comprehensively on how Rackspace OpenStack can be improved, as I do not find that much difference; however, some areas can be improved, such as support for OEMs deploying highly specialized real-time telecom and media workloads."

"OpenStack's UI, while user-friendly, could be improved to offer a more intuitive experience."

"As a beginner, I find some difficulties in understanding Rackspace OpenStack, as it can be complex without a foundational grasp of cloud and networking concepts."

"In terms of what needs to be improved, I would say the support. Rackspace might have some good support but the open source OpenStack doesn't have support because there are too many versions coming and too many people are customizing it."

"The deployment process could be easy."

"So for the main stability, there have been a couple of issues that I've experienced."

"VMware has a side-to-side replication feature, which is still more mature than Rackspace OpenStack's which can't be used in a production environment."

More Rackspace OpenStack cons

"There's already a concern with VMware with ransomware and security issues. VMware could focus on improving security."

"vSAN is very complex inside."

"I am considering scrapping my ESXi environment to test a single host with Windows Server 2012 and Iometer and then ESXi with SSD (DAS) and Iometer again, just to see if not having VSAN makes a difference."

"The product's complex setup phase is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"When you don’t have a chance to build upon an existing vCenter service, you have to think about the deployment of vCenter without having vSAN. There are several options, like deploying vCenter temporarily on a client PC and then migrating it later onto the vSAN cluster, but it’s always a bit tricky and you probably need some extra time to get the installation done."

"The product is quite expensive, regarding the open-source solution."

"There is always a challenge with their firmware."

"Technical support could be more knowledgeable."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is low."

"I use it as an open-source tool."

"We pay a yearly licensing fee."

"Cost-wise, the Nutanix licenses were cheaper, but in terms of the hardware, there was some contention around it. So, in terms of implementation, the way Nutanix was projecting the implementation on their end was that there were a lot of open-source admin platforms. vSAN is a licensed product in VMware, and Nutanix was proposing a KVM solution, which is open source. That's why their pricing was a bit cheaper, but when we were trying to compare it with an enterprise version of their management platform, it boiled down to the VMware vSAN being most effective in the long run."

"It could be cheaper."

"The first 1-2 years of purchasing vSAN will be expensive. Thereafter, the longer you are running it, the more cost savings you will have."

"The current pricing needs to meet the customers' expectations, posing significant issues."

"With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive."

"We have increased our user productivity."

"It is slightly expensive. They can be more competitive in terms of pricing."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Outsourcing Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	102
Midsize Enterprise	58
Large Enterprise	135

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Rackspace OpenStack?

I cannot comment comprehensively on how Rackspace OpenStack can be improved, as I do not find that much difference; however, some areas can be improved, such as support for OEMs deploying highly sp...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Rackspace OpenStack?

My main use case for Rackspace OpenStack is that we are particularly using it for our OpenStack applications, where we are putting our applications on Rackspace OpenStack software day-to-day. A spe...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Rackspace OpenStack?

I rate Rackspace OpenStack an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. I chose 8 out of 10 for Rackspace OpenStack because every product has some space to improve. Regarding Rackspace OpenStack's AI capabilities, ...

See all answers

What Is The Biggest Difference Between vSAN And VxRail?

While both run on the vSAN technology from VMware, vSAN needs to be deployed on vSAN ready nodes while VxRail is an engineered system. The choice to choose which technology depends on two major fac...

See all answers

How does HPE Simplivity compare with VMware vSAN?

HPE SimpliVity is a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that is primarily geared to mid-sized companies. We researched VMware vSAN but found HPE was a better option for us. HPE SimpliVity has ...

See all answers

How does VMware vSAN compare with Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct?

We found VMware’s vSAN was easy to set up, configure, and manage compared to other solutions we considered. It is best suited for small- to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to create load bal...

