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Cohesity SpanFS 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

Cohesity SpanFS
Ranking in File System Software
6th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Panzura CloudFS
Ranking in File System Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
NAS (10th), Cloud Storage (12th), Cloud Storage Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the File System Software category, the mindshare of Cohesity SpanFS is 3.6%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panzura CloudFS is 17.1%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
File System Software
 

Featured Reviews

SM
Along with offering competitive prices, the solution can be used by small, medium, and large businesses
While guaranteeing the strictness of the file system, there is a lot of performance involved. The performance is not as good as I expected. It's not the functionality here but the performance level. It won't be a problem if it's twice as fast. Even though its stability has room for improvement, I would recommend it to my bigger customers. The only problem is the current performance of the individual nodes. As a sale-out solution with integrated load-balancing functions, performance is in principle not a problem at all. Capacity and performance are linearly scalable over the number of nodes in the cluster. An increase in the performance of the individual nodes in future releases would be desirable.
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

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It has snapshot capabilities. We take advantage of those."
"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."
"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."
"Panzura has not increased its data storage costs."
"Panzura is a hundred percent better than what we had before."
"The assistance of support has been excellent."
"Primarily, it is the way Panzura CloudFS handles the file locks and the way these filers, along with the authoritative copy of all our data, which is about 27 terabytes located in an AWS bucket in the cloud, operate."
"Its most valuable features are the collaboration, the file snapshots, and the data protection the solution provides."
 

Cons

"The only problem is the current performance of the individual nodes. As a sale-out solution with integrated load-balancing functions, performance is in principle not a problem at all. Capacity and performance are linearly scalable over the number of nodes in the cluster. An increase in the performance of the individual nodes in future releases would be desirable."
"Its read performance can be improved. It is just slow in comparison to other file systems, but a lot of it also has to do with the fact that they have a limited number of spindles under each node."
"It has not reduced the data storage cost."
"There are a few file types that do not work well with Panzura CloudFS."
"One area for improvement regarding Panzura CloudFS is moving away from on-prem or local Active Directory. We're exploring a transition to Azure AD or Entra ID, aiming to keep the product functional without heavy reliance on the local Active Directory."
"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."
"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."
"One area for improvement regarding Panzura CloudFS is moving away from on-prem or local Active Directory. We're exploring a transition to Azure AD or Entra ID, aiming to keep the product functional without heavy reliance on the local Active Directory."
"It would be nice if Panzura offered data in increments instead of 25 terabytes per license."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When it comes to pricing, I know the prices because I am also running tenders for customers where I am not offering other solutions. Hence, the prices are pretty competitive."
"I won't talk about specific numbers, but it is a little hard to compare it to other products out there because there is nobody out there that does exactly what they do. If you are just comparing it to another NAS box, it is probably going to look higher, but that's an unfair comparison because it does things that a NAS box can't do."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cohesity SpanFS?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity SpanFS?
When it comes to pricing, I know the prices because I am also running tenders for customers where I am not offering other solutions. Hence, the prices are pretty competitive.
What needs improvement with Cohesity SpanFS?
While guaranteeing the strictness of the file system, there is a lot of performance involved. The performance is not as good as I expected. It's not the functionality here but the performance level...
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

SpanFS
Panzura Freedom
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tribune Media
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 Cohesity SpanFS vs. Panzura CloudFS and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
855,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.