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Azure NetApp Files vs CloudSphere 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

Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Cloud Migration
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (9th), Public Cloud Storage Services (10th)
CloudSphere
Ranking in Cloud Migration
23rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (36th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 12.2%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudSphere is 1.7%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Migration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure NetApp Files12.2%
CloudSphere1.7%
Other86.1%
Cloud Migration
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Fast, reliable, and helps meet our SLAs
The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes. It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable. You don't need to take the snapshot. Snapshots are compressed. It doesn't take storage from the back end. It takes three minutes to do sixty terabytes of the database. You don't have to go to the tape and store it outside, which takes hours and hours. It also uses a lot less of the storage. It's very easy to restore or copy the snapshots to other locations for disaster recovery. There are a lot of benefits. In terms of the snapshot's rapid restore capability, we were testing the load of performance testing, and we needed to rebuild the DR site. If I need to rebuild the DR for a standby database, it takes sixty terabytes to copy onto the another site, which will take at least a day. Now, the snapshot is easy. We just copy the snapshots, and then we do the cross-region application. The snapshots came along with that, and that's where we were able to build the DR site within a few hours rather than days. All together, instead of a four-day process, instead of a day.
Syed Hassan Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables deployment of multiple tenants concurrently but we regularly get errors
CloudSphere is a good solution that works well. It can integrate with multiple clouds and manage all our customers. They still have a long way to go, but I think it makes things easier. It's essential to go through their documentation, otherwise it's quite tricky setting up the integration with the cloud. Once that's done, everything is very clear. CloudSphere serves its purpose of managing multiple customers for multiple clouds for the MSP program. But there are issues with their upgrades and their support team is a little slow to get a handoff. Added to that is the slowing down of the software over time which requires some back-end work. Taking all that into account, I rate this solution seven out of 10.

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 feature of this solution is its flexibility."
"It is faster. It is quicker. It is reliable."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"You can change it non-disruptively. You can increase the size and decrease the size online, which is a huge benefit compared to Azure disks. It just works seamlessly. You don't need to stop the instances."
"Since we have NetApp's internally, we use the SnapMirror predominantly for this process in the cloud which is beneficial."
"I think the easiest part is, when you do a comparison, it is the throughput versus the cost. And it's much easier to set up."
"The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring downtime, which is a strong point. Based on the money spent, we can get performance improvements and high availability."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"For the customers I work with, it provides flexibility as far as storage is concerned, so it's security and access."
"When I started using CloudSphere, it wasn't mature, and it had multiple issues. For example, my team experienced server issues while using the solution, but recently, I noticed how much CloudSphere has improved. There used to be some latency issues with CloudSphere. It even gave error messages in the past when you select an option such as "the web server is not responding", but it has improved a lot, and now I don't get any errors from CloudSphere. What I like best about CloudSphere is that it has a lot of beneficial features, and it has a single pane for managing multi-cloud environments, which I find very helpful, and it's the main benefit you can get from CloudSphere."
"Provides multiple kinds of services for managing the clouds of multiple customers."
"We do not need to install any appliances or any agents."
"The product is helpful for the management, optimization, and utilization of resources."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."
"We would like to have backup functionality built-in so that we don't run into the issue where the replication process makes a copy of the corrupted data."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
"We would like for the files which are coming in that we can version them. So, if a file is accidentally deleted, there should have a recycle bin option where we can go back, and at least once, clean it up."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"The next feature I would like to have full disclosure of what's being done with the data."
"The solution must have a single management console for the resources and VMs."
"The main issue I experienced from CloudSphere was recently resolved, but an area for improvement in the solution is that it lacks the functionality of migrating resources from one public cloud to another. If CloudSphere could provide that functionality, that would be very beneficial to users and companies."
"When we start the scanning of, for example, 500 servers, it will not handle the scan. We need to differentiate the jobs - for example, one job for 100 servers, a second job for another 100 servers, et cetera."
"There are quite a number of services that can't be deployed using CloudSphere."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."
"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"NetApp is a premium offering, so it's not a cheap product, but it is well-priced. It combines a couple of properties which customers like us are willing to pay. Could it be cheaper? Yes, but if you combine fully supported, fully managed, easily provisioned, scalable, and quick all in one product, it's a good selling point. You can ask a lot of money for all these. If you have a use case like we do, it's a perfect match. It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud. It is totally worth the cost."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
"It depends on how that model will be used. It might be anywhere between $4 and $15 per license per month. It’s less expensive than other options."
"The product is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Logistics Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What do you like most about Azure NetApp Files?
The availability is good, meaning downtime or network issues rarely occur. The system also offers flexibility, allowing for increases in data volume, IOPS, and other capabilities without requiring ...
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Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
HyperCloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
Affymetrix, Bell Helicopter, Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, Porterville Unified School District, Interact for Health, VirtueCom, Warren Memorial Hospital, Front Porch, RMH Group, Meyers Nave, Intraworks, Information Technology, ETTE, Clackamas Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. CloudSphere and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,183 professionals have used our research since 2012.