Longhorn Alternative
Improve system stability and optimize throughput and latency with Simplyblock
Simplyblock's NVMe-First architecture enables superior performance and system stability, while significantly reducing storage costs through intelligent thin provisioning and automated tiering to S3. Simplyblock as your alternative provides the best features of Longhorn with the stability and reliability required by enterprise use cases.
Challenges with Longhorn
Performance Bottlenecks
Longhorn users report limitations in I/O performance, especially under heavy workloads. These issues can arise due to the way Longhorn handles I/O operations, sometimes relying on a single CPU core for managing multiple I/O queues, which can slow down operations.
Backup and Restore Issues
Large volume backups can be problematic, sometimes leading to backup failures or requiring extensive time to complete. For instance, backups of large volumes (70 GB or more) have been reported to fail frequently, causing replicas to enter degraded states and forcing time-consuming rebuilds.
Replica / State Management
Longhorn relies on replicas for data redundancy, but network issues or high CPU loads can cause replicas to degrade or fail to rebuild properly. These failures can be triggered by insufficient resources or network instability, leading to incomplete or stalled data replication.
Resource Consumption
Longhorn's architecture is resource-intensive regarding CPU and network bandwidth. CPU and memory overhead increases with the volume of concurrent read/write operations. Managing this overhead can require careful tuning of cluster resources.
What is Simplyblock?
Transform your storage infrastructure with simplyblock's enterprise-grade solution, enabling easier deployment, simplified management, and increased performance over Longhorn, with built-in thin provisioning, intelligent tiering, and NVMe-first architecture. Unlike Longhorn's resource-intensive single-controller design, simplyblock's unified storage plane provides seamless scalability, automated storage optimization, and consistent performance—making storage bottlenecks, degraded volumes, and backup failures a thing of the past.
Deployment comparison
Simplyblock and Longhorn integrate seamlessly with Kubernetes via their Container Storage Interface (CSI) drivers. Additionally, both solutions enable thin provisioned logical volumes, snapshotting, and cloning.
Simplyblock, however, provides additional enterprise features like automated storage tiering to S3, and intelligent volume placement out of the box.
Longhorn relies on iSCSI for connectivity. While Longhorn's version 2 of the storage engine supports NVMe over TCP, this engine is still experimental and not recommended for production use. Simplyblock, however, leverages the more modern NVMe over TCP protocol as it's core technology, which provides better performance and comes built into modern Linux kernels without requiring additional drivers.
With simplyblock as your alternative to Longhorn, you get higher performance, lower latency, and lower protocol overhead - just like that.
Architecture comparison
Simplyblock is designed for low resource utilization, minimal performance impact (over bare metal), and little storage overhead due to data copy reduction with erasure coding.
Contrary, Longhorn creates a dedicated storage controller for each volume and synchronously replicates data across multiple replicas. This fundamental architectural difference means Longhorn requires more individual controllers to manage, while simplyblock's approach enables more efficient resource utilization and simplified management.
Additionally, simplyblock offers flexible deployment options, supporting disaggregated (storage runs in dedicated cluster), hyperconverged (storage and workloads share Kubernetes worker nodes), and hybrid models. This allows optimizing for performance with local NVMe in hyperconverged mode, independent scaling with disaggregated, or a balance in hybrid deployments.
Benefits of Simplyblock?
Simplyblock improves performance, resource efficiency, and eliminates Longhorn's backup-restore issues.
Superior Performance Architecture
With its three deployment options, simplyblock provides the best setup for any use case, no matter if you require lowest latency, highest throughput, or maximum scalability. With its NVMe-First architecture, simplyblock got you covered.
Efficient Resource Utilization
Simplyblock's unified storage plane architecture requires fewer system resources compared to Longhorn's per-volume controller design. Additionally, intelligent tiering auto-moves cold data to S3, reducing expensive block storage usage.
Enterprise-Grade Data Protection
Simplyblock uses copy-on-write snapshots which don't impact performance, unlike Longhorn's snapshot chains. Furthermore, simplyblock provides seamless backup streaming to S3 to eliminate the volume degradation issues Longhorn experiences with large backups and enable near-zero RPO disaster recovery.
