Gluster vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Gluster
gluster.orgStarWind Virtual SAN
starwindsoftware.comSide by side
| Figure | Gluster | StarWind Virtual SAN |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 5 |
| Spec score · Software-Defined Storage Software | 7.9 (#10) | 8.4 (#6) |
| Deployment | The documentation describes scaling capacity, performance, and availability across on-premise, public cloud, and hybrid environments. | It can run as Windows-native software in a Hyper-V partition or as a Linux-based virtual machine on a chosen hypervisor. |
| Protocols | The documentation lists NFS and SMB as standard protocols for accessing Gluster. | The product supports iSCSI, SMB3, NFS v4.1, VVols iSCSI, NVMe over Fabrics and iSER. |
| Purpose | Gluster is a scalable, distributed file system that aggregates disk storage from multiple servers into a single global namespace. | StarWind Virtual SAN is software that replaces physical shared SAN storage and targets Enterprise ROBO, SMB and Edge environments. |
| Support | The project points users to consultancies for design, performance, and additional support; Red Hat says it does not support community versions. | VSAN Free is self-supported or community-supported through StarWind Forums, while the paid edition includes deployment, configuration, integration and responsive technical support. |
Plans
StarWind Virtual SAN
- StarWind Virtual SAN FreeFree
- Virtual SAN FreeFree
- DatacenterPriced on request
- EnterprisePriced on request
- StarWind Virtual SANPriced on request
In their own words
Gluster
Gluster is free, open-source distributed file-system software for Linux and self-hosted deployments. It combines disk storage from multiple servers into one global namespace, with the project describing scale to several petabytes and thousands of clients. Gluster is POSIX compatible and can use on-disk filesystems supporting extended attributes. Listed capabilities include replication, quotas, geo-replication, snapshots, bitrot detection, and erasure coding. Access options include native GlusterFS, NFS, SMB/CIFS, iSCSI, and a Swift REST API. The project describes workloads such as media streaming, data analysis, and other data- and bandwidth-intensive tasks. Capacity, performance, and availability can scale across on-premise, public-cloud, and hybrid environments, using common off-the-shelf hardware. Installation resources include source downloads and Ubuntu PPAs, while documentation covers AWS deployment, SSL, and access-control lists. The project points users to consultancies for additional support and notes that Red Hat does not support community versions.
StarWind Virtual SAN
StarWind Virtual SAN is software designed to replace physical shared SAN storage in SMB, ROBO, and Edge environments. It provides fault tolerance and high availability starting with two nodes, and supports iSCSI, SMB3, NFS v4.1, VVols iSCSI, NVMe over Fabrics, and iSER. Deployment options include Windows-native software in a Hyper-V partition or a Linux-based virtual machine on a chosen hypervisor. An HTML5 console is used to monitor and manage hardware and software resources. Listed reliability features include ZFS self-healing, AI-powered telemetry, and call-home systems. Supported hypervisor versions include VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0 or later, Windows Server Hyper-V 2019 or later, oVirt/OLVM/RHV 4.4 or later, Proxmox VE 9.1 or later, and XCP-ng 8.3 or later. The free edition is self- or community-supported, and its comparison lists web UI support for KVM only; paid editions list KVM, Hyper-V, and ESXi. A 30-day trial is available, while paid pricing is on request.