Amazon FSx vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and CTERA are both solutions in the File System Software category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while CTERA is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.2. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 5.9% mindshare in FSS, compared to CTERA’s 8.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of CTERA users who would recommend it.

Amazon FSx

Read 3 Amazon FSx reviews

372 Views
303 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...

Read 9 CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform reviews

732 Views
288 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Amazon FSx

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon FSx and CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two File System Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon FSx vs. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon FSx vs. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

April 2025

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Helped 849,963 peers since 2012

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 FSx

Ranking in File System Software

5th

Ranking in Cloud Storage

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

File and Object Storage (17th)

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...

Ranking in File System Software

2nd

Ranking in Cloud Storage

10th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Backup (12th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the File System Software category, the mindshare of Amazon FSx is 5.9%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 8.8%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File System Software

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Shared storage capabilities provide enterprise value with good reliability

Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be improved, as it currently includes downtime. I need to manually increase the storage, which is not ideal. Integrating FSx with Windows Server is challenging; it's a long process involving Active Directory (AD) setup and synchronization.

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Igal Muginstein

Engineering & Network Division Storage, Backup & Os Team Manager at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees

Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection

The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We used it for disaster recovery perspective behind a number of resources, like batch services and RDS."

"I rate the stability of Amazon FSx ten out of ten."

"FSx operates as an independent service, not tied to any server, which eliminates dependencies between applications for storage."

"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."

"Our main reason for going for this solution was the uncontrollable growth of file data. It was unsustainable on our previous platform or technology. We needed something scalable like CTERA, so it was the scalability that we required."

"It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution."

"The best feature is the migration tool within CTERA."

"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."

"The support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten."

"CTERA has been particularly capable of keeping all of our workstations backed up. That became a critical feature for us during the pandemic when computers were rarely in the office. Everybody went off-site with their computers, and we were accustomed to working with a centralized storage infrastructure where people would come to the office and connect to the server to use, create, and modify files. Everything was done directly to that server."

"CTERA stood out due to its ease of use and superior security features."

"The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is a hybrid solution that supports both on-premises and cloud environments."

More CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform pros

Cons

"A direct FTP feature would be beneficial instead of relying on transmission services."

"I've been facing a challenge when doing a failover from FSx side. AWS console does not refresh within a half hour."

"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."

"More monitoring from the platform would be good. There is some monitoring, but it is paid. It is a chargeable service. It would be good for that to be included in the base."

"It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices. We have different regions, and we must log in to each portal to see what's happening with those. It would be nice to have a single portal to see the health of the devices, versions, and firmware upgrades. Sometimes, we want to dive into something more complex, like investigating why CTERA storage usage grew from 2 terabytes to 4 terabytes in a week. That's a little challenging. It's something we would like to see on the road map."

"One of the bigger things that I would like to see is additional logging. There are logs in there. They provide us with the initial logs on what is happening on our CTERA device. I appreciate that, but they do not give us any further information. I would like to have more information on the logs themselves."

"One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node."

"The new Edge filer that they have comes with a lot more features than what we purchased. It would be better if we are able to add those extra features without having to swap out the hardware. A clear upgrade path for legacy customers would be beneficial."

"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."

"Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues."

"One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy."

More CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The lowest price I have paid is $370 or $380 per month, while the highest can exceed $3,000 per month."

"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."

"CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features."

"It is hard to compare the costs if we want to retain the same model of a separate high-performance storage or certain things, but it is one of the cheapest solutions available in Israel."

"It is fairly priced. I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA."

"CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni."

"I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal."

"So far, pricing seems to be fine."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

70%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?

I use Amazon FSx as a shared storage service for Windows, particularly when there are multiple Windows servers and a need for shared storage. I use it when shared resources with different servers, ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?

I must be aware of my specific use case and choose the solution accordingly. I use FSx when shared storage is required without the need for internet connectivity. It is cheaper to use Amazon S3 whe...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?

I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.

See all answers

What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?

One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?

We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...

See all answers

Comparisons

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Amazon FSx

Compared 22% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Amazon FSx

Compared 21% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Amazon FSx

Compared 12% of the time

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs Amazon FSx

Compared 9% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Amazon FSx

Compared 9% of the time

More Amazon FSx Competitors

Nasuni vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

Compared 51% of the time

Panzura CloudFS vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

Compared 15% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

Compared 14% of the time

Egnyte vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft OneDrive vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

Compared 8% of the time

More CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Storage

March 2025

Download Amazon FSx product report

Buyer's Guide

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

April 2025

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform report

Download CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform product report

Also Known As

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

CTERA

Overview

Amazon FSx makes it easy and cost effective to launch and run popular file systems. With Amazon FSx, you can leverage the rich feature sets and fast performance of widely-used open source and commercially-licensed file systems, while avoiding time-consuming administrative tasks like hardware provisioning, software configuration, patching, and backups. It provides cost-efficient capacity and high levels of reliability, and it integrates with other AWS services so that you can manage and use the file systems in cloud-native ways.

Amazon FSx provides you with two file systems to choose from: Amazon FSx for Windows File Server for enterprise workloads and Amazon FSx for Lustre for high-performance workloads.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform provides a cloud-native global file system over public and private object storage, revolutionizing the world of hybrid cloud data solutions. Enhanced by a rich data services ecosystem, CTERA enables enterprises to gain full control of their data for optimal edge performance, data insight, and governance. The platform focuses on security, providing features like data encryption, access controls, and ransomware protection. Centralized management tools enable efficient data control and monitoring. The platform is being used to replace legacy NAS and file servers, especially at remote locations, and simplify backup and disaster recovery of file data while providing the flexibility of multi-cloud deployments with infinite scalability. CTERA is at the core of hybrid cloud transformations of some of the world’s largest banks, healthcare organizations, global media groups, and government agencies, in deployments that scale to tens of petabytes.

CTERA

Sample Customers

Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI

Buyer's Guide

Amazon FSx vs. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Amazon FSx vs. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon FSx vs. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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