Cohesity SmartFiles vs Qumulo comparison

Cohesity and Qumulo are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Cohesity is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0, while Qumulo is ranked #21. Cohesity holds a 0.5% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Qumulo’s 4.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cohesity users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Qumulo users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cohesity SmartFiles and Qumulo based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Dell Technologies, Nutanix and others in File and Object Storage.

To learn more, read our detailed File and Object Storage Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

June 2025

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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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cohesity SmartFiles is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qumulo is 4.0%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

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Stefan-Motsch

Evangelist / CTO at fgnext

Enables effective data management with reliable backup and recovery

Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents. The architecture supports backup, ransomware awareness, and data management on a converged platform, offering triple-protocol access (NFS, CIFS, and S3 ( /products/amazon-s3-reviews )) while facilitating gradual improvements in access rights management. It allows for redundant setups, with automated backup and recovery options in a cloud environment.

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VinceVitro

Senior Storage Architect at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Useful data sharing, simple cluster scaling, and excellent support

One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate Pure Storage FlashBlade a ten out of ten."

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"The main feature I have found to be product replication."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"The solution is able to handle workloads and is easy to use. It allows us to actually manage the boxes in less time."

"It performs well and it is also very fast."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"Cohesity SmartFiles aids in data management with features like full-text search through indexed documents."

"The most valuable feature is real-time analytics."

"The feature that I like most is the analytics part of the file system."

"It is a very stable product. I never faced any issues."

"The most valuable feature of Qumulo is the ability to share files and reliability."

"The data protection algorithm to protect the data between the nodes has been the most valuable feature. The integration with backup platforms such as Veeam and Veritas has also been valuable."

"The ratio of total operational cost to complexity versus feature set is very good."

"The most valuable features of Qumulo are its rolling updates and all-day availability."

"The most valuable features of Qumulo are the ease of management and special permissions that are quick to enable. The overall performance of the solution is good."

Cons

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"I would like to see better integration."

"To improve FlashBlade, some analysts suggest enhancing its handling of relational database management systems and SQL queries."

"They need better integration with public clouds along with a better hybrid solution."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"I have not seen ROI."

"Compared to, for example, Hitachi NAS, the solution is not mature at all. It's just in its infancy as far as technology goes."

"I would like to see more VM-Aware features in the next release of this solution."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platform failure. It's not suitable for applications needing high I/O or low latency."

"The solution could improve availability and improve data protection or data services such as compression of deduplication. In a future release, we'd like to have more cloud API integrations."

"The support for iMac and protocols should be improved, not all features are available."

"Qumulo should continue to expand automation and orchestration capabilities."

"In the future, I would like to see non-disruptive updates."

"Some anti-theft permissions do not transfer well to Qumulo."

"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to have more control at a terminal level of the file system."

"The price of the software is a bit expensive, so a reduction in cost would make it more competitive."

"One aspect of Qumulo that I hoped to see improved was its software upgrade process, which did see significant progress during my usage. Initially, upgrading the software resulted in several minutes of system downtime. However, by the time I departed last summer, the downtime had reduced to mere ten seconds. Although I am unsure if Qumulo has yet achieved a completely outage-free upgrade, I simply performed the upgrades early in the morning before the marketing department began its workday, so any downtime was inconsequential."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"The price could be cheaper."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to others. We look at the price per terabyte."

"The price of Qumulo is reasonable."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity SmartFiles?

SmartFiles is an economical solution, priced per terabyte on the backend. Initial setup and licensing costs align wit...

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What needs improvement with Cohesity SmartFiles?

Users must remember that running DataProtect and files on the same cluster could threaten access if there is a platfo...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cohesity SmartFiles?

Our customers use Cohesity SmartFiles ( /products/cohesity-smartfiles-reviews ) in conjunction with Cohesity SpanFS (...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Pure FlashArray X NVMe vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 3% of the time

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MinIO vs Cohesity SmartFiles

Compared 42% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Cohesity SmartFiles

Compared 21% of the time

Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS) vs Cohesity SmartFiles

Compared 18% of the time

More Cohesity SmartFiles Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Qumulo

Compared 24% of the time

VAST Data vs Qumulo

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Qumulo

Compared 10% of the time

Scality RING vs Qumulo

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Qumulo

Compared 5% of the time

More Qumulo Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

NAS

July 2025

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Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Cohesity SmartFiles is a versatile platform for file sharing, collaboration, data protection, disaster recovery, analytics, archiving, and compliance.

The solution centralizes and simplifies data management tasks, integrating seamlessly with existing workflows and easily scaling to meet growing storage needs. Advanced search, streamlined management, integration, and robust security are key features valued by users.

Cohesity

Qumulo is a data storage and management platform that promotes object-based storage for users, backup archives, and surveillance. Its primary use case is to provide a cost-effective and feature-rich solution for managing large data.

Qumulo's data protection algorithm ensures the safety of node data, while its integration with backup platforms like Veeam and Veritas makes it easy to manage backups. The platform offers a good balance between operational cost and complexity versus feature set, making it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes.

Qumulo

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

1. Acer 2. Adobe 3. AIG 4. Airbus 5. Allstate 6. Amazon 7. American Express 8. Aon 9. Apple 10. ATT 11. Autodesk 12. Bank of America 13. Barclay's 14. Bayer 15. BlackRock 16. Boeing 17. BNP Paribas 18. Cisco 19. Coca-Cola 20. Comcast 21. Dell 22. Deutsche Bank 23. Equinix 24. ExxonMobil 25. Ford 26. GE 27. Google 28. HP 29. IBM 30. Intel 31. JPMorgan Chase 32. Kroger

County of Riverside Sheriff Department, Hyundai Mobis Automotive North America, University of Arizona, UCSD - San Diego Supercomputer Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Sinclair Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Kaiser Permanente, Deluxe Creative, Vexcel Imaging, University of Florida, The Madison Square Garden Company, Arizona State University, Cinesite, San Diego Padres Baseball, Johns Hopkins University - School of Medicine, IHME, EllieMae, Washington State University.

Buyer's Guide

File and Object Storage

June 2025

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