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CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs NovaStor NovaBACKUP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 15, 2024

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

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (3rd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Storage (11th), Cloud Backup (11th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (11th)
NovaStor NovaBACKUP
Ranking in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
20th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (33rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Disaster Recovery (DR) Software category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NovaStor NovaBACKUP is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Disaster Recovery (DR) Software
 

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.
Rainer Kummerfeldt - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to work and offers features for tape backups, disk backups, and whatever you want
NovaStor NovaBACKUP is still working on new features because they listen to the customers and integrate their needs into new versions. You can see they make progress with each new version. They are much faster than IBM, where you sometimes have to wait years for new features. It is very quick and fast. NovaStor have big competitors like Veeam, which is very fast and aggressive. It's good, but it depends on the price. I think NovaStor might be cheaper. They have a direct connection to their developers and sales teams, which makes getting answers very fast. Veeam has a lot of features, like a special reporting tool. However, I've heard from some customers that Veeam wasn't always the right decision because it couldn't work with their environment. But Veeam has aggressive marketing, which is why they are probably in first place at the moment, besides Commvault. IBM has lost its competitive edge and is trying to catch up, but it might be too late.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities."
"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."
"CTERA stood out due to its ease of use and superior security features."
"CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery."
"The best feature is the migration tool within CTERA."
"It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution."
"The solution provides data eviction, where unused data is evicted from the local file, freeing up space. It also allows data to be rehydrated from the cloud when needed."
"The solution provides substantial flexibility, allowing the separation of workloads across various hardware platforms without vendor lock-in. This flexibility makes it adaptable to future infrastructure changes."
"It's the easiest way to configure it."
"It is a very good and easy-to-use tool for non-technical people."
 

Cons

"They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices. We have different regions, and we must log in to each portal to see what's happening with those. It would be nice to have a single portal to see the health of the devices, versions, and firmware upgrades. Sometimes, we want to dive into something more complex, like investigating why CTERA storage usage grew from 2 terabytes to 4 terabytes in a week. That's a little challenging. It's something we would like to see on the road map."
"The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them."
"I am looking for a process where version upgrades do not impact the customers. There is no downtime."
"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."
"One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy."
"Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"The price of NovaStor NovaBACKUP is an area that can be considered as a weakness or drawback, where improvements are required."
"The room for improvement lies in the compatibility of NovaBACKUP with older operating systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features."
"I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal."
"It is hard to compare the costs if we want to retain the same model of a separate high-performance storage or certain things, but it is one of the cheapest solutions available in Israel."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni."
"It is fairly priced. I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the solution's maintenance and support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
67%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Retailer
3%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 NovaStor NovaBACKUP?
It is a very good and easy-to-use tool for non-technical people.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NovaStor NovaBACKUP?
My company has to make yearly payments towards the solution's maintenance and support.
What needs improvement with NovaStor NovaBACKUP?
The room for improvement lies in the compatibility of NovaBACKUP with older operating systems like Windows XP. Some customers still rely on outdated systems due to specific production requirements....
 

Also Known As

No data available
NovaBACKUP
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Ex'pression College, Osborne Wood Products Inc., REIT Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. NovaStor NovaBACKUP and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.