Rubrik vs. VMware ESXi

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Rubrik
Score 8.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Rubrik is cloud data management and enterprise backup software provided by Palo Alto-based Rubrik, Inc. It is a software platform that provides backup, instant recovery, archival, search, analytics, compliance, and copy data management in one secure fabric across data centers and clouds.N/A
VMware ESXi
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
A bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.N/A
Pricing
RubrikVMware ESXi
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
RubrikVMware ESXi
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
RubrikVMware ESXi
Considered Both Products
Rubrik
Chose Rubrik
Levels of intelligence can’t compare - one is a legacy thought process; the other modern.
Chose Rubrik
Was over 5 years ago when we made the comparison but LOVED that Rubrik was a software and hardware solution with no finger pointing. Solution met all needs and was a turnkey product. Has been easy to maintain and grow over the years.
Chose Rubrik
Previously used Veeam years ago, but much happier with this.
Chose Rubrik
rubrik is much easier to deploy and manage. in so many ways. support is much better. sales is much better. customer involvement and response for features is much better. commvault is more granular but that hasn't hurt us. it takes less time to add new instances and less time on …
Chose Rubrik
We have changed from NetBackup appliances to Rubrik.
The admin GUI and backup/ restore process is much simpler on Rubrik than on NetBackup. Live mount of VM's are a lot simpler to use on Rubrik, even if it works fine on NetBackup also. The possibility to do complex query based …
Chose Rubrik
For the feature set that we needed, both products were able to provide them. Rubrik allowed us to drop in managed appliances instead of building up Windows Servers and additional storage products. This allowed us to spin up Rubrik faster and easier. Being the new kid on the …
Chose Rubrik
Completely fresh way of looking at backup. Rubrik removes the need for separate software, server, storage, networking and DR replication stacks; providing a simple to install, simple to configure, simple to manage single all-in-one unit. This reduction is complexity allows the …
Chose Rubrik
Rubrik is much simpler and way more powerful. The archive to the cloud again trumps our old legacy product.
Chose Rubrik
Rubrik was by far the easiest solution to manage and use. This and the fact that it was so extremely simple to configure and use cloud archive is the main reason we went with Rubrik. However, support has to be the biggest surprise. They are very knowledgeable and fast to …
Chose Rubrik
Rubrik provides a unified backup/restore appliance with the ability to backup to a cloud solution that is reliable, easy to deploy and use, and easy to automate.
Chose Rubrik
We selected Rubrik to replace our Data Domains initially because we are moving to a cloud based DR solution. After the initial implementation we have found that it greatly simplifies our backup and restore process.
VMware ESXi
Chose VMware ESXi
VMware ESXi is by far easier to use and the feature set is generations ahead of competitors.
Chose VMware ESXi
When Microsoft Hyper-V 2012R2 was released, the company I was working for at the time decided to go all-in with Microsoft to "save" money on VMware licensing costs. This was an extremely large environment. Several hundred ESX hosts handling 10's of thousands of virtual …
Features
RubrikVMware ESXi
Data Center Backup
Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Product A and Product B
Rubrik
9.0
142 Ratings
7% above category average
VMware ESXi
-
Ratings
Universal recovery9.2127 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant recovery9.4136 Ratings00 Ratings
Recovery verification8.9125 Ratings00 Ratings
Business application protection8.6125 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple backup destinations9.0134 Ratings00 Ratings
Incremental backup identification9.2131 Ratings00 Ratings
Backup to the cloud9.0129 Ratings00 Ratings
Deduplication and file compression6.8137 Ratings00 Ratings
Snapshots8.9141 Ratings00 Ratings
Flexible deployment8.2130 Ratings00 Ratings
Management dashboard9.9142 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform support9.0139 Ratings00 Ratings
Retention options9.9142 Ratings00 Ratings
Encryption9.9132 Ratings00 Ratings
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Rubrik
-
Ratings
VMware ESXi
8.2
128 Ratings
2% above category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
Management console00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings8.0112 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
Best Alternatives
RubrikVMware ESXi
Small Businesses
Cove Data Protection
Cove Data Protection
Score 9.2 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.6 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.6 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
RubrikVMware ESXi
Likelihood to Recommend
7.7
(142 ratings)
9.0
(129 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(17 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(26 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(5 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(6 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(23 ratings)
10.0
(55 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(9 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
6.1
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.5
(8 ratings)
5.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.9
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Professional Services
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.8
(6 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
RubrikVMware ESXi
Likelihood to Recommend
Rubrik, Inc
Rubrik is still a relatively new product when compared to other solutions which tackle total data protection. The feature set is quite broad but still needs some refinements. Most of the User Interface is quite straightforward and easy, but some areas are a bit lacking in a description of what the option is used for, or the option is missing. While making the user experience easy, many tunables aren’t present and require a Support Tunnel to be open for a Support person to make a change in the customer’s environment. Seems the first question Support always asks is if you can open a tunnel for them to remote in. Then you’re not able to monitor exactly what they’re doing.
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VMware by Broadcom
If you're looking for the industry standard in server virtualization, I would recommend ESXi. After decades of expertise in the field, VMware continues to provide a strong product, production-ready, with an easy-to-learn interface that allows for quick management along with less costly upfront onboarding and training. Grab the free personal-use license and install in your homelab to start!
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Pros
Rubrik, Inc
  • It just works right out of the box. No customizations were needed to start using.
  • It protects several types of databases such as IBM DB2 that are not protected by competing products.
  • The Rubrik Support team is very knowledgeable and responsive to our issues.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.
  • Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.
  • VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.
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Cons
Rubrik, Inc
  • Automated test restores. I would love to setup automated and random test restores on a regular basis where Rubrik's system will restore a random file or directory to a test SharePoint folder, send a full report, and provide a path to the folder for review and confirmation.
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VMware by Broadcom
  • VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.
  • VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.
  • I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.
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Likelihood to Renew
Rubrik, Inc
The support has been incredible. Any time we have had a question, it has always been answered within 24hrs. Also, the team is always will to hop on a Zoom call to help walk us through the dashboard and troubleshoot any issues we are having. Also, having the peace of mind that our data is protected should anything happen in our system.
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VMware by Broadcom
It is critical to our business, what started out as a way to do certain functions, it has now become core to ensuring our product is available to our customers and reducing our costs to operate and reduce our recovery time and provisioning servers. Their support is great and the costs to renew is reasonable.
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Usability
Rubrik, Inc
The support is top notch both tech and sales team, the tools are simple
to use and yet still is feature rich. Security is top of the list, the
product is sold and reliable, easy to configure and intuitive to use.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
The interface is fairly intuitive for most things, and the areas that are a little less obvious usually have fantastic documentation in the online knowledgebase. In 3-4 years of managing our ESXi hosts, I think that I have only opened 4-5 support cases for things that I could not figure out myself or find answers to on the website.
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Reliability and Availability
Rubrik, Inc
Rubrik's brik is designed with redundancy in mind, ensuring that if one node experiences issues, others can continue to provide backup and recovery services.
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VMware by Broadcom
Without the need to patch the servers with bug fixes and enhancements we whave not experienced any downtime with VMware issues. Even the bug fixes and updates do not cause of downtime as we just migrate the servers to the opposite node and update the one and then move servers back. Very simple and painless.
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Performance
Rubrik, Inc
Yes. Even on VPN and poor occasional poor internet speeds we've had no issues.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
We do not notice any difference between a physical and virtual server running the same workload. In fact we can scale quicker with the virtual server than we can with the physical.
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Support Rating
Rubrik, Inc
Rubrik support has been pretty good. There have been a few issues with new releases we have experienced and are still considering if we want to make the jump to version nine. There are a few things we are concerned about which are giving us pause. That being said, support is working hard to answer our questions.
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VMware by Broadcom
I can't say enough good about VMware's support team. To an individual they take ownership of the case, provide thorough answers, and follow up regularly. On one occasion, a problem we experienced with NSX Endpoint was escalated to development for a permanent resolution after a workaround was found. In my experience, most companies would have tried to find a way to close a case like that instead of taking it all the way. Most importantly, when production is down and every second counts, they VMware teams understand that urgency and treat your issue as if it were the only one they had to deal with. You can't ask for better.
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In-Person Training
Rubrik, Inc
Very easy to take in and pass on.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Rubrik, Inc
Easy to follow and very thorough. Trainer was knowledgeable and helpful answering any questions and providing detailed answers where possible. It's also nice to gain another badge :) There is also the Rubrik University online tutorials to refer back to and keep updated with new innovations. I would say the exam was very hard.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Rubrik, Inc
From experience the implementation was smooth and easy, like a simple plug and play format but would need coordination from your network team to be able to see the entire IT infrastructure.
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VMware by Broadcom
Jsut read and follow anything your storage provider may require to allow the integration of VMware with storage operations, outside of that VMware jsut works.
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Alternatives Considered
Rubrik, Inc
Having all our backups under one umbrella made product management easier, with not need to manage myltip contracts.
The additional analysis of the data after the fact gave insights into our user data, without the need for an addition product, or the impact on live data sets.
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VMware by Broadcom
As long as you're using Nutanix AOS on Nutanix hardware and are paying their software support fees, AOS is a valid competitor to VMware and can save money due to not needing a license and having their server management system built into the base host management system. If you aren't using Nutanix hardware, however, VMWare is in most cases the best way to go. I cannot comment on HyperV, but most IT people I know either use it because they have to (most) or they like it better (not many).
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Rubrik, Inc
We are fine with the 1 year or 3 year support options that Rubrik has had. The support for the on-prem hardware has been great too. We've had them for quite a while (4+ years) and no end of support yet.
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VMware by Broadcom
it has been fair and easy to understand. I know VMware is looking at wanting to change from CPU to core pricing so we will see what that looks like when it happens.
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Scalability
Rubrik, Inc
Rubrik allows multi-site deployment and cloud integration. But we are currently only using Rubrik in one location with Archives in Cloud
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VMware by Broadcom
We started out with a two-server cluster and adding a third or fourth is very straightforward and simple with no issues. You just need to be aware of the size of your Vcenter Server to handle the workload, but still the resources needed is very minimal
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Return on Investment
Rubrik, Inc
  • Rubrik has eliminated all our other backup tools that we were trying to accomplish what they offer.
  • Rubrik has made management of backups a non-issue.
  • Recovery of systems and files takes seconds or minutes.
  • We have a better strategy against ransomware.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • VMWare ESXi licensing is affordable for our business - and the licensing model is simplistic. Not like that of Microsoft with having to keep track of server licenses and CAL licenses for users.
  • VMWare ESXi also has hardware-monitoring built-in, so that further saves us money from having to be spent with another vendor.
  • As much as I hate the saying "a single pane of glass" does fit for this product. You can manage your servers, monitor hardware status, create and export backup snapshots, manage virtual NICs, connect to various storage devices. We're very happy with this product.
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ScreenShots

Rubrik Screenshots

Screenshot of Rubrik DashboardScreenshot of Data Threat AnalyticsScreenshot of Data Security PostureScreenshot of SLA Domain