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Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Insights comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Cloud Migration
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (8th), Public Cloud Storage Services (10th)
NetApp Cloud Insights
Ranking in Cloud Migration
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (34th), Cloud Monitoring Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 14.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Insights is 2.7%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Migration
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast, reliable, and helps meet our SLAs
The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes. It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable. You don't need to take the snapshot. Snapshots are compressed. It doesn't take storage from the back end. It takes three minutes to do sixty terabytes of the database. You don't have to go to the tape and store it outside, which takes hours and hours. It also uses a lot less of the storage. It's very easy to restore or copy the snapshots to other locations for disaster recovery. There are a lot of benefits. In terms of the snapshot's rapid restore capability, we were testing the load of performance testing, and we needed to rebuild the DR site. If I need to rebuild the DR for a standby database, it takes sixty terabytes to copy onto the another site, which will take at least a day. Now, the snapshot is easy. We just copy the snapshots, and then we do the cross-region application. The snapshots came along with that, and that's where we were able to build the DR site within a few hours rather than days. All together, instead of a four-day process, instead of a day.
Scott Lauters - PeerSpot reviewer
It provides a single pane of glass, giving us visibility into the environment
All our production clusters are in Cloud Insight. It provides a single pane of glass, giving us visibility into the environment, which allows us to understand if any issues are going on across any of our clusters. The main issue we were looking to address was the lack of visibility across all the clusters in one single view. We're using Cloud Insight's Unified Manager. It has improved our ability to support and see the immediate status of the entire environment. If we have a critical incident, we can quickly see these issues and loop in monitoring teams and other teams. For example, if our app team thinks there are issues in the environment, we can quickly see if anything related to storage is part of the problem. It improved our organization by unifying all the various support teams. We all have the same view of what's happening in the environment. The dev team knows what storage is used or not, and we can quickly move on to other activities. Cloud Insights provides a single tool for containers and other cloud-based architectures, but we're not using some of those things, such as Kubernetes. We're primarily leveraging the monitoring and reporting. The solution does a great job of inventorying our resources. It allows us to put the tags on the devices. The process is fast. It also gives you the dependencies. I can dig down into all the related components. Cloud Insight's advanced analytics feature does a good job of highlighting the areas where there might be issues in the future.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It has saved a lot of time. Because in the older, conventional hardware system, they need to raise a ticket to go to storage engineering, then storage engineering would increased the size. Now, it's dynamic. You don't have to do anything. This improved the time by more than 50 percent."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes."
"Azure NetApp Files has been stable."
"You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."
"We use Azure NetApp Files mainly for backup."
"The most valuable features of the solution is replication to another region and the performance. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. The initial setup is straightforward."
"Among the most valuable features are the queries and reporting that allow us to look at the utilization of resources, at how well the storage is performing, and to report on which resources are being used by which business units. We can track usage across the entire environment, across applications, business units, cost centers, etc."
"The visibility and assistance with security vulnerabilities are valuable."
"Cloud Secure is definitely the most valuable feature and being able to see file level activity. It gives real-time alerting on possible ransomware attacks and provides file security review. It helps us to see if something abnormal is happening on the system before it's too late."
"NetApp Cloud Insights helps with login monitoring and troubleshooting. Previously, if we had performance concerns or needed to interface with other groups and their products, a task that should require only one or two people turned into a six-person job."
"The solution is 98 percent stable."
"Cloud Insights' best features are visibility and the connector to move the workloads."
"Its ability to quickly inventory our resources, figure out interdependencies across them, and assemble a topology of your environment is brilliant. There is a price associated with it. Whenever you target a NetApp environment, it is included in the price but whenever you want to add different vendors, like VMware and Cisco, the price greatly spikes. Inventorization helps us a lot to visualize the environment."
"It is good for giving an overview of the systems and for tracking long-term trends. It is handy for root cause analysis, e.g. it can eliminate whether storage is the cause of an issue."
 

Cons

"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"I would like to see multi-zone redundancy so that I don't have to worry about it. I just back up my data to that one SMB share and I know that it's replicated to a different region."
"I don’t like the solution’s configuration and support."
"The main hurdle in promoting this solution is the price. Its price definitely requires an improvement. It is more expensive than other options, so customers go for a cheaper option."
"The main area for improvement is in the support ticket system. Since it's a SaaS platform, support tickets are managed by Microsoft or NetApp backend. This can sometimes lead to cross-functional challenges for organizations."
"We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."
"Most of the time, I initially connect with entry-level support, and then I need to request a higher-tier support level, which can result in delays."
"The first level of NetApp's technical support could be improved."
"The IP-based monitoring could be added in a future release."
"The support is not very quick."
"Their pricing model needs improvement."
"Even though I work with NetApp, it still takes time for me to navigate and find components, so new customers might require considerable hands-on experience to efficiently use the console, indicating that it could be more user-friendly."
"The visualization needs some improvement because there are occasional delays while the system queries information."
"Cloud Insights could offer more detail when we drill down into the Azure environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"NetApp is a premium offering, so it's not a cheap product, but it is well-priced. It combines a couple of properties which customers like us are willing to pay. Could it be cheaper? Yes, but if you combine fully supported, fully managed, easily provisioned, scalable, and quick all in one product, it's a good selling point. You can ask a lot of money for all these. If you have a use case like we do, it's a perfect match. It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud. It is totally worth the cost."
"It is expensive, especially with NetApp Ultra Storage."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
"We are currently on a pay-as-you-go model with the storage that we use."
"We are billed based on management units, so we can purchase units based on six months, twelve months, twenty-four months, or thirty-six months upfront or pay as you go depending on our requirements."
"Be aware of the capacity licensing and understand how that works, because it is based on capacity. Getting an understanding of that is the biggest thing."
"The solution's pricing is based on the device you purchase and includes support services."
"The licensing model could be improved. We love that you can use it for free for looking at NetApp products. You only need licenses to look at non-NetApp products, but as soon as you do that, you start utilizing licenses that actually would have been free in the public. So, there is a bit of an anomaly in the licensing model."
"The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about the end-use managed units and having an easy place to reference how far those units go."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
34%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Insights?
NetApp Cloud Insights helps with login monitoring and troubleshooting. Previously, if we had performance concerns or needed to interface with other groups and their products, a task that should req...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Insights?
The licensing is complex. The calculation depends on what you're ingesting. A terabyte of one product is not a terabyte of another product. Virtual machines don't equate so easily. It's all about t...
What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Insights?
In my opinion, one area where NetApp Cloud Insights could be improved for the next release is the console, which I find a bit complex. Even though I work with NetApp, it still takes time for me to ...
 

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. NetApp Cloud Insights and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.