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Avepoint FLY vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform 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

Avepoint FLY
Ranking in Cloud Migration
4th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Cloud Migration
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (4th), Cloud Storage (5th), Cloud Backup (8th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (1st), Content Collaboration Platforms (10th), AI Legal & Compliance (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of Avepoint FLY is 3.4%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 4.2%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Migration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Avepoint FLY3.4%
CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform4.2%
Other92.4%
Cloud Migration
 

Featured Reviews

DH
Technical Support Specialist at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Effortlessly manages large-scale data migrations and improves cost efficiency
There were some areas that could be improved with Avepoint FLY, particularly regarding an issue with the final reporting. While I cannot remember the exact issue, it was related to the final report concerning which files were migrated and what errors occurred. However, this could have been a user problem rather than an application problem.
Tim M. - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Supports global file recovery and rapid data versioning across 80 nodes
When we implemented CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform early on, and we've been on the platform for three years, we have three different cloud portals. We have an EU portal, we have an Americas portal, and we have an APAC portal. It would be nice if we could combine that into one portal just for that global single pane of glass look. We've talked with them about that and they say it's challenging just because of some of the structure, but that would be something nice if we could get that. I integrated with Varonis, and because CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform didn't have initially a working relationship with that vendor, it would have been nice had that pre-existed us saying we need this. But that wasn't totally CTERA's fault. There was a lot of challenge working with the vendor to build out that interface. A single pane of glass for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform would be beneficial. Everything else works fairly well. We've never had a point where we couldn't get to something that caused us to have a serious outage, and that to me is the mark of a good software package. It's never really caused us serious issues. We have our issues, that's true, and every software package does. However, we've always been able to meet the needs of the business, and we drive hard on security, stability, and scalability. From the scalability standpoint, that's one of the most important things to us. We're on their capacity-based licensing, so if I need to ramp up another CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform NAS, if we have an M&A, I can easily and quickly spin up another NAS and start doing that data transition fairly quickly. The biggest maintenance issue with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is firmware upgrades. We've done a lot of transition from hardware solution to virtualized infrastructure in order to minimize that hardware lifecycle portion of it. We have to upgrade the firmware and sometimes that can be challenging in the nature of business of our size with 80 CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform nodes around the globe. The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time. For our smaller sites, it would be an hour or two, and I can build that into a fairly easy change window. But in our larger sites where we may have hundreds of terabytes of data, that database update process took maybe a day or a day and a half. That becomes more challenging, especially in a manufacturing environment where people are wanting to access configuration files. We had to pin the data locally because the data would be available on the local edge filer, but the cloud sync, while it was updating the database, the cloud files weren't available. That would be the other thing I'd like to see an improvement on: some way to do those database upgrades either in a more segmented fashion or in some type of offline environment. I understand the logistics behind that sounds easy, but I'm sure it's not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some of the best features with Avepoint FLY are that it is very easy to use, and the tool moves files quite quickly."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of AvePoint FLY is its ability to install or use multiple client servers using a single master server and balance the migration load depending on our needs."
"The solution is very straightforward to use. It's not overly difficult to figure out."
"The initial setup phase can be described as a very user-friendly one...The solution's technical support was good since they responded very promptly."
"CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery."
"It makes people think I have my superhero cape on because they're thinking it's all lost, they're doomed, and we're able to quickly and effectively go back and say, 'Here you go,' and it's not hours, it's minutes."
"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."
"The features I find most valuable are in the gateways themselves. They have done a great job over the years of providing insight into what is happening with our products, with the batches that come through that are scanned. I enjoy that part of it, and it is fairly easy to use from our standpoint once we get to know the product."
"I like that the glass is always half full with CTERA file services. It keeps the data hot for users on location and then tiers off older data. If you need it, the stub is still there. You can click on it, and it's back on the device."
"The solution provides substantial flexibility, allowing the separation of workloads across various hardware platforms without vendor lock-in. This flexibility makes it adaptable to future infrastructure changes."
"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."
"It makes people think I have my superhero cape on because they're thinking it's all lost, they're doomed, and we're able to quickly and effectively go back and say, 'Here you go,' and it's not hours, it's minutes."
 

Cons

"Technical support is lacking in that they don't seem to respond. I do a lot of research myself. I can't rely on them."
"Right now, AvePoint FLY doesn’t provide us with help to identify the size of the mailed items for a certain period."
"The initial setup is a little bit more complex than setting up Cloud Backup for Avepoint."
"The solution's reporting could be improved because it does not have a lot of reporting capabilities."
"There were some areas that could be improved with Avepoint FLY, particularly regarding an issue with the final reporting. While I cannot remember the exact issue, it was related to the final report concerning which files were migrated and what errors occurred."
"The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time."
"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."
"They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"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."
"The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them."
"The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"AvePoint FLY's pricing is good enough for its capabilities."
"There are two different ways of licensing Avepoint FLY. So either you can use set up a licensing form based on objects which we do not recommend because then it will be more costly. So what you do is you set up the migration based on the users instead."
"We are using the trial version and find it to be costly. It's something around $20. With another attachment, the cost was lower, at about $3. However, you seem to have to buy more licenses than you need."
"The prices of the tool are neither low nor high, so it can be considered a moderately-priced product."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"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."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
65%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Avepoint FLY?
My experience with the pricing and setup cost of Avepoint FLY was that it is very competitive and fairly priced. It was significantly cheaper than some of the alternatives I was exploring, such as ...
What needs improvement with Avepoint FLY?
There were some areas that could be improved with Avepoint FLY, particularly regarding an issue with the final reporting. While I cannot remember the exact issue, it was related to the final report...
What is your primary use case for Avepoint FLY?
The migration I was involved in with Avepoint FLY was for an oil and gas industry, specifically from a file server to SharePoint Online, and we moved approximately two terabytes of data.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I believe CTERA could improve their pricing experience by customizing price lists per region. For example, there is a difference between what is sold to customers in Israel versus U.S. customers. I...
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
When we implemented CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform early on, and we've been on the platform for three years, we have three different cloud portals. We have an EU portal, we have an America...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We have approximately 80 nodes around the world and we're using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform mostly for unstructured file storage.
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Pure SEO
McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Find out what your peers are saying about Avepoint FLY vs. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.