More Reasons to Move to Simplyblock
| Simplyblock | Longhorn | 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. Longhorn provides a similar experience with iSCSI which still needs additional initiator software installed and is slower. |
| Enhanced deployment options |
|
| Simplyblock provides three deployment 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. |
| Any environment |
|
| Simplyblock offers easier integration with cloud environments and APIs, ideal for public and private cloud or hybrid Kubernetes and container setups. |
| Commercial support | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| 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
|
Longhorn |
| 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. Longhorn provides a similar experience with iSCSI which still needs additional initiator software installed and is slower. | |
| Enhanced deployment options | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| Simplyblock provides three deployment 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. | |
| Any environment | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| Simplyblock offers easier integration with cloud environments and APIs, ideal for public and private cloud or hybrid Kubernetes and container setups. | |
| Simplyblock | Longhorn | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High IOPS density |
|
| With over 200.000 IOPS per CPU core, simplyblock provides superior performance over Longhorn, while also increasing the available throughput, making it the perfect alternative. |
| Low latency |
|
| Simplyblock provides latencies as low as an average of 0.1 ms make simplyblock. 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 3x better storage efficiency and decreased cost compared to a Longhorn installation with the same workload-usable capacity. Thin provisioning and deduplication can improve storage efficiency even further. Spent less with simplyblock as your Longhorn 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
|
Longhorn |
| With over 200.000 IOPS per CPU core, simplyblock provides superior performance over Longhorn, while also increasing the available throughput, making it the perfect alternative. | |
| Low latency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| Simplyblock provides latencies as low as an average of 0.1 ms make simplyblock. With workload-local caching, the latency can be reduced even further to enable the lowest latency-requiring workloads too. | |
| Resource efficiency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| With erasure coding and our very CPU-efficient compression, simplyblock provides up to 3x better storage efficiency and decreased cost compared to a Longhorn installation with the same workload-usable capacity. Thin provisioning and deduplication can improve storage efficiency even further. Spent less with simplyblock as your Longhorn alternative. | |
| Tiered storage | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| 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 | Longhorn | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low TCO |
|
| Up to 3x more usable storage capacity than the equivalent Longhorn 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 3x with simplyblock as your Longhorn replacement. |
| Resource efficiency |
|
| Simplyblock's unified storage plane architecture requires fewer system resources compared to Longhorn's per-volume controller design saving on CPU and RAM resources. |
| Low TCO | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| Up to 3x more usable storage capacity than the equivalent Longhorn storage solution while delivering superior performance with simplyblock’s thin provisioning and erasure coding technologies. | |
| Storage cost-efficiency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| 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 3x with simplyblock as your Longhorn replacement. | |
| Resource efficiency | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| Simplyblock's unified storage plane architecture requires fewer system resources compared to Longhorn's per-volume controller design saving on CPU and RAM resources. | |
| Simplyblock | Longhorn | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Availability |
|
| 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 and RAM overhead compared to a similar-sized Longhorn cluster while also increasing data protection with data and parity distribution and optimizing performance. |
| 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 an enhanced 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. |
| High Availability | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| 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
|
Longhorn |
| Simplyblock’s performance-optimized and distributed erasure coding algorithm significantly reduces CPU and RAM overhead compared to a similar-sized Longhorn cluster while also increasing data protection with data and parity distribution and optimizing performance. | |
| Fault tolerance | |
|
Simplyblock
|
Longhorn |
| 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
|
Longhorn |
| 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
|
Longhorn |
| Using its block-level write-ahead log, simplyblock provides an enhanced 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 | Longhorn | 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. Longhorn provides a similar experience with iSCSI which still needs additional initiator software installed and is slower. |
| Enhanced deployment options |
|
| Simplyblock provides three deployment 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. |
| Any environment |
|
| Simplyblock offers easier integration with cloud environments and APIs, ideal for public and private cloud or hybrid Kubernetes and container setups. |
| Simplyblock | Longhorn | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High IOPS density |
|
| With over 200.000 IOPS per CPU core, simplyblock provides superior performance over Longhorn, while also increasing the available throughput, making it the perfect alternative. |
| Low latency |
|
| Simplyblock provides latencies as low as an average of 0.1 ms make simplyblock. 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 3x better storage efficiency and decreased cost compared to a Longhorn installation with the same workload-usable capacity. Thin provisioning and deduplication can improve storage efficiency even further. Spent less with simplyblock as your Longhorn 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 | Longhorn | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low TCO |
|
| Up to 3x more usable storage capacity than the equivalent Longhorn 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 3x with simplyblock as your Longhorn replacement. |
| Resource efficiency |
|
| Simplyblock's unified storage plane architecture requires fewer system resources compared to Longhorn's per-volume controller design saving on CPU and RAM resources. |
| Simplyblock | Longhorn | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Availability |
|
| 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 and RAM overhead compared to a similar-sized Longhorn cluster while also increasing data protection with data and parity distribution and optimizing performance. |
| 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 an enhanced 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. |