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

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Microsoft 365 Business comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
CTERA Enterprise File Services reduced costs and time, minimized manual storage, and eliminated SSD and alternative storage needs.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft 365 Business enhances remote work with cost savings, security, and efficient tool access, boosting ROI and project delivery.
Adding SSD storage to Windows file servers is expensive, and we no longer need to back up those devices.
I am positive that CTERA has helped reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for manual storage management and reducing storage service processes.
It also provides good security and the ability for normal users to create simple applications without needing developers.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform provides responsive support, rated highly for proactive assistance and efficient issue resolution by knowledgeable agents.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft 365 Business customer support is generally helpful and responsive, though experiences vary with some inconsistencies and language barriers.
They swiftly address concerns and take ownership of the call, providing a very satisfactory support experience.
High-priority issues are handled promptly.
I would rate their support a ten out of ten.
It would be beneficial if Microsoft had more expert customer support staff.
We have had good support from Microsoft, with responsive and well-trained staff who are very polite.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
CTERA's platform is scalable and easy to expand globally, though CPU and memory licensing constraints may pose challenges.
Sentiment score
7.3
Microsoft 365 Business scales well for small to large enterprises, despite cost increases, offering strong cloud-based expansion capabilities.
If we need to upgrade CPU and memory, we should be able to do that without a license upgrade.
CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow.
It offers good scalability options, including vertical and outward scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
CTERA's platform faced initial bugs but improved over time, earning high stability ratings with reliable data access.
Sentiment score
6.1
Microsoft 365 Business is reliable and stable, with minimal issues, primarily related to Teams or large data handling.
It has been pretty stable since then.
We had things deployed for years, and we were suddenly getting cloud sync issues that were crashing our sites.
It is very stable and reliable.
The stability of Microsoft 365 Business is rated nine out of ten.
The file-sharing feature in Microsoft 365, specifically using OneDrive, is unreliable.
It works properly, and I have never needed to contact support.
 

Room For Improvement

The CTERA platform needs improvements in monitoring, updates, UI, logging, and performance, while users value current features and support.
Microsoft 365 Business struggles with UI, integration, pricing, security, and support, needing improvements for performance and cross-platform ease.
AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring.
It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices.
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.
Providing Power BI for a lower package, such as e3, would be beneficial.
Microsoft has very poor security, and Defender is ineffective.
The comprehensive nature of the solution justifies the cost.
 

Setup Cost

CTERA offers cost-effective enterprise file services with flexible licensing, providing significant savings over EMC and Nasuni, especially in Israel.
Microsoft 365 Business provides flexible, tiered pricing starting at $12.50 monthly, offering scalable options tailored to business needs.
Unlike other solutions that require hardware purchases, CTERA offers software licensing with flexibility across multiple infrastructure providers.
CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure.
I find the pricing reasonable.
Microsoft 365 is cost-intensive, and alternate options like OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or Google Workspace are not as expensive.
The solution might be considered pricey for some, however, the comprehensiveness of the suite justifies its cost.
It could be more affordable.
 

Valuable Features

CTERA excels in scalability, flexibility, data management, and protection, making it ideal for hybrid cloud and remote work environments.
Microsoft 365 Business boosts productivity with cloud storage, collaboration tools, robust security, and flexible subscription, supporting efficient remote work.
As soon as something is written to the device, CTERA copies it to the cloud, where it's versioned with snapshots so we can recover it.
A vital advantage of this platform is its instantaneous recovery capability, allowing seamless access to a secondary gateway if the primary one fails.
It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution.
Microsoft 365 Business integrates well and improves communication, cooperation, and security.
The subscription model of Microsoft 365 Business is beneficial since it provides continuous updates, including functional updates and transformations of the product.
When working with data, I am easily able to share among team members through Microsoft Teams.
 

Categories and Ranking

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
10th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (8th), Cloud Storage (11th), Cloud Backup (11th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (3rd)
Microsoft 365 Business
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
245
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Device Management (MDM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft 365 Business is 1.8%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
CharlesBrewer - PeerSpot reviewer
Price and reliability need improvement while general tasks are streamlined
The pricing for Microsoft 365 is too high, and quality-wise, it does not meet high standards. The operating system is outdated and inadequate. Microsoft has very poor security, and Defender is ineffective. In terms of collaboration and file sharing, OneDrive is very clunky and has frequent sync issues. It also crashes a lot and is unreliable.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Content Collaboration Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
69%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Educational Organization
4%
University
3%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
What do you like most about Microsoft 365 Business?
The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft 365 Business?
The solution might be considered pricey for some, however, the comprehensiveness of the suite justifies its cost. It is generally still worth the money and is cost-effective when considering the pr...
What needs improvement with Microsoft 365 Business?
Every year, they are increasing their price significantly. The price has more than doubled now. Once you start using this product, it becomes difficult to switch to alternatives. Microsoft should b...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft 365 E3, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 F1, MS 365 Business
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Urban Agriculture Co., The Detroit Wallpaper Co., TransBlue Facility Management, Garner Food Company
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. Microsoft 365 Business and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.