Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure vs. VMware vCenter

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Nutanix in San Jose, California offers their software-defined Enterprise Cloud as a hyper-converged infrastructure solution. The Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure solution combines the Nutanix Acropolis virtualization solution, Nutanix AHV hypervisor (though Acropolis works with other hypervisors), Prism cluster manager, Nutanix Calm and Nutanix Flow server management, and is available on the Nutanix NX series of server hardware appliances, as well as third-party OEM appliances.N/A
VMware vCenter
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
VMware vCenter is an advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling vSphere environments for visibility across hybrid clouds. VMware vCenter is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.
$6,044
per year
Pricing
Nutanix Cloud InfrastructureVMware vCenter
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
6,044
per year
Production
6,244
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Nutanix Cloud InfrastructureVMware vCenter
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Nutanix Cloud InfrastructureVMware vCenter
Considered Both Products
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
They're on par with each other but it seems like management prefers Nutanix.
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
The only other hyper-converged I have used is Rubrik so my comparison here won't be very good I am afraid.

The two products seem comparable in terms of them just being a service in a box but of course one of them is a very good backup solution and the other is a very good …
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
We really haven't done much with the other modules. Our organization is small enough that implementing most of them would have been overkill and rarely utilized. It doesn't mean we never will, but it wasn't a need as we stand today. With our next refresh, I would like to look …
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Other vendors were proposing big solutions involving switches/SAN/servers. We want to reduce our hardware footprint.
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix AOS is by far the superior leader when compared against this competition. They are quicker and more reliable. Also, the functionality is much more advanced and simplicity leading.
Automation is wonderful, and the performance of its tools works without fail. I have not …
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
We wanted to have a trustful and stable datacenter platform also not bound to a hardware vendor. This could be done with Hyper-V and storage spaces direct but this would also be expensive and you would miss out on management tooling.
VMWare vCenter we looked at pricing, but our …
Chose Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Infrastructure capabilities:
- Different hypervisors and therefore not tied to a single hypervisor for future choices.
- Converting the cluster into another hypervisor - no data migration.
VMware vCenter
Chose VMware vCenter
We started the virtualization when VMware was the best solution. Now there are different solution that achieve the same goals.
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Best Alternatives
Nutanix Cloud InfrastructureVMware vCenter
Small Businesses
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.6 out of 10
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vSAN
VMware vSAN
Score 8.8 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Nutanix Cloud InfrastructureVMware vCenter
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(72 ratings)
9.6
(50 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(6 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(4 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.5
(51 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.7
(54 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Nutanix Cloud InfrastructureVMware vCenter
Likelihood to Recommend
Nutanix
I would highly recommend using Nutanix HCI for any of your infrastructure needs. I would highly suggest saving money and using the free included AHV hypervisor. The performance is incredible, and the data reduction capabilities are on par with vSAN. I would only recommend using ESXi with Nutanix AOS if AHV does not yet support some one-off configurations or if you still want to use horizon while the frame is still growing.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
The VMware vCenter server is very useful in maintaining the CPU/RAM/datastore resources are balanced when there are multiple ESX/ESXi host servers. It is clear what resources are being used, and it is easy to migrate VMs to different ESX/ESXi hosts. Being able to remotely connect to the VM servers in vCenter when you cannot have other remote connections helps in maintenance and troubleshooting.
Read full review
Pros
Nutanix
  • One-click upgrades; whether it's hypervisor, firmware, disk or other updates. This feature has drastically decreased complexity and administration time.
  • Data Locality. Not all hyperconverged technology is created equal. When I first purchased Nutanix they were the only vendor (and as far as I know, still are) that made sure the storage a VM used was on the same host that VM was running on. Given a normal operating state, the [storage] network is literally only used for replication data.
  • They got rid of traditional RAID. Nutanix uses software to determine where a VM's storage should be written and replicated to. This dramatically decreases I/O when changing the number of nodes in a cluster, be it on purpose or during a failure scenario. Ex. adding a new node: If one uses RAID arrays then enough space has to be set aside to create a new array that includes the new node, then all the information has to be copied over, and the old array destroyed. RAID arrays do not grow and shrink gracefully so Nutanix has designed a better solution.
  • The Nutanix management interface was built on HTML5. No more flash headaches!
