Portworx

Kubernetes-native storage and data services, priced by the node hour

As of 1 September 2026, Portworx starts at $0.33/node hour. Container-native storage for Kubernetes, owned by Pure Storage since 2020 and now sold with published consumption pricing at 0. Softwr lists it under Cloud. Portworx is made by Portworx by Pure Storage, available on Linux.

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Overview

What Portworx does

Portworx provides persistent storage, high availability, encryption and data services for stateful workloads on Kubernetes. It aggregates the disks attached to cluster nodes into a virtual storage pool, then provisions replicated volumes with placement rules that keep replicas away from the node running the pod, so a node failure does not take the data with it. It supports database automation, disaster recovery between clusters and volume-level encryption. The distinguishing capability is Kubernetes-awareness rather than raw storage performance. Portworx understands pods, namespaces and stateful sets, so it can place replicas by failure domain, rebalance when a node joins, and give a database operator storage that follows the workload. Container Storage Interface drivers from traditional array vendors expose a volume; Portworx participates in scheduling decisions. For teams running production databases on Kubernetes rather than in managed cloud services, that difference determines whether the platform survives a node loss. Pure Storage acquired Portworx in 2020 and it is sold as part of the Pure portfolio while remaining hardware-independent. The trade-off is cost structure. Consumption pricing is transparent, but at 0.33 dollars per virtual node hour a 20 node cluster running continuously is roughly 4,800 dollars a month, and bare metal at 1.11 dollars per node hour is over three times that. Storage that was previously an included cluster capability becomes a visible recurring line.

What people use it for

Running a production PostgreSQL or Cassandra cluster on Kubernetes and needing the data to survive node loss
A platform team offering self-service databases to developers on an internal Kubernetes platform
Failing over stateful applications between clusters in different regions as a disaster recovery position
An OpenShift estate where the built-in storage option does not meet the availability requirement for stateful sets

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Portworx.

Bare metal nodes are charged at 1.11 USD per node hour against 0.33 for virtual nodes, so a bare metal cluster costs more than three times a virtualised one for identical capability.
A 1,000 node hour monthly minimum applies, which means small or intermittent clusters pay for capacity they do not consume.
Replicating volumes across nodes consumes real capacity and network bandwidth, so the underlying infrastructure cost rises alongside the licence in a way the node hour rate does not show.
Pure Storage ownership means roadmap priorities are set by an array vendor, and buyers should confirm that hardware independence remains contractual rather than assumed.
Operating it well requires Kubernetes storage expertise, and teams that adopted Kubernetes to simplify operations often find they have added a distributed storage system to run.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Portworx

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Portworxvs
Ceph
Ceph: Ceph with Rook for open source Kubernetes storage without a per node hour charge
Portworxvs
Rancher
Rancher: Rancher where the requirement is cluster management rather than storage, with Longhorn as its storage option
Portworxvs
Portworx Backup
Portworx Backup: Portworx Backup for protecting Kubernetes applications rather than providing their persistent storage

Pricing

What Portworx costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Portworx Enterprise on virtual machine nodes

$0.33 /node hour

Minimum 1,000 node hours per month
Replicated persistent volumes
Encryption and disaster recovery
Any Kubernetes distribution

Portworx Enterprise on bare metal nodes

$1.11 /node hour

Minimum 1,000 node hours per month
Same capabilities on bare metal clusters
Higher rate reflects node density

Capabilities

Features

Container-native volumes
Replicated persistent volumes provisioned by Kubernetes storage classes
Failure domain placement
Replicas placed across nodes, racks and availability zones
Volume encryption
Per-volume encryption with external key management support
Database automation
Operators for running and scaling databases on Kubernetes
Disaster recovery
Synchronous and asynchronous replication between clusters
Autopilot capacity management
Automatic volume and pool expansion as usage grows
Hardware independence
Runs on any Kubernetes distribution and any underlying storage

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Is Portworx tied to Pure Storage hardware?

No. It runs on any Kubernetes distribution over any underlying storage, though Pure has owned it since 2020 and sets the roadmap.

What does a real cluster cost?

At 0.33 USD per virtual node hour, twenty nodes running continuously is roughly 4,800 USD a month. Bare metal at 1.11 USD per node hour is around 16,000 USD for the same node count.

Is backup included?

No. Portworx Backup is a separately priced product covering Kubernetes application backup.

Keep looking

Where to go from Portworx

Best Cloud software for

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Portworx, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.