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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
5th
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
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (3rd), NAS (9th), Cloud Storage (11th), Cloud Backup (11th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of Avepoint FLY is 3.2%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 5.5%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Migration
 

Featured Reviews

Robert Hedblom - PeerSpot reviewer
Highly scalable and retains all metadata, properties, and essential information during user migrations from one tenant to another
I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. So it is only used while migration is occurring. But we do see that our clients are doing a lot of migrations since they make acquisitions of different companies. So I would say they are using it on a monthly basis.
Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 phase can be described as a very user-friendly one...The solution's technical support was good since they responded very promptly."
"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."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"Some of the best features with Avepoint FLY are that it is very easy to use, and the tool moves files quite quickly."
"The solution is very straightforward to use. It's not overly difficult to figure out."
"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 support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten."
"The best feature is the migration tool within CTERA."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities."
"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."
 

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."
"The solution's reporting could be improved because it does not have a lot of reporting capabilities."
"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."
"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."
"Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues."
"AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring. Predictive storage analytics will help with better capacity planning. There can be some sort of intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring."
"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."
"I am looking for a process where version upgrades do not impact the customers. There is no downtime."
"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."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The prices of the tool are neither low nor high, so it can be considered a moderately-priced product."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
67%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Retailer
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Avepoint FLY?
I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
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 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.
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 ...
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...
 

Interactive Demo

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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: July 2025.
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