See all answers

Comparisons

FlexPod XCS vs Rackspace OpenStack

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Private Cloud Appliance vs Rackspace OpenStack

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerEdge R-Series vs Rackspace OpenStack

Compared 14% of the time

HPE ConvergedSystem vs Rackspace OpenStack

Compared 10% of the time

IBM PureSystems vs Rackspace OpenStack

Compared 6% of the time

More Rackspace OpenStack Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs VMware vSAN

Compared 9% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp AFF vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 4% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Rackspace OpenStack

September 2026

Download Rackspace OpenStack product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

August 2026

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

OpenStack

vSAN

Overview

Rackspace OpenStack offers potent infrastructure concepts, customization options, and scalability with commodity servers, supporting microservices, virtualization, and numerous integrations, all beneficial for advanced IT deployments.

Known for its robust infrastructure and flexible deployments, Rackspace OpenStack caters to enterprises with complex IT management needs. It excels in virtualization and data analytics while enhancing server management with microservices architecture. Companies leverage it for effective infrastructure as code management, integrating tools like GitLab and Jenkins, offering a sought-after platform for deploying private clouds and managing diverse workloads efficiently.

What are the standout features of Rackspace OpenStack?

Infrastructure Flexibility: Easily configurable infrastructure with commodity servers.
Customization Options: Adaptable for unique enterprise needs.
Scalability: Supports increasing workloads effectively.
Integrations: Seamless integration with tools like GitLab and Jenkins.
Virtualization Capabilities: Lowers operational expenses and simplifies hardware changes.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Lower operational costs through virtualization.
Enhanced Flexibility: Microservices architecture offers advanced adaptability.
Data Management: Effective for big data services and data analytics.
Migration Support: Facilitates on-premises migration from the cloud.

Enterprises utilize Rackspace OpenStack across industries for tasks like large data management and private cloud deployment. It supports streamlined infrastructure management and eCommerce integration with Akamai. Often chosen for website development and deploying managed services, it meets diverse deployment needs efficiently.

Rackspace Technology

VMware vSAN is renowned for scalability, speed, and management ease. Its performance equals traditional SANs, offering fast speeds with diverse disk types at a reduced cost, ensuring VM access amidst hardware failures, and integrating effortlessly with VMware tools for straightforward setup.

As a leader in virtualization solutions, VMware vSAN offers high-performance storage comparable to traditional SANs, allowing SSD-like speeds with a mix of disk types. It integrates into VMware tools, leading to easy setup and policy-driven management, leveraging diverse storage policies, deduplication, and compression for enhanced efficiency. It's especially valued for its ability to scale storage and applications affordably, supporting growth without heavy initial investments. Despite the advantages, areas for improvement include encryption, UI, hardware compatibility, and affordability for SMBs, with notable resync and performance monitoring challenges. Compatibility issues with non-VMware environments and complex updates and support are critical points highlighting a need for improved management interfaces and troubleshooting to enhance user experience.

What are the key features of VMware vSAN?

Scalability: Allows easy scaling of storage and applications without significant initial investments.
Speed: Rivals traditional SANs, offering SSD-like speeds.
Management: Seamless management through integration with VMware tools and policy-driven frameworks.
Resilience: Ensures VM access during hardware failures.
Efficiency: Offers deduplication and compression to optimize storage use.

What benefits or ROI should organizations consider in reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Supports horizontal and vertical growth without heavy costs.
Integration: Enhances cloud infrastructure and VDI with easy integration.
Automation: Provides automation for storage and compute consolidation.
Availability: Ensures high availability for VMs and workloads.
Performance: Known for strong performance suited for diverse workloads.

VMware vSAN is implemented across industries for virtualization and cloud infrastructure enhancements, being a cornerstone for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and the management of VMs. It supports major workloads like ERP and hyperconverged infrastructure, widely respected for its performance, seamless integration into VMware's ecosystem, and cost-efficiency, particularly appealing to small and medium businesses without extensive storage infrastructure investments.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

X.commerce

Read Some Case Studies At Home Cloud CaribCINgroupDiscovery Check out the Rest of our Customer Stories Here

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September 2026

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