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Scale Computing Platform vs StarWind HyperConverged Appliance 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

Scale Computing Platform
Ranking in HCI
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Edge Computing Platforms (1st)
StarWind HyperConverged App...
Ranking in HCI
14th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of Scale Computing Platform is 2.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of StarWind HyperConverged Appliance is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
StarWind HyperConverged Appliance1.8%
Scale Computing Platform2.7%
Other95.5%
HCI
 

Featured Reviews

Joel-Gonzalez - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
Provides ease of management with great support and easy setup
It provides a dashboard. You can adjust the signature of the drives to prioritize certain servers over others It gives the ease of management for a small IT department. There could be an easier way to see which servers are on each node. It shows you a small graphical interface, but you have to…
Russ Le Puill - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at St Peter's Church of England Aided School
Proactive support with improved speed and resilience
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our infrastructure, so that could have been a bit clearer. It would be amazing if there was, perhaps, a more automated process for updating the hosts themselves, although the maintenance mode works well. Our StarWind command center doesn't seem to have all the options available currently, which support is investigating for us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Scale Computing HC3 is highly stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the nice GUI."
"I rate Scale Computing support 10 out of 10. They're accessible and responsive."
"The most valuable feature of Scale Computing HC3 is if one of the devices fails, you won't even notice, the service maintains operation. The customers don't have to waste two, or three days on delays. Additionally, you do not have to waste time with recovery software, it is a lot easier."
"I would advise others they should use this solution instead of traditional servers because it's safer, and better for the company."
"The product's initial setup phase is too easy."
"The solution is quite stable; it's rock solid, there are no bugs or glitches, it doesn't crash or freeze, and it's quite reliable."
"The most valuable features are the appliance-type feel and that you don't need additional licenses as everything is built-in."
"Our StarWind HCA has been in production over 12 months, and we have had no issues or single downtime so far."
"This solution improved our environment from an increased user experience and administrative experience."
"The StarWind array has greatly improved our workflow internally as it is quite easy to use and provides robust features that allow us to provide anything our clients need quickly and efficiently."
"We also substantially reduced network complexity by eliminating that standalone SAN. That reduced complexity has allowed us to concentrate on improving other areas of our network."
"At the moment I haven't any reason or cause for improvement because it does what it does as it says on the tin, and it just works."
"This has been great for our organization; we run probably 16 virtual machines, and all of them are now highly available and highly redundant."
"High-availability is what I bought it for."
"Starwind HCA allowed us to provide customers with a much higher service level and guarantee 99.999% uptime, while reducing our physical server footprint, cutting data center costs, and giving us peace of mind by consolidating onto brand new powerful hardware."
 

Cons

"The snapshot technology takes up 500 times more space compared to other solutions."
"I've had so many issues with the sales team when I was looking to make some improvements, and improve the performance. They would create so many excuses to force me to buy new nodes all the time and not let me add more memory to each node."
"There could be an easier way to see which servers are on each node"
"Scale HC3 improvements would involve literally fixing up the replication."
"Scale Computing HC3 said in an announcement they were going to integrate with a backup service which would be good. If they could do this it would be beneficial."
"The product struggles to cope with bigger workloads. In the next release, I'd like some backup solutions to be added."
"The product could use a better control center."
"On the fly, you cannot do anything on Scale Computing HC3, though it is a very rarely needed area."
"The truth is that the operation and support offered are good, but we consider that the product's usability could improve, as well as the data resynchronization time after an unexpected closure."
"I think some performance metrics would be nice to see, especially on the storage side."
"There is room for improvement in the setup and installation phase. We had massive problems connecting the StarWind appliances to our network infrastructure. That wasn't necessarily a StarWind problem. I don't know if their business partner in the UK wasn't used to having to deal with the supply of the cabling infrastructure, but that's where the problems started."
"It would be nice if the software told you a new version was available and prompted you to do the upgrade to keep everything up to date."
"That situation, where Dell EMC servers were going down, has been my only real difficulty... it ended up being something that the wider audience of Dell EMC was actually aware of as an issue. Neither the StarWind technicians nor the Dell EMC technicians were able to actually identify that problem sooner than a week or so... The communication between Dell EMC support and StarWind support, in that particular scenario, left something to be desired, for me. I did express those concerns to StarWind and they were very responsive to that."
"A desired feature or service is the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with the hyper-converged software."
"Overall, we are happy with the level of service, in the past due to time zone differences, getting to phone support later in the afternoon sometimes meant not getting a hold of second-level technical support on the same day, however, this has been improved in the past year."
"We struggle a little with capacity management with the StarWind Hyperconverged appliance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is worth the money, but I would not say it's very cheap or very expensive."
"I pay for Scale Computing HC3 and it includes customer service for one year. We paid for an additional year for customer service but that includes the updates and everything for the software. Additionally, the licensing is for Windows, which is the same for everybody."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"rate HC3's pricing a five out of ten since it is affordable."
"The other solutions we were looking at were priced much higher than this and they didn't necessarily have full redundancy... Nutanix and VxRail were in the final running... but it came down to our price point."
"In terms of cost, a storage array is more expensive... For half the cost of Compellent, I got two hosts, more storage, and redundancy."
"I was able to bring the price per year down by going out to a five-year plan."
"The Nutanix piece was about $45,000, getting close to $50,000 with all the licensing involved, whereas the StarWind was less than half of that, after Microsoft licensing and such."
"A desired feature or service would be the ability to have a hardware subscription plan that ensures routine hardware updates in conjunction with hyper-converged software."
"We didn't have any issue with pricing or any of the sales process."
"When I researched they came the most cost-effective."
"Its cost was reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
University
7%
Construction Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Scale Computing HC3?
There could be an easier way to see which servers are on each node. It shows you a small graphical interface, but you have to see them all, and you have to really struggle to figure out which nodes...
What is your primary use case for Scale Computing HC3?
It provides a dashboard. You can adjust the signature of the drives to prioritize certain servers over others.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
It's not the cheapest, however, the solution works incredibly well and is so simple to licence and maintain.
What needs improvement with StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
There was a long delay with shipping, which we weren't expecting, but we were kept updated throughout. It wasn't made clear to us that we needed to provide our own SFP modules to connect to our inf...
What is your primary use case for StarWind HyperConverged Appliance?
We desperately needed to update yet downsize our data centre. We had six hosts for only approximately 14 or so Virtual machines and two old SANs. All of this was running on 10+ year-old refurbished...
 

Also Known As

Scale Computing HC3
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Resorts World Las Vegas, Stena, Telford Offshore, Goodwill, Sandals, Jerry's Enterprises, Mendard's Royal Farms, Delhaize, Benchmark Electronics, Classic Hotels, Genting Casino, Lindt, Sainsbury's, Landmark Cinemas, Golden Queen Mining, Coca Cola. Holiday Inn, Iron County School District, Sevier County Bank, City of St. Cloud Minnesota, Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, KIB Electronics, Brake Masters, Lincoln County Hospital, Ohio Summit County Board of Elections
Sears Home and Franchise Business
Find out what your peers are saying about Scale Computing Platform vs. StarWind HyperConverged Appliance and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.