Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs VMware vSAN comparison

Red Hat and Broadcom are both solutions in the HCI category. Red Hat is ranked #25, while Broadcom is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.9. Red Hat holds a 0.9% mindshare in HCI, compared to Broadcom’s 13.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infr...

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100% willing to recommend

VMware vSAN

Read 232 VMware vSAN reviews

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9,641 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infr...

VMware vSAN

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

VMware vSAN and Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure compete in the hyper-converged infrastructure market with distinct advantages depending on organizational needs. VMware vSAN has an edge in features, while Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure excels in flexibility and technology integration, potentially making it a superior choice for some environments.

Features: VMware vSAN offers seamless integration within the VMware ecosystem, comprehensive storage functionalities, and optimized management for VMware environments. It is ideal for organizations heavily invested in VMware technologies. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure leverages its open-source nature, allowing extensive customization and integration with a wide array of software ecosystems, catering to enterprises with diverse IT landscapes.

Room for Improvement: VMware vSAN can enhance its flexibility across non-VMware environments and improve ease of deployment for those unfamiliar with VMware ecosystems. It could also benefit from more competitive pricing. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure could improve by simplifying its deployment process, tightening integration with legacy systems, and expanding its support resources to match the scale and scope of closed-source competitors.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: VMware vSAN integrates smoothly within VMware environments, providing a streamlined deployment process with extensive support resources. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure offers a more adaptable but potentially complex deployment, supported by Red Hat's community support and documentation. While VMware vSAN enables a straightforward setup for VMware users, Red Hat's comprehensive support aids in managing complex, custom environments.

Pricing and ROI: VMware vSAN typically involves a higher upfront cost but provides significant ROI in VMware-centric data centers due to its seamless integration. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure offers a more appealing cost-to-value ratio for those utilizing open-source solutions, leading to competitive ROI, particularly in environments exploiting its flexibility to reduce licensing expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs. VMware vSAN Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs. VMware vSAN

September 2025

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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

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infr...

Ranking in HCI

25th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware vSAN

Ranking in HCI

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

232

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 13.9%, down from 17.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware vSAN	13.9%
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure	0.9%
Other	85.2%

HCI

Featured Reviews

PaulSorelli

IBM Data & IA Technology Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Consolidated management and good documentation but very complex and difficult to operate

It is not user-friendly, and it is very difficult to operate. You have to have a deep understanding of the technical details of the infrastructure to implement it. When you compare it with VMware, it is totally different because the graphical user interface is not that easy to understand. It is not intuitive. To use it, you have to read a lot of documentation and even understand what is going on behind the solution. It is not for someone who has a little bit of knowledge. Currently, it is too complex. I need something that is easy to implement. It should have a basic configuration as well as a complex configuration.

Read full review

Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Enables efficient multi-environment cluster deployment and resource management with versatile features

While VMware vSAN is quite comprehensive, if we are running multiple infrastructures, applications, databases, and other elements, having a diagnostic tool to identify the actual problem area, whether application-side or infrastructure-side, would be beneficial. A proper monitoring tool that encompasses both applications and infrastructure would help in quickly resolving issues.

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

"It is stable and scalable."

"The consolidation of the management in one control point is the most valuable. The whole infrastructure management is consolidated in just one console point. The documentation is also pretty good."

"The most useful feature is the solution's automation in terms of how we are able to spin up a certain workload in real-time when we are doing R&D."

"The size of the hardware is what we need because it is very good for small configurations."

"Both the scalability and stability of this solution are excellent."

"I like that you can add other types of services."

"The high availability is very good."

"The main advantage is that it's all in the box, with VMware vCenter Server product."

"It's completely hyper-converged, so it's very convenient."

"It's stable and scalable. Also, you can virtualize SAN so that you don't have to have a separate storage area network and can have your computer and storage on the same box or computer."

"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."

"The lower skill cost of maintaining it meant that we could do more with the people that we had."

"If we decide to expand, vSAN could offer us some flexibility. We are researching ways to set this up from a new data center, which is located somewhere different from the current location right now."

"It easily integrates with all types of storage."

More VMware vSAN pros

Cons

"This product is not so stable. Maybe it is just not mature enough in its development."

"The cloud deployment could be improved."

"It should be more user-friendly, in my opinion."

"The licensing policy needs to be improved. They have a licensing policy based on the number of CPU sockets. Nowadays what has happened is that the license they are trying to move is based on the number of CPU cores. With the advancement in technology there are now more cores in a single CPU. It's been very challenging in terms of managing the license around everything. Today we have a processor with 24 and 32 cores on the same physical CPU."

"The main issue is the initial investment. It is an expensive product, and it should be cheaper. It should also be easier to use and manage. The professional service for this solution is quite complex and expensive."

"It is not user-friendly, and it is very difficult to operate. You have to have a deep understanding of the technical details of the infrastructure to implement it. When you compare it with VMware, it is totally different because the graphical user interface is not that easy to understand. It is not intuitive. To use it, you have to read a lot of documentation and even understand what is going on behind the solution. It is not for someone who has a little bit of knowledge. Currently, it is too complex. I need something that is easy to implement. It should have a basic configuration as well as a complex configuration."

"The UI could certainly be better. The inside into what's actually going on with vSAN would be nice to know."

"The upgrading process could be simplified."

"The integration could be improved. I would like to see integration with other platforms."

"The solution functions as the marketing says, as long as you follow certain rules."

