Amazon FSx vs NetApp StorageGRID comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NetApp are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.3, while NetApp is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 0.7% mindshare in FaOS, compared to NetApp’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

NetApp StorageGRID and Amazon FSx are storage solutions competing in the data management sector. Amazon FSx is often seen as having the upper hand due to its extensive integration with AWS and high-performance capabilities.

Features: NetApp StorageGRID is recognized for scalability, strong data management capabilities, and efficient handling of unstructured data with integrated protocol support. Amazon FSx, in contrast, offers seamless AWS integration, high-performance architecture, and is well-suited for applications needing fast, reliable data access.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NetApp StorageGRID provides straightforward deployment and beneficial customer support, especially in hybrid environments. Amazon FSx offers quick cloud deployment and extensive documentation, which facilitates rapid adoption in existing AWS infrastructures. FSx’s alignment with AWS gives it an advantage in cloud-centric environments.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp StorageGRID provides competitive pricing with lower setup costs, ensuring a strong ROI through efficient data workload management. Amazon FSx, with a potentially higher initial investment, offers high returns due to superior performance and streamlined cloud operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon FSx vs. NetApp StorageGRID Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon FSx vs. NetApp StorageGRID

June 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon FSx is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.9%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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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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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Object-based storage and offers intuitive management tools, making it easy to configure and maintain

The only thing missing is flexibility in configuration to cater to specific customer requirements. Another area of improvement is marketing. NetApp's marketing of StorageGRID isn't optimal. They should present it more effectively, especially in regions like Pakistan. Here, I haven't seen any marketing campaigns from NetApp for StorageGRID or the Solid State Platform (SSP). While StorageGRID is a globally recognized product, I haven't seen any marketing efforts from NetApp in Pakistan. Even competitors are promoting object storage solutions here, but NetApp seems less efficient in selling StorageGRID. There might be one or two customers, but even as a NetApp partner, I'm not aware of any major sales. I've been trained on StorageGRID, and it is a good product. I'm unsure why it hasn't gained traction in Pakistan compared to other countries. So, I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan. I'm pretty confident that if we have one example of successful StorageGRID implementation in Pakistan, other customers will follow suit.

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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

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"Using this solution has made our backups more reliable."

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"The snapshots, replication, and the ability to have immutable blades are the most valuable features. You're putting data snapshots out in those blades, and they cannot be touched. Its performance is great."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

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

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Amazon FSx a ten."

"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."

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

"The feature of NetApp StorageGRID that has significantly improved data storage management for my customers is the value of the S3 API because it allows developers who are not infrastructure-oriented to use it and write code against it."

"The implementation with NetApp went smoothly. It is a 'setup and forget' type of appliance."

"The scalability is very effective for our customers."

"It has improved our operational efficiency through time consumption and logistics by 40 to 50 percent. Everything that had to do with our legacy tape solution has been improved and is now more efficient."

"The most valuable feature is tiering."

"It helps automate our storage infrastructure."

"It has enabled us to save money on storage costs. We removed our tape library."

"The ability to get to the StorageGRID from anywhere on my network. The solution is remote. You don't have to be at a physical location."

More NetApp StorageGRID pros

Cons

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"The speed could be improved."

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for higher IOPS."

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

"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."

"One key improvement I'd like to see in StorageGRID is enhanced visibility for management purposes."

"They can enhance the deduplication and compression features, which are crucial for saving more disk space."

"The user interface of NetApp StorageGRID might need some tweaks, and configuration is maybe a little bit confusing for those who are not so experienced."

"I just recommend improving the marketing campaigns in Pakistan."

"I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system."

"Data retrieval speed could be better."

"We want to move towards Azure in the cloud. Right now, the system is all physical."

"They can enhance the deduplication and compression features, which are crucial for saving more disk space. It's not at the same level as the NetApp filer or the real NetApp cluster that runs itself on its architecture, as StorageGRID is a software solution that emulates a RAID level."

More NetApp StorageGRID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

"The product is very expensive."

"The price of this solution could be made more affordable."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade 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."

"Our licensing is in INR it was around 25 lakhs, which is roughly two million."

"We pay for a license annually."

"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."

"We save money on storage costs from this solution since it allows us to have a source of revenue from customers consuming the service."

"Buying the solution is expensive, but it saves you money down the line when you factor in the logistics of not having to buy tapes."

"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."

"The price is attractive."

"I rate the product pricing around five out of ten—it's negotiable, depending on the circumstances."

More NetApp StorageGRID pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

21%

Manufacturing Company

19%

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?

From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for highe...

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What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?

Our customers mainly use Amazon FSx for high-performance computing. Our customers are mainly in the Life Science and ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?

There is an ongoing project where my customers are exploring the FSx solution, but not yet for AI-driven projects; th...

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What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?

The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?

It would definitely be more on the expensive side, especially if you compare it with open source solutions like Ceph.

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What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?

If I could change anything in NetApp StorageGRID, that would be pricing. In terms of functionality, reliability, and ...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Supermicro SuperBlade vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 2% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP vs Amazon FSx

Compared 23% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs Amazon FSx

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store) vs Amazon FSx

Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Amazon FSx

Compared 10% of the time

Nasuni vs Amazon FSx

Compared 6% of the time

More Amazon FSx Competitors

MinIO vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 27% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 25% of the time

Dell ECS vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 22% of the time

Scality RING vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 6% of the time

VAST Data vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp StorageGRID Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Storage

June 2025

Download Amazon FSx product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp StorageGRID

June 2025

Download NetApp StorageGRID product report

Also Known As

No data available

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre

Storage GRID

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

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)

Store and manage unstructured data at scale using NetApp StorageGRID for secure, durable object storage. Place content in the right location, at the right time, and on the right storage tier, optimizing workflows and reducing overall costs for globally distributed rich media.

NetApp

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell

ASE, DARZ GmbH

Buyer's Guide

Amazon FSx vs. NetApp StorageGRID

June 2025

Free Report: Amazon FSx vs. NetApp StorageGRID

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