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • VSAN storage management and redundancy - high performance IO with built in fault tolerance across the cluster, not reliant on a single hardware item
  • VM fault tolerance. The ability to relocate a running VM and restart VMs from failed or isolated nodes
  • Resource management and alerting. Tracking load across physical systems and allowing us to rebalance for better utilisation
Read full review
Cons
Nutanix
  • Can be priced high at times.
  • The one downside I have working with Nutanix is the sales team. They seem to try to add in extra goodies to sales quotes or push for extras that you don't really need and you have to tell them to take them out. Don't be afraid to push back on them.
  • Need to analyze sizing with sales team to ensure right sizing.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • Currently, the HTML 5-based vSphere Client lets you manage the essential functions of vSphere from any browser, however, it would be nice if they would port all management functions over to the HTML 5-based Client.
  • Performing updates and upgrades to the infrastructure is a bit challenging for someone that may not be as intimate with vSphere. I think the updates/upgrades should be more integrated into the UI and provide the ability to push to the hosts, etc...
  • It would also be nice to have a more robust snapshot management tool to prevent snapshot overgrowth. It would be nice to be able to set a lifespan for the snapshot(s)
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Nutanix
AOS definitely make our dev/test virtual environment management much easier than before. And the consolidation the test/dev environment from Azure and Cisco UCS, we have less need to transfer large amount of data between different hardware platforms which was very big challenge. To expand the capacity is very easy to archive as well.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
We are very dependent on this software, it has become a much needed tool to perform the daily tasks that are required to maintain the virtual server environment. VMware has become very pricey over the years, so we are looking for alternatives for cost savings strategy, but nothing has been found to be on par to what we are currently using
Read full review
Usability
Nutanix
The learning curve on it is very low and easy to use. It is very user friendly and easy to understand.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
VMware vCenter Server does a great job with maintaining your virtual environment. It has great role based features to delegate various administrative tasks to multiple users. It is an excellent 'all in one' dashboard for viewing all aspects of your vSphere infrastructure. All alerts to software and hardware issues are easy to trace from this interface
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Nutanix
So far no issue on availability during no issue on network or power outage
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Performance
Nutanix
Nutanix AOS performance is light years ahead of HPE. We were nervous about using Nutanix AHV but it has been a vast improvement and saves on cost. Applications has been much improved and end users have commented. It has also freed up time for our Network Administrators and made their lives easier.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Nutanix
Modernizing with HCI, which creates private cloud-like data centers, is, for many organizations, the first step in their digital transformation. Companies that have kept their eye on the long game and made decisions based on a fully-developed ROI analysis have found themselves uniquely positioned to make the critical operational changes the COVID-19 situation has demanded.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
VMware support has always been fantastic and they have been invaluable in solving tougher issues that have been run into. Most of the time, any oddities encountered are fixed by available updates. This can be deduced by support quickly with logs within vCenter. We have not run into something yet that support was unable to help with. They either have a solution already, or they are able to find one quickly.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Nutanix
We requested more training than typical which was very in depth
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Nutanix
A lot of online training courses, most of them are free.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Nutanix
IPv6 is needed for link local discovery. We do not have IPv6 configured on our network so the easiest way to get our nodes configured and discovered by foundation was to configure the IPv4 addressing within the node prior to trying to discover with foundation.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
Since moving away from the Windows Server hosting the vCenter application and instead using a virtual appliance, it has become much easier to implement and deploy the new versions. We can easily create a snapshot or clone of the vCenter vApp to ensure any problems encountered during the upgrade can be mitigated with a fall back to the old version to prevent unscheduled downtime.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Nutanix
We've decided to go for both VxRail and Nutanix AOS to make sure we can get the best deals from both sides. I appreciate this may not be a path most companies can go down, but always good to have a bit of healthy competition between vendors to ensure you're getting the best pricing from both sides!
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
Citrix Xen Server.... Great Hypervisor but very limited in terms of functionality
MS Hyper-V... [VMware vCenter Server] is better for almost everything and appliance form makes a clear winner for security and ease of deployment
Read full review
Scalability
Nutanix
We have scaled our products over the years and continue to do so very easily.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Nutanix
  • We save money with an all-inclusive pricing model and cut out of extra pieces we no longer need
  • The management of this product is minimal and save time and resources.
  • We found that the N+1 portion is working well but not identified well.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • The positive impact of vcenter is definitely felt in larger organisations in terms of being able to manage multiple servers all in one environment
  • It will decrease the amount of time your server engineers will have to spend in the server room or datacenter.
Read full review
ScreenShots