Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Azure NetApp Files vs Panzura CloudFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 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 Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (8th), Public Cloud Storage Services (10th)
Panzura CloudFS
Ranking in Cloud Storage
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (3rd), NAS (10th), Cloud Storage Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 8.4%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panzura CloudFS is 5.4%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

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.
Roger Clark - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles file locks effectively enabling seamless remote collaboration in global teams
It has not reduced the data storage cost. We have been trying to come up with a plan internally to archive project data at a certain time frame. However, our data continues to grow, so at the point of 25 terabytes, we had to buy another 25 terabytes license to exceed that threshold. It would have been nice if they had offered them in increments, of 5, 10, 15, or 20 terabytes than having to get a whole chunk of 25 terabytes again for licensing purposes, which is a little costly. It would be nice if Panzura offered data in increments instead of 25 terabytes per license. They have done a pretty good job of development from the point of offering new products. Pricing seems to be high for certain things, such as the audit feature of Panzura Data Services. It would be nice to see who deleted that 100 gig of data out there. They should make the pricing plan more attractive for a company of our size. We have almost 700 employees over the southeast from Texas to Florida and up to Tennessee, so we are a pretty big region.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Azure NetApp Files has been stable."
"It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
"The most valuable features of the solution is replication to another region and the performance. The solution is stable. The solution is scalable. The initial setup is straightforward."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"It has saved a lot of time. Because in the older, conventional hardware system, they need to raise a ticket to go to storage engineering, then storage engineering would increased the size. Now, it's dynamic. You don't have to do anything. This improved the time by more than 50 percent."
"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."
"I like the SnapMirror feature in Azure NetApp Files. It helps me create backups with snapshots and makes data recovery and compression."
"Its most valuable features are the collaboration, the file snapshots, and the data protection the solution provides."
"Panzura is a hundred percent better than what we had before."
"The assistance of support has been excellent."
"Panzura CloudFS has helped to increase the network resilience by 100%."
"For instance, if I'm in India but need to access data in China or Spain, it simplifies the process and enhances collaboration."
"The best features of the Panzura CloudFS solution include collaboration, which is my top priority and top feature. No one else provides this as effectively."
"The core function of Panzura CloudFS, with its synchronizing of files across multiple servers, provides us with a much more efficient workflow for our production staff."
"What I appreciate most about Panzura CloudFS is that it really solves the problem we had when we moved all our server workloads to Azure, reducing our on-prem data center footprint sizably."
 

Cons

"The main hurdle in promoting this solution is the price. Its price definitely requires an improvement. It is more expensive than other options, so customers go for a cheaper option."
"I would like to see multi-zone redundancy so that I don't have to worry about it. I just back up my data to that one SMB share and I know that it's replicated to a different region."
"Azure NetApp Files could improve by being more diverse to integrate better with other solutions, such as Splunk and the on-premise version. There are some use cases that are not covered natively by Azure. It is not the best solution because it is not external from the cloud which for me is the best type of solution."
"Azure NetApp Files is expensive."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve it's ABS environment."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"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."
"Previously, a new update would come out, and there might be something wrong with it, or it may not sync up as well as it should, or it may cause something to lose access to the server."
"Master Snapshot feature is the only exceptional feature, but the rest of the features are similar to other storage solutions."
"It has not reduced the data storage cost."
"There are a few file types that do not work well with Panzura CloudFS. Specifically, the GIS data formats, such as a geo database, have been found better kept outside of Panzura CloudFS."
"It should be easy for people not on the network to connect and access their files."
"There could be a slightly better dashboard or a better pane of glass. When something goes wrong somewhere, there should be a little bit better alerting with issues before they become a big problem."
"In terms of improvements for Panzura CloudFS, I would like to see the Edge feature."
"It is a little costly. The NFS service needs development. While Windows and SMB are effective, the NFS service shows some lag, making it a pain point for our many clients who use Linux devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In the cloud, pricing depends on how you manage it. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's all about optimizing charges and showing the cost back. So, it's more about managing the expenses rather than being inherently expensive or cheap."
"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"Our pricing has not been determined because we are still waiting on additional features."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."
"The pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"We are currently on a pay-as-you-go model with the storage that we use."
"Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions."
"The pricing seems high on certain products and features, such as the audit feature of Panzura Data Services. They should consider more attractive pricing for companies of our size. The renewals are yearly, but the pricing is a little high for us."
"It's competitive. I don't know what competitors are charging, but they have been very transparent, which is nice, and we've negotiated to avoid percentage increases."
"The solution's pricing is on the expensive side."
"It is not bad. It is like everything else. Pricing has gone up quite over the last couple of years, but everybody's pricing has gone up. For what they deliver, it is right in line with what everybody else has."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Storage solutions are best for your needs.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
11%
Computer Software Company
15%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
What are the products that Panzura provides?
Panzura offers four main products: CloudFS, data services, smart apps, and global services. They call this "all-in-one solution" and it's for end-to-end cloud data management. Why is it called that...
What kind of industries does Panzura serve?
Hello, I think businesses from all industries that have their data on a cloud can benefit from Panzura. Especially if you have offices in various locations or your employees are working from home a...
Why was Panzura acquired? Is the acquisition going to cause a change?
I think Panzura may change in a positive direction now that it's been bought by Profile Capital. That's a very big investment company for technology businesses and I think it's an opportunity for ...
 

Also Known As

NetApp ANF, ANF
Panzura Freedom
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Restaurant Magic
Petrofac, Komatsu, HCA Healthcare, Vanguard, Disney, Pokemon, US Department of Justice, Gensler, Fluor, AFRY, Milwaukee Tool, Navy Federal Credit Union, TechTarget
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure NetApp Files vs. Panzura CloudFS and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,390 professionals have used our research since 2012.