Ceph / Rook Alternative
Increase performance and reduce complexity and cost with Simplyblock
Simplyblock simplifies operational complexity, improves cost-efficiency, and delivers powerful performance for your IO-intensive storage workloads inside and outside Kubernetes. Your mission-critical data deserves a modern block storage solution that you confidently run as an alternative to Ceph / Rook.
Challenges with Ceph
Operational Complexity
Ceph deployments demand dedicated storage teams to manage their complex architecture of monitors, OSDs, and metadata servers, with scaling and upgrades requiring careful orchestration.
Legacy Architecture
Ceph's architecture was designed for spinning disks in the pre-cloud era, making it inefficient for modern NVMe storage and leading to poor CPU utilization and limited IOPS performance on flash storage.
Performance Bottleneck
Ceph's legacy architecture bottlenecks performance at 4,000-8,000 IOPS per CPU core, severely limiting throughput on modern NVMe drives that could deliver 10-50x more IOPS with optimized storage software.
Cost-Inefficiency
Ceph's reliance on triple replication for data protection leads to a minimum 3x storage overhead, dramatically increasing costs compared to modern solutions that use efficient erasure coding for data durability.
What is Simplyblock?
Simplyblock is a modern storage orchestrator, built specifically for NVMe and cloud-native stateful workloads, delivering up to 50x more IOPS per CPU core and 5x better storage efficiency than Ceph. Unlike Ceph's legacy architecture, simplyblock provides enterprise features like instant snapshots, automated S3 tiering, and near-zero RPO disaster recovery, all while reducing storage costs by up to 75%. Learn why simplyblock is the perfect replacement for Ceph / Rook.
Deployment comparison
Simplyblock's modern architecture offers unparalleled deployment flexibility, supporting three distinct models: a disaggregated setup where storage runs in a dedicated cluster, a hyperconverged model where storage and workloads share Kubernetes worker nodes, and a hybrid approach combining both. This flexibility allows organizations to optimize for their specific needs - using hyperconverged for maximum performance with local NVMe, disaggregated for independent scaling of storage and compute, or a hybrid model balancing both approaches.
In contrast, Ceph's legacy architecture essentially mandates a standalone cluster deployment, forcing a rigid separation between storage and compute resources. This architectural limitation not only increases operational complexity but also prevents organizations from taking advantage of hyperconverged efficiencies when desired. While Ceph's standalone model made sense in the era of spinning disks, it fails to leverage the full potential of modern NVMe storage and cloud-native deployment patterns that simplyblock's flexible architecture enables.
Architecture comparison
Simplyblock employs an elegantly simple, fully containerized architecture built around just two core components. The storage plane container handles all essential storage services including logical volume management, orchestration, tiering, and data protection, while a single CSI driver container provides seamless Kubernetes integration. This streamlined design not only simplifies deployment and operations but also reduces potential points of failure and management overhead.
A great alternative to Ceph simplifies the complexity, and simplyblock does just that.
In stark contrast, Ceph relies on a complex architecture requiring multiple specialized services - monitors for cluster state, OSDs for data storage, metadata servers for file system operations, and separate CSI drivers - each running in their own containers. This multi-layered approach significantly increases operational complexity, requiring careful coordination between components and deep expertise to maintain, troubleshoot, and scale effectively. The complexity of Ceph's architecture often necessitates dedicated storage teams and extensive training just to keep the system running optimally.
Benefits of Simplyblock?
Simplyblock delivers significantly more performance and is significantly more cost-efficient than Ceph.
50x More IOPS
While Ceph struggles with 4,000-8,000 IOPS per CPU core due to its legacy architecture, simplyblock's modern NVMe-first design delivers up to 250,000 IOPS per core, making it the ideal choice for high-performance database workloads in cloud environments.
30x Lower Latency
Simplyblock achieves sub-millisecond latency under 0.1ms through its NVMe-first architecture, while Ceph's legacy design struggles with 30x higher latencies. This dramatic performance difference makes simplyblock the superior choice for latency-sensitive database workloads.
5x More Storage Efficiency
Simplyblock achieves 5x better storage efficiency through modern erasure coding and intelligent tiering to S3, compared to Ceph's wasteful triple replication. This translates to dramatically lower storage costs while maintaining enterprise-grade data protection and durability.
