StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs Sunlight comparison

StarWind and Sunlight.io are both solutions in the HCI category. StarWind is ranked #29, while Sunlight.io is ranked #30. StarWind holds a 1.0% mindshare in HCI, compared to Sunlight.io’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of StarWind users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sunlight.io users who would recommend it.

StarWind Virtual Tape Library

Read 6 StarWind Virtual Tape Library reviews

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462 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Sunlight

Read 2 Sunlight reviews

408 Views
408 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

StarWind Virtual Tape Library

Sunlight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 31, 2024

StarWind Virtual Tape Library and Sunlight are competing solutions in the data storage and management category. StarWind is preferred for its straightforward pricing and robust support, whereas Sunlight's feature set may justify its higher cost for those prioritizing advanced capabilities.

Features: StarWind Virtual Tape Library offers seamless integration, reliable data protection, and scalability, making it ideal for diverse IT environments. In contrast, Sunlight provides efficient resource management and flexible architecture, which are valuable for edge computing. The primary differences are in their scalability and resource allocation approach.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StarWind offers a simplified deployment model with extensive customer support for efficient setup. Sunlight requires a more complex initial deployment but offers substantial online resources and responsive support.

Pricing and ROI: StarWind Virtual Tape Library has a competitive pricing model with a quick return on investment, making it a cost-effective choice. Sunlight, having higher upfront costs, may provide significant long-term benefits that justify its initial investment for businesses seeking robust performance and versatility. The contrast lies in budget considerations versus long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. Sunlight Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. Sunlight

February 2026

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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

StarWind Virtual Tape Library

Ranking in HCI

29th

Average Rating

10.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Defined Storage (SDS) (24th)

Sunlight

Ranking in HCI

30th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the HCI category, the mindshare of StarWind Virtual Tape Library is 1.0%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sunlight is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

HCI Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
StarWind Virtual Tape Library	1.0%
Sunlight	0.8%
Other	98.2%

HCI

Featured Reviews

reviewer1414572

DevOps Director at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics

Flexible and reliable with helpful support

I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster. Who would not like things to be faster? It would be nice if StarWind could come up with a best practice document for configuration. I had to do some playing around in my environment with test runs to get the configuration that really allowed for the maximum amount of throughput that I was going to get with the software. Once I had figured out what worked best, the solution was rather fast for backing up 30+ TB of data

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RajeshKANUMURY

Chief Executive Officer at GniYes Inc.

Performs well, effective, and has responsive remote technical support

Sunlight is a scalable solution. It supports on-premises and distributed deployments, as well as public deployments. It has a single pane of management so I can manage all of my VM installations in a distributed manner. It also has a footprint, that allows me to operate on Edge. If for example, you have a retail shop with 2,000 locations and they use a networked point of sale system, or if you are Chipotle and they have so many locations and they have to use a backend system at each location. At the moment, these are all standalone systems that operate with very little connection to the central. We could, however, connect and create a network using Sunlight. We can virtualize and run with Edge thanks to Sunlight. This allows us to operate and obtain high-end computing on Edge for retail. Sunlight is a startup. I am not sure how many users they have, but we have been using it constantly and using the technology to bring in customers.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the StarWind Virtual Tape Library is the archiving to the AWS cloud."

"The solution made our backups way more reliable."

"StarWind VTL allowed us to back up to virtual tape that was created within Veeam and upload the tape to the cloud."

"It is a stable solution."

"I like the fact that we can simultaneously upload the virtual tapes to different cloud providers, and the settings can be adjusted to speed up the upload times even further."

"The performance and small footprint of this solution are its most valuable features. I am able to obtain and use more than 90 percent of the physical hardware capacity."

"It supports the latest technology of NVMe SSD, which is PCIe-based SSD. It has a very good IOPS performance as compared to vSAN. For the same system, I get 1,000 IOPS with vSAN, and with Sunlight, I am able to get almost 10,000 IOPS. In terms of features, it has almost all the features, such as HA and centralized dashboards. It can be managed centrally, and the visibility of the system is very good. They also have very good technical support and customer or partner training."

Cons

"The solution's training process and online documentation could be more thorough."

"The initial installation can be complex and should be simplified."

"I am not sure if this is a limitation of my physical hardware or if it is the software itself. However, I would like the throughput to be faster."

"The main thing that I felt could be improved was having an estimated time of completion for the virtual tape uploads to the cloud."

"My recommendation would be to add this technology to Azure, Microsoft Azure so that we can bring it to the market, or deploy it on public clouds such as Microsoft Azure and Google. It is currently only available on Amazon's public cloud."

"Its reporting and dashboards need to be improved. It currently has very basic reporting options. It should also be made easier to deploy on Unix operating systems. It is easy to deploy on Windows and Linux, but it is currently not easy to deploy on Unix."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cost-effective."

"If you currently have Veeam there is no other solution that is as easy and affordable as StarWind."

"The initial setup and deployment are also covered in the purchase at no additional cost."

"The pricing of the solution could be more flexible to meet the needs of smaller to mid-market size companies."

"There is an operating cost for the VDIs, which is an additional cost. However, the licensing fee is half that of VMware or Nutanix."

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StarWind HyperConverged Appliance vs Sunlight

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VMware vSAN vs Sunlight

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Huawei FusionCube Hyper-Converged Infrastructure vs Sunlight

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Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Sunlight

Compared 12% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

January 2026

Download StarWind Virtual Tape Library product report

Buyer's Guide

HCI

January 2026

Download Sunlight product report

Overview

For SMB and Enterprises, who either look to get rid of backup tapes completely, or are willing to accelerate backup process and add an extra level of protection, our solution is StarWind Virtual Tape Library (VTL). It is an appliance that eliminates the need in physical tape and “pretends” to be a supported tape drive or autoloader, keeping all data on inexpensive, fast and high-capacity spinning disks.

Even with explosive data growth, StarWind VTL fits the backup into backup window by accelerating it, so the process does not overlap with production time. Optionally, it creates additional copy of backup data for better safety. It is also available in a software-only form, as part of StarWind VSAN functionality.

StarWind VTL targets those, who need to replace existing tape backup infrastructure or accelerate it if regulatory requirements prohibit replacement. In case the goal is just virtualizing tape backup or creating a stretched backup infrastructure, StarWind Tape Redirector will come in handy.

StarWind

Sunlight is a complete HCI stack that can be deployed on-premise on standard data center hardware, in AWS and on resource-constrained far-edge devices.

Sunlight.io

Sample Customers

Volvo, Sony, Samsung, Hitachi

Lavazza, Infraspace

Buyer's Guide

StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. Sunlight

February 2026

Free Report: StarWind Virtual Tape Library vs. Sunlight

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