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Amazon EC2 vs Zadara comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 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

Amazon EC2
Ranking in Compute Service
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zadara
Ranking in Compute Service
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (33rd), Software Defined Storage (SDS) (18th), Public Cloud Storage Services (15th), File and Object Storage (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 is 5.4%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

KatlegoMabila - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers customization and flexibility with great support
Scalability depends on whether the client wants to scale up or scale down. It decreases resources based on demand. The great aspect of scalability is the flexibility to allow business success to optimize resource solutions and cost efficiency. Another crucial aspect of scalability is auto-scaling. When you have the opportunity to auto-scale, it can't always be available for everything. If you have chosen to integrate with auto-scaling, it's marvellous and doesn't require additional effort. Auto-scaling gives you the edge by using the capacity you have efficiently, scaling up or down as needed. These flexibilities within the EC2 feature instances of AWS play a crucial role in helping me utilize AWS EC2 Intelligent efficiently.
Kirubel Behailu - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing storage management efficiency with user-friendly experience
Our customers are using Zadara for their research and development environments. We provide infrastructure for government projects, but we are often not fully aware of their specific usage.  I typically use it for our infrastructure and offer both Zadara and Microsoft Azure to our customers Zadara…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"An advantage of Amazon is that it offers a wide range of infrastructure services with an easy way to configure them."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are content delivery and adaptability."
"EC2 has helped us to deploy various Microsoft applications efficiently. It has also facilitated our workstation operations."
"The solution offers good access policies."
"Its ease of use is valuable."
"Amazon EC2 allows us to create different regions and availability zones based upon application needs."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon EC2 is its ability to spin a new virtual machine in a few seconds."
"What I found most valuable in Amazon EC2 is that you only pay for what you use, versus an on-premise deployment that requires you to pay for the cost of the server. When it's on-premise, you'll need to meet more specifications and requirements, and the purchasing process even takes time. As Amazon EC2 is cloud-based, you'll only pay when you use the service."
"It's very easy to expand and compared to other storage systems that we've used, it's a lot more expandable and a lot more flexible in how it's deployed."
"Zadara saves both time and money."
"It provides very satisfactory storage performance."
"Zadara Storage Cloud having 24/7 management saves me support and engineering costs because the storage and computing are managed by a third-party. We are able to focus more attention on the customer, which is truly our core business. Even at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM at night, someone will answer, which is important."
"Zadara is a fully-fledged platform, and our customers are happy with its use."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of deployment options."
"The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use."
"The processing is much faster with this product."
 

Cons

"am concerned about the tool's data security."
"My impression is that the scalability of this product could be improved. My opinion is that, for example, the Lambda solution is much more scalable than EC2."
"The solution’s pricing and downtimes could be improved."
"We faced a challenge in regard to billing. It took a lot of time because our state is set up in Kenya, so we needed to pay in Kenya currency. We have to go around in circles."
"If the solution was cheaper, if the price was less, it would be better."
"There should be enhanced accessibility from any standpoint. The accessibility should be increased, particularly in scenarios where accessing the software on the Azure platform from the cloud can be complex. Simplifying this process would be beneficial. There are too many steps involved."
"An area needing improvement is the time limitations when accessing EC2 instances."
"I think the pricing needs to be adjusted and better security."
"The cost is not favorable as Zadara does not provide competitive rates for regions like South Africa and Ethiopia."
"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."
"The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating the CLI and searching for logs."
"Cost-wise, because it's a pay-per-use model, it may ultimately end up costing us more in the long run than something we developed ourselves."
"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."
"The management interface is more geared towards end-users rather than a service partner like ourselves, and there are improvements that can be made around that."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
"There are still some storage features that they lack. For example, other vendors implemented the auto-tiering feature a long time ago, while Zadara Storage Cloud is just coming out with this feature today. So, they are a little bit late compared to the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not an expensive solution."
"Pricing appears to be cheap, however, it is extremely difficult in calculating what something will cost."
"The licensing of Amazon EC2 is expensive. Microsoft Windows Servers are expensive to license."
"The price is reasonable, but there is definitely an opportunity to lower it in instances which are of a higher configuration, because they have been typically used for the long term."
"It's expensive, and it could be cheaper."
"There is a license required to use this solution and we pay on a monthly basis."
"It's competitive but can vary based on instance types and usage patterns."
"Amazon EC2 has a pay-as-you-use cost model."
"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."
"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."
"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."
"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."
"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."
"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."
"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?
The scalability and elasticity are helpful.
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?
The main thing that needs improvement is the cost. Other than that, there is nothing that needs improvement.
What needs improvement with Zadara?
The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating ...
What is your primary use case for Zadara?
I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara ( /products/zadara-reviews ).
What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?
As for the pros and cons, the main concerns are the complexity of the initial installation and the complicated maintenance due to the CLI usage. Overall, I do not have other complaints. My overall ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EC2 vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.