More Reasons to Move to Simplyblock
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial support |
 |
| With your simplyblock subscription, you are entitled to commercial support directly from the developer. Benefit from our deep knowledge of the technology and years of experience in the storage world. |
| Simplicity |
|
| Simplyblock provides virtual block storage devices via NVMe over TCP, a standard that the Linux kernel automatically provides. Additionally, the Kubernetes CSI driver enables seamless integration with Kubernetes. The easier alternative to Ceph usage. |
| Easy & quick deployment |
|
| Simplyblock is designed for rapid deployment with a focus on easy setup, which can be beneficial for organizations that need quick scalability without complex configurations. Ceph, though powerful, generally requires more setup time and expertise, particularly in larger, distributed environments. |
| Optimized for Cloud Deployments |
|
| Simplyblock offers easier integration with cloud environments and APIs, ideal for public cloud or hybrid cloud setups. Ceph also has cloud integrations, but these can sometimes require more customization and tuning for optimized performance. The cloud-native replacement for Ceph and Rook. |
| Commercial support | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| With your simplyblock subscription, you are entitled to commercial support directly from the developer. Benefit from our deep knowledge of the technology and years of experience in the storage world. | |
| Simplicity | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock provides virtual block storage devices via NVMe over TCP, a standard that the Linux kernel automatically provides. Additionally, the Kubernetes CSI driver enables seamless integration with Kubernetes. The easier alternative to Ceph usage. | |
| Easy & quick deployment | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock is designed for rapid deployment with a focus on easy setup, which can be beneficial for organizations that need quick scalability without complex configurations. Ceph, though powerful, generally requires more setup time and expertise, particularly in larger, distributed environments. | |
| Optimized for Cloud Deployments | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock offers easier integration with cloud environments and APIs, ideal for public cloud or hybrid cloud setups. Ceph also has cloud integrations, but these can sometimes require more customization and tuning for optimized performance. The cloud-native replacement for Ceph and Rook. | |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High IOPS density |
|
| With over 200.000 IOPS per CPU core, simplyblock provides up to 50x more IOPS than Ceph on the same CPU. Get higher performance with simplyblock as your Ceph / Rook replacement. |
| Low latency |
|
| Latencies as low as an average of 0.1 ms make simplyblock up to 30x times faster than a similar spec Ceph cluster. With workload-local caching, the latency can be reduced even further to enable the lowest latency-requiring workloads too. |
| Resource efficiency |
|
| With erasure coding and our very CPU-efficient compression, simplyblock provides up to 5x better storage efficiency and decreased cost compared to a Ceph cluster with the same workload-usable capacity. Thin provisioning and deduplication can improve storage efficiency even further. Spent less with simplyblock as your Ceph / Rook alternative. |
| Tiered storage |
|
| Simplyblock features automatic tiered storage to enable the highest cost-efficiency for infrequently accessed data while offering unprecedented performance for IO-demanding workloads inside and outside of Kubernetes. It is fully transparent to your workload. |
| High IOPS density | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| With over 200.000 IOPS per CPU core, simplyblock provides up to 50x more IOPS than Ceph on the same CPU. Get higher performance with simplyblock as your Ceph / Rook replacement. | |
| Low latency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Latencies as low as an average of 0.1 ms make simplyblock up to 30x times faster than a similar spec Ceph cluster. With workload-local caching, the latency can be reduced even further to enable the lowest latency-requiring workloads too. | |
| Resource efficiency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| With erasure coding and our very CPU-efficient compression, simplyblock provides up to 5x better storage efficiency and decreased cost compared to a Ceph cluster with the same workload-usable capacity. Thin provisioning and deduplication can improve storage efficiency even further. Spent less with simplyblock as your Ceph / Rook alternative. | |
| Tiered storage | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock features automatic tiered storage to enable the highest cost-efficiency for infrequently accessed data while offering unprecedented performance for IO-demanding workloads inside and outside of Kubernetes. It is fully transparent to your workload. | |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low TCO |
|
| Up to 5x more usable storage capacity than the equivalent Ceph storage solution while delivering superior performance with simplyblock’s thin provisioning and erasure coding technologies. |
| Storage cost-efficiency |
|
| Simplyblock’s storage tiering automatically moves infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage tiers, such as object storage or HDD pools. Decrease your storage cost by up to 5x with simplyblock as your replacement of Ceph / Rook. |
| Reduced operational complexity |
|
| With simplyblock’s built-in storage orchestration, the complexity of storage services is reduced dramatically by automatic backend storage acquisition and provisioning. |
| Low TCO | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Up to 5x more usable storage capacity than the equivalent Ceph storage solution while delivering superior performance with simplyblock’s thin provisioning and erasure coding technologies. | |
| Storage cost-efficiency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock’s storage tiering automatically moves infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage tiers, such as object storage or HDD pools. Decrease your storage cost by up to 5x with simplyblock as your replacement of Ceph / Rook. | |
| Reduced operational complexity | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| With simplyblock’s built-in storage orchestration, the complexity of storage services is reduced dramatically by automatic backend storage acquisition and provisioning. | |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Durability |
|
| Simplyblock's distributed data placement and erasure coding algorithm provide a high degree of data durability and fault tolerance. Additional features such as data replication (sync and async) can increase the durability even further. |
| Efficient Data Protection |
|
| Simplyblock’s performance-optimized and distributed erasure coding algorithm significantly reduces CPU overhead with heavy workloads compared to a similar-sized Ceph cluster while also increasing data protection due to the distribution of the parity information across all cluster nodes. |
