Lightbits SDS vs StarWind Virtual SAN
Lightbits SDS
lightbitslabs.comStarWind Virtual SAN
starwindsoftware.comSide by side
| Figure | Lightbits SDS | StarWind Virtual SAN |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $17.25/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 5 |
| Spec score · Software-Defined Storage Software | 7.9 (#11) | 8.4 (#6) |
| Deployment | It supports on-premises deployments on commodity x86 servers, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and hybrid deployments with license portability. | It can run as Windows-native software in a Hyper-V partition or as a Linux-based virtual machine on a chosen hypervisor. |
| Founded | 2016 | 2003 |
| Management | Lightbits lists multi-cluster management UI, gRPC, REST and CLI programmatic control, zero-downtime scalability, and automated load rebalancing. | The product provides a Web Management Console and a StarWind Management Console for storage, licensing, pools, disks, users and LUN operations. |
| Support | The private-cloud offering includes premium technical support and a dedicated customer success manager; the public-cloud offering includes Lightbits technical support. | VSAN Free is self-supported or community-supported through StarWind Forums, while the paid edition includes deployment, configuration, integration and responsive technical support. |
| Trial | The pricing page labels a section “Free trial” but does not state its duration or terms. | The full-force StarWind VSAN free trial lasts 30 trial days. |
Plans
Lightbits SDS
- Private Cloud & Service Providers$17.25 a month
- Public cloud$17.25 a month
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
Lightbits SDS
Lightbits SDS has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
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.