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AWS Backup vs CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

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

AWS Backup
Ranking in Cloud Backup
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
SaaS Backup (4th)
CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Cloud Backup
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (4th), Cloud Migration (5th), Cloud Storage (5th), 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 Backup category, the mindshare of AWS Backup is 2.6%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform0.8%
AWS Backup2.6%
Other96.6%
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

AnkitaDwivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS Solution Architect at Barclays Capital
Streamlined with good backup processes and secure automation capabilities
AWS Backup is secure and comes with a vault that ensures data is never deleted, offering great security. The pay-as-you-go model is beneficial for scalability, as cost scales with the amount of data backed up. Additionally, it offers automation capabilities, allowing backups to be configured based on custom plans and frequency. It also has built-in monitoring to notify of failures, achieving operational excellence and ease of use.
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

"The most valuable features of AWS Backup are point-in-time recovery and support resources."
"AWS Backup's most valuable feature is that you can configure it remotely to create backups."
"The advantage that AWS Backup has over competitors is that it's very simple."
"The auto-scaling feature and the time efficiency of setting up AWS Backup are the most valuable aspects for us."
"It's very easy to configure. Since it's a managed service, it's very straightforward to set up and use. And my customers get on with it very fast."
"AWS Backup is most beneficial because we can manage the service, centralize, and automate the data without missing any essential information."
"The most valuable feature is the daily incremental site backup."
"AWS Backup is secure and comes with a vault that ensures data is never deleted, offering great security."
"The support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten."
"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."
"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 best feature is the migration tool within CTERA."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The AWS Backup backend reporting is a major area that needs improvement. We would be very excited if we can see some reporting, such as trends. We do understand that there are reports available for S3 Bucket, in which the AWS backend stores the data. However, if we can receive holistic reporting, then it would be very helpful for us."
"It requires a lot of time to connect the snapshot, identify the files, and restore a single file manually."
"AWS Backup could benefit from including more services. Currently, it only includes around ten services, while AWS offers over three hundred plus services."
"This backup tool does the full backup of the entire snapshot server. I would like to have the option to not do the full server backup."
"Its cost could be better than a few of its competitors."
"The support people face some challenges in coming on for remote sessions. They always prefer giving some logs."
"The service disconnects a lot."
"One improvement I would like to see in AWS Backup is the implementation of incremental backups."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is inexpensive."
"AWS Backup is a very cheap solution."
"AWS is more expensive than some competitors like Azure."
"The pricing is decent."
"The clients pay for the whole AWS bundle. It is an affordable solution."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"Price-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten. One only has to pay for the storage cost of AWS solutions, which is the standard cost provided by AWS."
"Our customers pay a monthly AWS fee that includes the AWS Backup service."
"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 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."
"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."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"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."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
65%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Backup?
The solution's most valuable features are its backup capability and tight integration with other AWS services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Backup?
AWS Backup operates on a pay-as-you-go model without requiring a license.
What needs improvement with AWS Backup?
I would need to get feedback from my colleague to see what additional features I would like to see in AWS Backup in the next release to make it closer to ten.
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

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