| Fault tolerance |
|
| Simplyblock’s autonomous storage engine delivers automatic self-healing while keeping the data fully available. In case of an individual disk or node failure, simplyblock will automatically and transparently recover the data onto a new disk in the background without operational impact. |
| Low RPO Disaster Recovery |
|
| Using a streaming write-ahead log, simplyblock enables near-zero RPO disaster recovery with a low RTO. Disaster recovery can be inside the same availability zone, data center, or across zones. |
| Point-in-Time Recovery |
|
| Using its block-level write-ahead log, simplyblock provides a full point-in-time recovery option that lets you rewind your storage to an earlier point in time, for example, before ransomware has encrypted the drive or before a human-error delete operation. |
| Durability | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock's distributed data placement and erasure coding algorithm provide a high degree of data durability and fault tolerance. Additional features such as data replication (sync and async) can increase the durability even further. | |
| Efficient Data Protection | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock’s performance-optimized and distributed erasure coding algorithm significantly reduces CPU overhead with heavy workloads compared to a similar-sized Ceph cluster while also increasing data protection due to the distribution of the parity information across all cluster nodes. | |
| Fault tolerance | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Simplyblock’s autonomous storage engine delivers automatic self-healing while keeping the data fully available. In case of an individual disk or node failure, simplyblock will automatically and transparently recover the data onto a new disk in the background without operational impact. | |
| Low RPO Disaster Recovery | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Using a streaming write-ahead log, simplyblock enables near-zero RPO disaster recovery with a low RTO. Disaster recovery can be inside the same availability zone, data center, or across zones. | |
| Point-in-Time Recovery | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Ceph / Rook |
| Using its block-level write-ahead log, simplyblock provides a full point-in-time recovery option that lets you rewind your storage to an earlier point in time, for example, before ransomware has encrypted the drive or before a human-error delete operation. | |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial support |
|
| With your simplyblock subscription, you are entitled to commercial support directly from the developer. Benefit from our deep knowledge of the technology and years of experience in the storage world. |
| Simplicity |
|
| Simplyblock provides virtual block storage devices via NVMe over TCP, a standard that the Linux kernel automatically provides. Additionally, the Kubernetes CSI driver enables seamless integration with Kubernetes. The easier alternative to Ceph usage. |
| Easy & quick deployment |
|
| Simplyblock is designed for rapid deployment with a focus on easy setup, which can be beneficial for organizations that need quick scalability without complex configurations. Ceph, though powerful, generally requires more setup time and expertise, particularly in larger, distributed environments. |
| Optimized for Cloud Deployments |
|
| Simplyblock offers easier integration with cloud environments and APIs, ideal for public cloud or hybrid cloud setups. Ceph also has cloud integrations, but these can sometimes require more customization and tuning for optimized performance. The cloud-native replacement for Ceph and Rook. |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High IOPS density |
|
| With over 200.000 IOPS per CPU core, simplyblock provides up to 50x more IOPS than Ceph on the same CPU. Get higher performance with simplyblock as your Ceph / Rook replacement. |
| Low latency |
|
| Latencies as low as an average of 0.1 ms make simplyblock up to 30x times faster than a similar spec Ceph cluster. With workload-local caching, the latency can be reduced even further to enable the lowest latency-requiring workloads too. |
| Resource efficiency |
|
| With erasure coding and our very CPU-efficient compression, simplyblock provides up to 5x better storage efficiency and decreased cost compared to a Ceph cluster with the same workload-usable capacity. Thin provisioning and deduplication can improve storage efficiency even further. Spent less with simplyblock as your Ceph / Rook alternative. |
| Tiered storage |
|
| Simplyblock features automatic tiered storage to enable the highest cost-efficiency for infrequently accessed data while offering unprecedented performance for IO-demanding workloads inside and outside of Kubernetes. It is fully transparent to your workload. |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low TCO |
|
| Up to 5x more usable storage capacity than the equivalent Ceph storage solution while delivering superior performance with simplyblock’s thin provisioning and erasure coding technologies. |
| Storage cost-efficiency |
|
| Simplyblock’s storage tiering automatically moves infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage tiers, such as object storage or HDD pools. Decrease your storage cost by up to 5x with simplyblock as your replacement of Ceph / Rook. |
| Reduced operational complexity |
|
| With simplyblock’s built-in storage orchestration, the complexity of storage services is reduced dramatically by automatic backend storage acquisition and provisioning. |
| Simplyblock | Ceph / Rook | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Durability |
|
| Simplyblock's distributed data placement and erasure coding algorithm provide a high degree of data durability and fault tolerance. Additional features such as data replication (sync and async) can increase the durability even further. |
| Efficient Data Protection |
|
| Simplyblock’s performance-optimized and distributed erasure coding algorithm significantly reduces CPU overhead with heavy workloads compared to a similar-sized Ceph cluster while also increasing data protection due to the distribution of the parity information across all cluster nodes. |
| Fault tolerance |
|
| Simplyblock’s autonomous storage engine delivers automatic self-healing while keeping the data fully available. In case of an individual disk or node failure, simplyblock will automatically and transparently recover the data onto a new disk in the background without operational impact. |
| Low RPO Disaster Recovery |
|
| Using a streaming write-ahead log, simplyblock enables near-zero RPO disaster recovery with a low RTO. Disaster recovery can be inside the same availability zone, data center, or across zones. |
| Point-in-Time Recovery |
|
| Using its block-level write-ahead log, simplyblock provides a full point-in-time recovery option that lets you rewind your storage to an earlier point in time, for example, before ransomware has encrypted the drive or before a human-error delete operation. |