"Some intelligence can be added to the newest version to provide more flexibility between storage tiers."

"We want see a better monitoring tool in vSAN. Monitoring is not that great as of now because it shows us false alarms in the Health status. We would like that to be improved."

"They can improve the manageability of the solution to make it more simple. It is not that complicated, but it will be good if they can make it more simple."

"I would like to see it be more hardware-agnostic. Other than that, the only other complication is - and it has gotten better with the newer versions - that lately, once you're running an all-flash, if you need to grow or scale down your infrastructure, it's a long process. You need to evacuate all data and make sure you have enough space on the host, then add more hosts or take out hosts. That process is a little bit complex. You cannot scale as needed or shrink as needed."

More VMware vSAN cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is an open-sourced, low-cost solution with full features."

"It is quite pricey."

"The licenses are very expensive. The renewal of licenses has extra costs attached to it."

"The price of VMware vSAN is expensive and there is an annual license required."

"I feel the pricing to be reasonable."

"Enterprise customers can customize their licenses according to their own needs and budget."

"vSAN has many versions with standard and advanced including Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Regarding the Enterprise and the Advanced, it could be lower."

"Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective."

"This solution is expensive. Nutanix provides us with Acropolis Operating System (AOS) along with its hardware, while VMware provides vSAN, vCenter, and vSphere which all have separate licenses and costs."

"I'd love for this product to be cheaper."

More VMware vSAN pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	98
Midsize Enterprise	58
Large Enterprise	128

Questions from the Community

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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...

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Which would you choose - Nutanix Acropolis AOS or VMware vSAN?

We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interface that allows you to talk directly to your VM from the present software. We fou...

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 ...

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Comparisons

VxRail vs Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Compared 15% of the time

Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure vs Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Compared 14% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Compared 12% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Compared 12% of the time

SteelFusion vs Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Compared 10% of the time

More Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure Competitors

VxRail vs VMware vSAN

Compared 18% of the time

Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct vs VMware vSAN

Compared 14% of the time

HPE SimpliVity vs VMware vSAN

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerFlex vs VMware vSAN

Compared 6% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs VMware vSAN

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware vSAN Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HCI

September 2025

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure report

Download Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware vSAN

September 2025

Download VMware vSAN product report

Also Known As

Red Hat HCI, Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Virtualization

vSAN

Overview

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure - based on our leading OpenStack and virtualization platforms - provides co-located, scalable, software-defined compute and storage, driven by Red Hat Ansible Automation on economical, industry-standard hardware.

Red Hat

VMware vSAN is a software-defined storage product that is used in collaboration with VMware ESXi hypervisor and that provisions and manages storage based on policies, regardless of the underlying hardware. The solution enables you to prime your business for growth through its seamless evolution (it is integrated with vSphere and requires no new tools), its flexibility, and its multi-cloud capabilities. As an industry-leading software, VMware vSAN provides high levels of performance with minimal impact on CPU and memory.

VMware vSAN Features

VMware vSAN has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Storage policy-based management (SPBM): VMware vSAN supports storage policy-based management for automated management of storage profiles.

Software-defined data-at-rest encryption: With this VMware vSAN feature, you can prevent unauthorized access of data at rest.

Multiple nodes: VMware vSAN provides clusters that can include as few as 2 nodes or as many as 64 nodes.

High security and availability: VMware vSAN offers stretched clusters, allowing more than one virtualization host server to be used in the same setup, promoting higher security as well as availability.

Deduplication: VMware vSAN’s deduplication compresses data to ensure efficient storage management and security.

HCI mesh updates: VMware vSAN clusters can share storage capacity with non-HCI Sphere clusters and can adopt HCI without having to scale computing resources and storage or replace existing servers.

Simplified file services: With VMware vSAN’s file services, backup of file shares is simplified. You can use APIs that allow backup and recovery software vendors to integrate with your VMware vSAN file services, which enables backup software to track new data and add scalability enhancements to files.

VMware vSAN Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing VMware vSAN. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO): VMware vSAN helps you reduce upfront costs for businesses because it can be easily deployed on inexpensive x86 servers. In addition, its highly scalable infrastructure and quick deployment also save organizations time and money, making it an efficient storage solution.

Good manageability: VMWare vSAN is easy to set up, manage, and provision, without sacrificing performance.

Scalability: VMware vSAN is agile and allows administrators to scale storage on demand, quickly, and efficiently via policies and rules.

Simplicity: VMWare vSAN is simple to configure since it is embedded in the vSphere hypervisor. Installing it using the vSphere Web Client can be done quickly.

Reduced risk: VMWare vSAN reduces the risk associated with digital transformations by utilizing existing tools, skill sets, and solutions.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the VMware vSAN solution.

PeerSpot user Yves S., CEO, Cloud Evangelist at Comdivision Consulting GmbH, says, “vSAN gives us a lot of advantages when we need to expand resources. We have an overall larger host infrastructure, and we split that up for specific customer test and use cases. In that specific scenario, we can easily add more hosts or reduce the number of hosts in the environment.”

A reviewer who works in Infrastructure Security explains, “The ease of use is great. The initial setup and upgrade process was pretty straightforward. And, technical support is great.”

Laurent N., Director at Softlogic, comments, "The feature that I have found most valuable is that it is easy to deploy. It is easy to create and delete virtual servers. It is easy to create the load balancing and the clustering."

Broadcom

Sample Customers

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Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs. VMware vSAN

September 2025

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