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Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs VMware vSAN comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 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

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infr...
Ranking in HCI
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware vSAN
Ranking in HCI
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
234
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is 2.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware vSAN is 8.5%, down from 14.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware vSAN8.5%
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure2.2%
Other89.3%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Maheshc Chathuranga - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise System Architect at Enterprise Technology (Pvt) Ltd
Has provided mature containerization support and responsive assistance while meeting diverse customer needs
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions. Feature-wise, it's very mature for the containerization side, but the price point is an issue. I would like to see more features related to disaster recovery and continuity in Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, specifically disaster recovery, disaster recovery sites, and business continuity.
ShyamikaThamel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It is stable and scalable."
"The consolidation of the management in one control point is the most valuable, as the whole infrastructure management is consolidated in just one console point and the documentation is also pretty good."
"The stability of the solution is good; we haven't experienced any bugs or glitches and we've been satisfied so far."
"Their technical support is amazing in general."
"I like that you can add other types of services."
"Utilizing Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure's software-defined storage helps increase data consistency for specific use cases, aligning with customer requirements, depending on which type of data we are storing."
"The simplicity, as well as the integration with virtualization."
"If you have storage, separate servers, or any kind of traditional architecture you can convert it to FCI with vSAN, and it is a very simple and easy-to-use solution."
"The most valuable thing about vSAN is that all of its features have been working well for us for the past two years. We haven't had an issue with them."
"You get the benefit of local storage, but you have the protection of shared storage."
"Simple to set up, manage, and integrate it with tools you’re already familiar (vCenter, vClient) with."
"The stability is good; the solution doesn't have bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, it's very reliable and the performance has been great."
"For a PaaS platform which I’ve developed, the scalability of VMware vSAN was a necessary feature enabling us to grow with the onboard customers."
"The initial setup is straightforward and it's very easy to implement in any X86 server so anyone can use it in their existing environment."
 

Cons

"It is not user-friendly, and it is very difficult to operate."
"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions."
"It should be more user-friendly, in my opinion."
"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 cloud deployment could be improved."
"The licensing policy needs to be improved. They have a licensing policy based on the number of CPU sockets."
"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."
"I'm not happy with the VMware support. There are so many delays attributed to different reasons, like when you transfer the case from one engineer to the other, the second engineer is not aware of what the first engineer has done, so we need to update the second engineer from the beginning."
"There are bugs in the SAN Health Check utility. It misreports latency issues when the hosts are actual within the correct tolerances."
"I would like to see better performance graphs, maybe something that you can export outside to a different console, and maybe a little bit longer time period. The 18-hour maximum, or 24-hour maximum, is kind of short. Also, the hardware compatibility limitations are a little frustrating sometimes, but as everybody's starting to adopt vSAN more, you get more options for hardware."
"I would rate the stability a seven out of ten."
"During some intensive I/O workloads, and on a configuration that had SSDs sub-sized, we reached the limit of the system."
"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 ability to access SAN environments with fiber channels (or even NVMe) would be a good addition."
"I think it needs to be more cost-effective if customers already have existing SAN to compare with."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is an open-sourced, low-cost solution with full features."
"It is quite pricey."
"The cost is expensive. I purchased two servers. The hardware cost was $19,000. The software cost for these two servers, including the vSAN, was $30,000, which is $11,000 more than the hardware. Then I had to pay another $5,000 for installation and implementation for professional services. In total, it was $54,000 for two vSAN Servers."
"The current pricing needs to meet the customers' expectations, posing significant issues."
"This solution requires the purchase of a license."
"The only problem I have with VMware is the price. It is a good product, but it is expensive."
"It is an expensive solution. There should be more flexible with licensing to allow small businesses the essentials of the solution's features."
"If they could reduce the cost, it would be better. Licensing costs are something that they could take care of. If you are a smaller and strong IT team, then VMware vSAN is a very good product. If you want to expand in the service provider space, then you will have to go for an open-source solution like OpenStack. We are now looking at OpenStack because we sell licensing costs. We are a service provider, so the IT component data is a substantial component in our overall costing. We feel that OpenStack might help us to cut down the licensing cost. Therefore, we are looking at SAS storage instead of vSAN. SAS is open source, but it is not wise to have open source without having the backend support. We are using RedHat SAS, and it is an open-source solution. You can also have a free version, but we are using it with support from RedHat so that we have somebody to back us up in case we have a problem. If you do normal business, then IT expense is 1% or 2% of the total turnover. The higher licensing costs sometimes don't make difference to the big companies who are not service providers and are using it only for their internal use. For them, the IT cost is 1% or 2%, but for an IT service provider, the IT costs will go up to 15% to 16% of the total cost of the operations. This is where the licensing costs become irrelevant. For example, the licensing cost of using VMware, VC, and vSAN is 8% of my monthly revenue. Every month, I pay about $35,000, and, with the revised plan, it will be something like $50,000 or revenue of 600k per month, which means almost 8% of the revenue is going into VMware licensing. In a very competitive world, 8% as a cost element is huge. So, if I can bring it down to 2%, I save 6% in revenue expenditure. In terms of profit, 6% of 30% is something like another 25% increase in my profit. My profit can be almost 25%. It would be 20% to 25% in case I am able to handle the licensing costs and bring them to a very low level. Because these IT costs are substantial for us, that is why we are going with OpenStack. OpenStack has a limitation that it requires more hardware. There will be some increase in the hardware cost, but overall we will save 5% to 6% of our licensing cost by using OpenStack."
"Every product is licensed with full support for a certain number of years. The licensing could be cheaper."
"We did consider other hyperconverged solutions. It usually came down to price. vSan was the most cost effective thing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business101
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise135
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure can be improved primarily because the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is its high price compared to other solutions. Feature-wise, it's very mature for the contai...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is mainly used for customers' companies.
What advice do you have for others considering Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is not used for edge computing. Most people are referring to centralized data centers for requirements, and in Sri Lanka, there are not many edge computing sol...
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...
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Red Hat HCI, Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Virtualization
vSAN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure vs. VMware vSAN and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.